English Corner

Venice tightens the tollbooth screw
This year, Venice became the first city in the world to start charging day tourists an entrance fee. The fee, which is set at five euros, will be doubled in the future. Starting in 2025, visitors will have to pay up to ten euros to spend a few hours walking around the city on the Italian Adriatic coast. In addition, the fee will now be charged on a total of 54 days per year. This year, which was officially still considered a test phase, the fee was only charged on 29 days.
In spite of the fee, hardly any visitors have been deterred. On the contrary, the number of visitors to the city, which is more than a millennium and a half old and is suffering severely from mass tourism, continued to rise. Nevertheless, Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has now announced that the entrance fee will remain in place —as most people had expected. Children under 14 years of age and some other groups are still remain exempt from the fee.
Stricter rules and higher income – but the burdens remain
In principle, everything will continue as before, except that people will now have to pay increasingly more. Those who book early can still enter the city for five euros. However, from three days before the excursion, visitors will have to pay double in the future.
The city has now selected 54 days in 2025 when it expects particularly high numbers of visitors and will charge an entry fee: the entire period around Easter, from 18 April to 4 May, and then every weekend until the end of July—always from Friday to Sunday. The fee must be paid between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.
This year, 485,000 paying tourists were registered, bringing in more than 2.4 million euros in revenue. However, the costs for developing and operating the system are far from covered. Overnight guests still do not have to pay an entrance fee, but they do have to pay a visitor's tax. Most of the year, Venice remains free of charge.
The steady influx of visitors brings substantial revenue to Venice but also creates significant challenges. On many days, navigating the narrow streets around St. Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge becomes nearly impossible. Some buildings visibly bear the strain of relentless tourism, highlighting the need to allocate funds toward the renovation of canals, streets, and structures.
Visitors are typically required to make a payment by obtaining a QR code online and downloading it to their mobile phone before arriving in Venice. In theory, those without a receipt face fines of up to 300 euros, though no fines have been imposed so far.