The two festivals travellers usually merge into one trip begin three weeks apart, and the restrictions for the first of them start before Holy Week does. Seville's traffic measures for Semana Santa 2026 began on Monday 16 March, nearly a fortnight before Palm Sunday, while the Feria de Abril did not open until the night of Monday 20 April. Both weeks are workable if you accept one condition: you cannot plan a fixed route across the old town on any afternoon of Holy Week, because closures follow the brotherhoods and move hour by hour. Neither festival gives you entry to a Feria caseta, either — most of them are private, and the city publishes only seven that anyone may walk into.
When each festival falls
Semana Santa is fixed to Easter, and the Feria follows it after an interval that Ayuntamiento de Sevilla sets year by year rather than by a published formula. For 2026 the Consejo General de Hermandades y Cofradías scheduled the cofradías from Palm Sunday, 29 March 2026, through to Easter Sunday, 5 April 2026 (checked 15 September 2026), with two earlier days — Viernes de Dolores on 27 March and Sábado de Pasión on 28 March — covered by a separate schedule for brotherhoods processing in their own parishes (checked 15 September 2026).
The Feria then fell a fortnight later. TUSSAM's own Feria report, published inside the city's traffic plan, states that "durante 2026 la Feria se celebrará del lunes 20 al domingo 26 de Abril, con el miércoles 22 como día festivo local", and that the first day is the Lunes de Alumbrado and the last the Domingo de Feria (Plan Específico de Emergencia para la Gestión del Tráfico durante la Feria 2026, checked 15 September 2026). The same document notes that this duration restored the format used before 2017 — which is exactly why you should not assume a rule.
What the processions actually close
Semana Santa closures are not confined to the procession routes, and they start well before the first cofradía moves. The city's mobility plan states that measures run "desde el lunes 16 de marzo de 2026 hasta el lunes 6 de abril de 2026" in three phases, and warns that because the processions are pilgrimages from their home churches, every street they use on the way to and from the Cathedral may be affected (Plan de movilidad Semana Santa 2026, checked 15 September 2026).
The table below sets out what each phase of the 2026 plan did, so you can see how the restriction tightens.
| Phase | Dates in 2026 | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| First | 16 to 23 March | Preparatory roadworks, parking bays withdrawn |
| Second | 24 to 28 March | La Campana closed to traffic; first processions |
| Third | 29 March to 6 April | Permanent centre closures plus rolling cuts |
The single most useful fact in that plan is the treatment of La Campana, the street where the official route begins. Traffic there was cut "total y permanente desde las 10 h. del martes 24 de marzo hasta el Domingo de Resurrección", with exceptions only for residents' garages on calle San Eloy between 10:00 and 15:00 and for municipal cleaning vehicles. In the third phase the plan also lists permanent full closures at María Auxiliadora–Mateos, Paseo de Colón at Real de la Carretería and at Almansa, La Campana from Martín Villa to Plaza del Duque, Santa María de Gracia and Paseo de la O.
Crossing and watching the carrera oficial
The carrera oficial is a fenced corridor, not an ordinary street you can drift across. The Consejo's schedule shows every cofradía reporting to La Campana for the venia, then passing up Sierpes, across the plaza and into the Cathedral by the Puerta de San Miguel; the city's plan describes a security corridor kept clear of obstacles and of anyone not in a procession, with numbered pedestrian crossings as the only way through.
Those crossings are named in the plan, and knowing them saves a long detour. They run from Plaza del Duque–Tarifa down the length of Sierpes at Almirante Bonifaz, Pedro Caravaca, Francisco Bruna, Jovellanos, Rivero, Rioja–Cerrajería and Rafael Padura, then at García de Vinuesa–Avenida de la Constitución–Alemanes, Plaza Nueva–Banco de España and Plaza Virgen de los Reyes. Most work in both directions, but the plan lets the Policía Local make several one-way when crowding peaks, and it forbids stopping inside a crossing while it is open.
Seating is the part visitors most often get wrong. The palcos and sillas built along the route are sold as annual season tickets, not day tickets: the Consejo's palcos y sillas management service lists renewal of existing abonos and online applications for new ones running only from 1 to 31 January 2026, with payment for newly allocated seats from 2 to 6 March 2026 (checked 15 September 2026).
Transport during Semana Santa
Buses run more often during Semana Santa but not along their usual lines. Ayuntamiento de Sevilla states that TUSSAM increases the service by 20 per cent against an equivalent normal week, starting at 06:00 on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week and at 07:00 on the other days including Holy Saturday, with uninterrupted overnight running on some lines through the Madrugá from Maundy Thursday into Good Friday (Plan especial Tussam, checked 15 September 2026).
The diversions matter more than the extra frequency. For 2026 the city listed lines 13 and 14 moving their terminal from Plaza del Duque to the Alameda from Tuesday 24 March, line C5 running no service at all from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, lines 40 and 43 stopping from 14:00 on Palm Sunday and Holy Monday and not running at all on Good Friday, and Metrocentro working to a terminal at Archivo de Indias. Night lines delay their first departure until 01:00.
Who gets into a caseta
Most casetas at the Feria are private, and no ticket, fee or tour gets you in. Visita Sevilla states plainly that "many casetas are private and belong to families, groups or associations", while adding that the Feria also has public casetas open to visitors and residents (The April Fair, checked 15 September 2026). The same page gives the site as 450,000 square metres with 1,052 casetas.
The city's own paperwork confirms the mechanism rather than the folklore. Ayuntamiento de Sevilla publishes a caseta-by-caseta list for 2026 giving the street, number and named holder of each one, and a payment notice citing article 35.1 of the Ordenanza Municipal de la Feria de Abril for the licence fee window of 15 to 29 January (both checked 15 September 2026). A caseta is a licensed plot held by a named person or entity, which is why entry is theirs to grant.
What is open to everyone is a short and specific list. The city publishes seven casetas públicas for 2026, one for each district grouping, at fixed addresses on calles Pascual Márquez, Antonio Bienvenida, Costillares, Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and Juan Belmonte, open "desde las 12:00h hasta las 3:00h de la madrugada del día siguiente" (Casetas públicas dentro del recinto ferial, checked 15 September 2026).
Reaching the Real de la Feria
The Feria site is closed to general traffic for the whole week, so the approach is on foot or by public transport. The city's traffic plan states that the streets of the Real and the attractions area are cut to vehicles from 15:00 on Monday 20 April until 16:00 on Monday 27 April 2026, with exceptions only for deliveries between 06:00 and 12:00 and for municipal services, while the wider plan runs from 08:00 on 20 April to 06:30 on 27 April across Los Remedios, Triana, Tablada and the SE-30 approaches.
Three services carry the load, and each has its own hours. TUSSAM's special line E0 shuttles between a Prado de San Sebastián terminal on calle José María de Osborne and a Feria terminal beside the portada; line EC runs from the Charco de la Pava car park, continuously from 12:00 on the Lunes de Alumbrado until 02:30 on Monday 27 April; and express line TB1 is extended from Torreblanca–Sevilla Este to the contraportada on Juan Pablo II from 12:00 daily, except on 20 April when the extension starts at 19:00. Metro de Sevilla runs without interruption from 06:30 on Monday 20 April to 02:00 on Monday 27 April.
Taxis are the trap. Under article 43 of Decreto 35/2012, quoted in the city's plan, passengers at fairgrounds and mass events must be picked up only at designated ranks, and the plan states that pick-up is not permitted anywhere inside the restricted zone or on its approach roads. The Feria ranks are two on Avenida Flota de Indias and one at Glorieta Avión Saeta by the contraportada.
What to check before booking
Check the year's own mobility plan before you fix anything, because every figure above is dated to 2026. Ayuntamiento de Sevilla republishes a Semana Santa plan and a Feria traffic plan each year under Fiestas de la Ciudad, and the Consejo publishes the day-by-day horarios y recorridos shortly before Holy Week (both checked 15 September 2026). Those two documents answer more than any general guide can.
Three things this guide does not cover. It does not give opening hours for the Cathedral, the Real Alcázar or the museums, which set their own Holy Week timetables and must be checked on their own booking pages. It does not cover accommodation pricing, which we did not verify from any official source. And it does not reproduce TUSSAM's own line-by-line timetables: the operator's site at tussam.es returned an HTTP 403 block to us on 15 September 2026, so the transport detail here comes from the city pages that republish TUSSAM's plans rather than from the operator directly.
One more absence worth stating. The city's festivos locales page still listed only the 2025 local holidays when checked on 15 September 2026, even though TUSSAM's report names Wednesday 22 April 2026. Confirm any local holiday against the Junta de Andalucía's calendar for the year.