Vatican Museums Tickets and St Peter's: Prices and Hours

Vatican Museums ticket prices

The Museums' tickets and prices page lists these individual rates (checked 12 October 2026):

The ticket covers the Museums and the Sistine Chapel only on the day it is issued, and the page states that tickets cannot be refunded.

Who pays the €10 reduced rate. The reduced ticket page covers children aged 7 to 18, priests, religious, seminarians and novices with documents, and Holy See employees. Students up to and including 25 qualify with a document from their school or university confirming enrolment for the current year (student ticket page). Free entry also covers visitors with a certified disability of at least 67% (and a companion if needed) and ICOM/ICOMOS card holders.

Sample cost: two adults with children aged 10 and 5 booking online pay €20 + €20 + €10 + €15 in booking charges = €65; the five-year-old is free. Buying at the door saves the €15 but means queuing without a time slot.

Opening hours, last Sunday and closed days

According to the Museums' hours page (checked 12 October 2026):

• Monday to Saturday, 8:00–20:00, last entry 18:00. Leaving the galleries starts 30 minutes before closing.
• Last Sunday of the month: free entry, 9:00–14:00, last entry 12:30, unless it falls on Easter Sunday, 29 June, 25, 26 or 31 December. In the rest of 2026 that means 25 October, 29 November and 27 December.
• Closed on all other Sundays and on 1 and 6 January, 11 February, 19 March, 6 April, 1 May, 29 June, 14 and 15 August, 1 November, and 8, 25 and 26 December.

The hours page also links an openings and closures calendar for 2026–2027; check it for your exact date, since some sections close on particular days (the page lists the New Wing and the Anima Mundi ethnological museum as closed on 10 October).

Dress code, bags and photos in the Museums

The Museums' visitor rules admit only "appropriately dressed" visitors: no sleeveless or low-cut tops, shorts above the knee, miniskirts or hats.

• Rucksacks, suitcases and oversized bags go to the free cloakroom, along with medium and large umbrellas and tripods. Food and drink are banned in the galleries but can be left there; anything unclaimed at closing is destroyed.
• Bags pass a metal detector; remove prohibited items first.
• Photos and video for personal use are allowed except in the Sistine Chapel, where phones are also forbidden. No flash anywhere, no telescopic selfie sticks.
• If you continue to St Peter's afterwards, do not leave luggage in the Museums' cloakroom.

The entrance is on Viale Vaticano. The Museums' directions page lists metro line A to Ottaviano or Cipro, bus 49 to the square in front of the Museums, and tram 19 to Piazza del Risorgimento.

St Peter's Basilica: entry, hours and dress

Hours. From 1 June 2026 the basilica is open every day from 7:00 to 20:00, with last entry at 19:15, "subject to visitor flow and waiting times for security checks" (basilica announcement).

Security. Entry starts with Italian State Police checks at stations in the right hemicycle of St Peter's Square as you face the basilica, the curved colonnade on your right (entering the basilica). There is no cloakroom in the basilica, so bring only a small backpack or bag (visits page).

Dress. The visits page asks for long or below-knee trousers, skirts below the knee and covered shoulders for all visitors. The basilica's rules add no hats, no food or drink and no pets, and ask visitors not to take photographs, even for personal use.

Do you pay? General entry through the security line needs no ticket. When the Fabbrica di San Pietro set up the current tourist route, the Holy See's news service reported that entry "does not require a ticket" and that the route allows "a completely free visit to the Basilica" (Vatican News, 28 March 2023). The basilica's current pages do not repeat that statement; what its booking site sells is an optional reserved visit with a chosen time and a digital audio guide, at €7 a person, non-refundable and non-transferable (checked 12 October 2026).

Climbing the dome

The dome is booked on the basilica's official booking site, and both options include a basilica visit with the digital audio guide (checked 12 October 2026):

Both tickets are non-refundable, last about 2.5 hours, and require anyone 17 or younger to be with an adult. The basilica's hours page lists the dome open 7:00–18:00 in the summer period to 25 October 2026; the winter hours it shows (7:30–17:00) are for the 2025–26 winter, so check again for dates after 25 October.

If you also plan Castel Sant'Angelo on the same day, note that it is closed on Mondays while the Museums are open. For the Colosseum, tickets go on sale 30 days ahead and are named, so book that first if dates are tight.