Florence: the questions with a date on the answer

Three rules decide a trip to Florence: the whole historic center is a limited traffic zone, the tourist tax runs €3.50 to €8.00 a person a night for a maximum of seven nights, and a Cupola slot cannot be changed once you have booked it.

The center is a ZTL, in five sectors

Five sectors make up the limited traffic zone, A, B, O, F and G, and together they cover the whole historic center. In A, B and O the restriction runs all year, 7:30 am to 8:00 pm Monday to Friday and 7:30 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday (07:30 to 20:00 and 07:30 to 16:00 on Italian signs).

A summer night ZTL is added on top, from the first Thursday in April to the first Sunday in October, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, indicatively 11:00 pm to 3:00 am (2026). The dates are reset by ordinance every year.

Cameras read the plate at every gate, and some gates are reserved around the clock for public transport and emergency vehicles. A hotel inside the zone can register your plate, but that has to happen before you drive in, not after. There's no way to fix it later. The sector map is at ZTL in Florence.

The tax: €3.50 to €8.00, seven nights maximum

Rates run from €3.50 a person a night in a 1 star hotel to €8.00 in a 5 star, with €4.50 for 2 star, €6.00 for 3 star and €7.00 for 4 star. Guest rooms, holiday apartments, B&Bs and short-term rentals are €6.00, campsites €3.50, youth hostels and holiday homes €4.00, historic residences €7.00.

The charge stops after 7 consecutive nights. Those figures come from council resolution 535² of December 10, 2024 and took effect on February 1, 2025; the 2025 change was a €0.50 rise limited to non-hotel accommodation in ordinary dwellings and to tourist lets.

Exemptions cover under 12s, University of Florence students, day hospital patients, up to two companions per inpatient, on-duty police and civil protection staff, and hotel employees staying for work.

The Cupola booking that cannot move

One reservation in Florence has no flexibility at all: the Brunelleschi dome. Booking is compulsory and the slot can be neither modified nor cancelled.

Last entry is 6:45 pm Monday to Friday and 4:30 pm on Saturday, and on Sundays and public holidays the climb is open only from 12:45 pm to 4:30 pm. The dome closes for maintenance from November 16 to 20, 2026.

Book the dome as soon as the Florence day is fixed, and build the rest of the day around it rather than the other way round.

Three passes at the Duomo, one of them climbs

There are no single tickets for the Duomo complex, only three cumulative passes (2026): the Brunelleschi Pass at €30, the Giotto Pass at €20 and the Ghiberti Pass at €15, with youth prices of €12, €7 and €5 for ages 7 to 14 and free entry under 6.

Only the Brunelleschi Pass includes the dome. The Giotto covers Giotto's bell tower, the museum, the Baptistery and Santa Reparata; the Ghiberti drops the bell tower as well. Buying the wrong one is the most common ticketing mistake in the city.

Elsewhere, Palazzo Vecchio is €12 and the Arnolfo Tower €13, and the 72 hour Firenze Card is €85 with one entry per museum. Prices on this page are in euros. Details on the tower rules are at Palazzo Vecchio.

Where you can sleep is changing

New short-term tourist lets have been barred in the UNESCO area, zone A1, since May 31, 2025. On June 4, 2026 the council extended the limits to zones A3 and A4, which include Campo di Marte, San Jacopino, Gavinana and Rifredi, and set a minimum floor area of 28 square meters, with fines from €1,000⁷ to €10,000⁷.

The practical effect is on supply rather than on legality for a guest: existing licensed properties keep operating, and the stock of new ones inside the center stops growing. Owners who keep their residence in the property are exempt.

Getting here: 1 hour 35 from Rome

The fastest direct high-speed train from Roma Termini to Firenze Santa Maria Novella takes 1 hour 35 minutes, with a median of 1 hour 41 across direct Frecciarossa services and 48 of them on a weekday, on the September 2026 timetable.

That number is the argument against the car before the ZTL is. Santa Maria Novella is a walk from the Duomo, and nothing you want is on the other side of a road you would need to drive. The city page is at Firenze, and general ticket rules are at tickets and museums.

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