Venice Carnival: a date that follows Easter

Venice Carnival has no fixed date: it fills the days before Lent and ends on Shrove Tuesday, 47 days before Easter, and the modern edition is organized by the Comune di Venezia with city associations.

Shrove Tuesday sets the calendar

Carnival's last day is Shrove Tuesday, Martedì Grasso in Italian, which falls 47 days before Easter Sunday. Easter moves, so the whole Carnival moves with it, and the same week can be empty one year and packed the next.

The next edition's dates are not on a page we could read yet. We'll add them here when the Comune di Venezia publishes the program, and until then any exact date you see for 2027 is somebody's guess.

Recorded in 1094, silent from 1797 to 1979

The first written record of a Venetian carnival is from 1094², under doge Vitale Falier, and a Senate decree of 1296² made it an official public festival. It stopped in 1797², when the Republic of Venice fell.

The Carnival you can attend is a revival from 1979, not an unbroken line. Almost two centuries separate the last Carnival of the Republic from the first modern one, which is why the masks look old and the event is young.

No access fee as of September 11, 2026

No access fee applies to Venice as of September 11, 2026. The 2026 trial charged day visitors on 60 non-consecutive days between April 3 and July 26, and since July 27, 2026 nothing is charged.

Whether the fee returns in 2027, and on which days, is up to the city administration. Overnight guests were never the target: the trial applied to day-trippers only. The full story is at the Venice access fee is not in force.

41°F in February

February in Venice averages 41.0°F (5.0°C), with a mean low of 33.6°F (0.9°C), on the 1991-2020 normals from the Tessera airport station, and January is colder still at 38.7°F (3.7°C). Whichever week Easter gives Carnival, you'll be outdoors in late winter.

A costume over a coat is not a figure of speech here. The rest of the city's calendar, from the Biennale to the Regata Storica, is at events in Venice, and the month as a whole at February in Italy.

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