Venice Mayor Seeks Approval to Raise Day-Tripper Fee as High as 50 Euros on Peak Days

Venice mayor Simone Venturini is proposing a dynamic pricing system for the city's day-tripper access fee that would allow charges to reach 50 euros on the busiest days. Venturini, elected last month after serving as the city's top tourism official when the fee launched in 2024, said the current 10-euro charge for last-minute reservations has not sufficiently reduced crowds on peak days.

The system would instead let prices rise with demand.

"We spend 100 million euros a year just to maintain Venice physically, and nobody gives us that money," Venturini told The Associated Press. "Day-trippers obviously generate waste—they eat, they drink, they throw things away. " The proposal requires an amendment to Italy's special law governing Venice.

Venturini said he has already discussed the idea with the tourism minister. He described the 50-euro ceiling as an upper limit for testing different price points rather than a fixed charge. "If, for example, more than 40,000 people had already booked for a given day, those above that threshold might be asked to pay a little more—20, 25 or 30 euros," Venturini said.

Venice collected 2.4 million euros from more than 485,000 day-trippers over 29 peak days in 2024. Revenue rose to 5.4 million euros in 2025 after the city expanded fee days to 54 and doubled the last-minute rate to 10 euros. Six additional fee days have been added in 2026.

The number of residents in Venice's historic center has fallen below 48,000 while tourist beds have risen above 51,500, according to January 2026 figures from the Ocio housing advocacy group. Venturini said many students and seasonal workers are not counted as residents. Opposition politicians have called for daily visitor caps, but Venturini said current Italian law does not permit them.