Venice passes and combo tickets: what actually saves money

Most people searching for a “Venice museum pass” picture one card that opens museums, churches and water buses. Venice doesn’t work like that. The Civic Museums (Doge’s Palace, Correr, Ca’ Rezzonico, the Glass Museum and others) belong to the MUVE foundation. St Mark’s Basilica and the Campanile are run by the Procuratoria di San Marco, with a booking system of its own. Water buses and buses are ACTV’s. Each sells its own tickets, and none includes the others’.

The bundles sold online, such as those on Tiqets, stitch together pieces of these three systems and add services: a guide, a host, a boat trip. On this page you’ll find every official pass, the main combos you can book online and, above all, the maths worked out on one-, two- and three-day itineraries. All prices are full adult prices and can change, so check the official site before you pay.

Official Civic Museum tickets

St Mark’s Square Museums: €35

This is the only way into the Doge’s Palace: there is no ticket for the Palace alone. For €35 (€15 reduced) you visit the Palace, including the Bridge of Sighs, the New Prisons and the Armoury. The same ticket covers the combined route of the Museo Correr, the National Archaeological Museum and the Monumental Rooms of the Biblioteca Marciana. Bought online at least 30 days ahead it drops to €30: the only early-booking discount anywhere in the MUVE system.

There’s one rule to know before choosing any pass. According to MUVE, St Mark’s Square Museums tickets without a time slot are admitted to the Doge’s Palace only from 12:00. If you want to go in the morning, book a slot. If your pass has no time on it, plan the Palace for the afternoon.

The three €20 themed combos

MUVE sells three combined tickets at €20 full / €10 reduced, each valid for 3 months with one entry per museum:

They’re handy if you care about one theme. But two combos, or one combo plus the St Mark’s ticket, already cost as much as the Museum Pass or more. The Torcello Museum recently joined the MUVE network, so it is now in both the Island Museums combo and the pass.

MUVE Museum Pass: €50 for 6 months

The Museum Pass costs €50 (€25 reduced), is valid for 6 months and gives one entry to each of the network’s twelve venues. They are the St Mark’s Square Museums (Doge’s Palace plus Correr, Archaeological Museum and Marciana), Ca’ Rezzonico, Palazzo Mocenigo, Casa di Goldoni, Ca’ Pesaro with the Oriental Art Museum, Museo Fortuny, the Natural History Museum, the Glass Museum, the Lace Museum, the Torcello Museum and MUVEC in Mestre. No booking is needed for the museums other than the Doge’s Palace.

The maths is simple: it pays for itself with the Doge’s Palace plus one €15 museum. From the third museum on, it’s all saving. And because it lasts six months, you can spread the visits over more than one trip.

What it doesn’t include:

• The Clock Tower (Torre dell’Orologio). Guided visits only, booked ahead, at €15. Pass holders and St Mark’s ticket holders pay the €11 reduced rate. Children under 6 are not admitted.
• St Mark’s Basilica and the Campanile, which are run separately.
• Secret Itineraries and The Doge’s Hidden Treasures (€40 each). These guided visits already include the regular Palace route.
• Gallerie dell’Accademia, Peggy Guggenheim, the Frari: state, private or church-run, not civic museums.

Reductions and family tricks. The MUVE reduced rate applies to children 6–14, students 15–25, over-65s, and Rolling Venice and ISIC holders. Under-6s go free. Little known is the “Seniors + Junior” offer: in a group of 2 adults with at least one young person up to 16, every paying member gets the reduced rate. Online you can only buy the age-based reductions (6–14, 15–25, over 65). Other reductions are issued at the ticket desk on showing ID.

On Tiqets the Venice Museums Pass costs €50, the same as the official one, with free cancellation until the day before: a real advantage if your dates aren’t fixed. Tiqets’ list of included museums doesn’t mention Torcello or MUVEC. The 18th-century combo also costs the same (€20). The Modern combo on Tiqets is €20 but lists only Ca’ Pesaro and Fortuny, while the official one also includes MUVEC.

St Mark’s Basilica: a system of its own

St Mark’s Basilica is no longer free to walk into. Every visit is booked online at tickets.basilicasanmarco.it, up to 90 days ahead, with a named, timed, non-refundable ticket. Prices for individual visitors:

There’s 50% off for ages 10–18, students up to 26 and over-65s. Young children go free, but the official pages disagree on the age limit (under 10 or under 11).

The rules that matter when you compare passes:

• a maximum of 5 tickets per account per year. A family of 2 adults with more than 3 children under 18 buys 5 and brings the other children to the door;
• you need ID and, if asked, the card you paid with;
• you must turn up at your booked time. The regulations say ±15 minutes, the FAQ says about 5: be punctual;
• you stay inside the Basilica for at most 20 minutes, along a roped route, and at most 10 minutes at the Pala d’Oro. No bundle can buy you “extra” time;
• on Sundays and holy days of obligation the Basilica opens to visitors only from 14:00.

Your Basilica ticket also works for the churches

This is the most useful and least known change. For 6 months after purchase, any ticket that includes the Basilica gives free entry to:

• about 40 Venetian churches, including Madonna dell’Orto, the Miracoli, the Gesuati, the Carmini, San Sebastiano and Santa Maria Formosa, plus the San Zaccaria sacristy and crypt and the Redentore sacristy;
• Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello;
• the Salute sacristy;
• the Pinacoteca Manfrediniana;
• the Home of The Human Safety Net in the Procuratie Vecchie.

What about the Chorus Pass?

For years the Chorus Pass was the classic way to see the Patriarchate’s churches. Today, as Chorus itself explains, entry to the circuit churches is free. Only a few spaces inside charge €3.50 each: the Santo Stefano museum, the San Zaccaria museum and crypt, the Redentore monumental sacristy and the Oratory of the Crucifix at San Polo. The website still sells the Chorus Pass (€15 full, €10 students under 25, €30 family), but some of its pages still show the old prices. Even visiting all four paid spaces would cost you €14. So for most travellers the pass is no longer needed: check chorusvenezia.org before buying it. The Frari is not part of the circuit and has its own €8 ticket.

Vaporetto: ACTV passes and Rolling Venice

A single ACTV ticket costs €9.50 and lasts 75 minutes. You validate it every time you board. With two or three trips a day, a timed pass pays for itself almost at once:

Passes start at first validation and cover water buses, Lido and Mestre buses, the tram and the People Mover. There’s also a 24-hour version that includes Trenitalia regional trains within the municipality. They are not valid on Alilaguna boats. For the airport on the Aerobus you need a supplement (€7 one way, €13 return). The Rolling Venice card, for ages 6 to 29, also gets you the reduced rate at the Civic Museums: for a 20-year-old that means a €25 Museum Pass and 72 hours of vaporetto for €27. Lines and stops are covered on the ACTV vaporetto page.

Tiqets’ Vaporetto Pass starts at €12. It is the same ACTV ticket, but check which duration you’re buying and compare it with the official price (€9.50 for 75 minutes, €25 for 24 hours): the mark-up only buys the convenience of booking ahead.

Venezia Unica City Pass. The name survives, but according to AVM it now refers to a personal transport card aimed mainly at residents and commuters (€10 activation). The old tourist bundle of museums and transport no longer appears to be on sale. The veneziaunica.it portal is still an official channel for ACTV tickets and Civic Museum tickets.

The Tiqets combos, one by one

Every bundle below costs more than the official tickets bought separately. The difference pays for a service: a guide, a host at the Basilica, a boat or a gondola. Or it pays for booking everything in one go, even when the official Basilica slot is sold out or you’ve already used your account’s 5 tickets.

How to read them:

• St. Mark’s Square Pass (€67.50) has the smallest mark-up: €7.50 over the three official tickets. It makes sense if you can’t find a Basilica slot or your group needs more than 5 tickets per account.
• Super Combi (€76.50) is the best seller, but it costs €31.50 more than the two official entries. Before choosing it, check on the product page which parts of the Basilica it covers, and compare it with the St. Mark’s Square Pass, which is cheaper and includes the Campanile. Neither is refundable.
• The Doge’s Palace & Basilica guided tour (€96.50, 4.6★ from almost 800 reviews) is the right pick if you want someone to explain the Palace. MUVE doesn’t sell a guided tour of the regular route, only the special itineraries.
• The €80 Venice Pass combines St Mark’s with an islands tour. It still has hardly any reviews. The boat trip alone is also available on Alilaguna’s Green Line (€25) or by vaporetto.
• The full day (€188) and the gondola combo (€130) include only the ground floor of the Basilica. They have very few reviews and tie you to a schedule for the whole day. In return, they take all the logistics off your hands. The gondola combo has free cancellation until the day before.

What “hosted entry” means

The Procuratoria’s terms of sale forbid selling the bare Basilica ticket to private visitors without added services through other channels. They also state that tickets bought from non-accredited operators, or in breach of the rules, are cancelled without refund. That’s why you’ll see “hosted entry” online: someone meets you at a set point and takes you to the entrance at your booked time, often with an audio guide. On Tiqets it costs €19 for the ground floor only, against the official €10. Tiqets ratings for Basilica products are low (3.4–3.6 out of 5). Before paying, check the meeting point, the time and the level of access included (ground floor, Pala d’Oro, Museum). If you have time and a small group, the official ticket is still the better choice.

Worked examples: what you really spend

Full adult prices, official tickets, access fee not included.

1 day: the heart of St Mark’s

Doge’s Palace €35 + Basilica €10 + Campanile €15 = €60. Add a 24-hour ACTV pass (€25) if you arrive at the station and want to ride the Grand Canal on line 1: €85.

• Museum Pass: not worth it, unless you also fit in Ca’ Rezzonico or another €15 museum the same day. Then you break even.
• Tiqets: the St. Mark’s Square Pass costs €67.50, i.e. €7.50 more to get everything in one purchase. The €96.50 guided tour gives you a guide but not the Campanile.
• Tip: do the Basilica in the morning, because on Sundays it opens only at 14:00. Book the Doge’s Palace with a time slot, or go after midday. Save the Campanile for sunset. For a ready-made plan, see Venice in one day.

2 days: St Mark’s plus Dorsoduro and Santa Croce

• Day 1: Doge’s Palace €35, Basilica full ticket €30 (Pala d’Oro and terrace), Campanile €15.
• Day 2: Ca’ Rezzonico and Ca’ Pesaro (€15 + €15), the Frari €8, then San Sebastiano, Veronese’s “Sistine Chapel”, free to enter.
• Transport: 48-hour pass €35.

All separate: €153. With the Museum Pass replacing the Doge’s Palace and the two Ca’s: €50 + €30 + €15 + €8 + €35 = €138, a €15 saving. And the pass stays valid for up to six months from purchase, so the Glass Museum, Fortuny and the Natural History Museum are still there for another trip.

3 days with the islands

• Day 1: Doge’s Palace €35, Basilica €10, Campanile €15.
• Day 2: Ca’ Rezzonico €15, Ca’ Pesaro €15, Palazzo Mocenigo €15.
• Day 3: Glass Museum on Murano €15, Lace Museum on Burano €7, Torcello Museum €7. The Torcello basilica is free with your St Mark’s Basilica ticket. From Burano to Torcello it’s 5 minutes on line 9.
• Transport: 72-hour pass €45.

The Museum Pass saves you €59: it’s the cheapest option for anyone staying three days. For getting around the lagoon, see times and lines on the lagoon islands page.

Who should choose what

• One day, first visit: official tickets (Doge’s Palace with a time slot, Basilica, Campanile). The Tiqets St. Mark’s Square Pass only if the Basilica is sold out.
• Two or more days with museums: the MUVE Museum Pass, plus the Basilica booked separately on the official site.
• One main interest: the €20 themed combo (18th Century, Modern, or Islands).
• You want a guide: the Doge’s Palace & Basilica guided tour, or the Secret Itineraries (€40, including regular Palace entry).
• Groups of more than 5, or last-minute dates: the online combos, because they don’t depend on your account’s 5-ticket limit on the Basilica site and often have space when official slots are gone.
• Aged 6–29: Rolling Venice, because reduced museum entry and a €27 vaporetto pass really change the total.
• Families: the Civic Museums’ “Seniors + Junior” offer, free entry for under-6s and, at the Basilica, for young children.

Mistakes to avoid

• Buying Basilica entry from just any seller: tickets sold outside the rules are cancelled without refund. Use the official site or a product that clearly states a host.
• Forgetting that Basilica tickets are named: the name must match the ID of the person entering.
• Using an ACTV pass on Alilaguna: it isn’t valid. For the airport you need an Alilaguna ticket or the Aerobus supplement.
• Being late for the Clock Tower: more than 15 minutes late and you’re excluded from the tour. The meeting point is the Correr ticket office, 5 minutes before the start.
• Fixing the Campanile without checking the weather: hours change in bad weather, so keep it for a clear day.

The access fee isn’t in any pass

The access fee is separate from every pass. It is paid by day visitors aged 14 and over who enter the historic city between 08:30 and 16:00 on days set each year by the City, mostly spring and early-summer weekends. It costs €5 if you pay by the fourth day before your visit and €10 in the last three days. You can buy it only at cda.ve.it: no platform sells it and no pass includes it. Anyone staying overnight in the municipality, Mestre included, doesn’t pay but must register to get a QR code. The minor islands, such as Murano, Burano, Torcello and the Lido, have so far been excluded. If you do the 1-day example as a day-tripper on a charged day, add €5 or €10 to the total.