Paying in Italy: where cash fails, where cards do

Italy has no single payment rule: a vaporetto ticket bought on board in Venice can only be paid by card, never in cash, while the Alibus at Catania airport sells tickets on board for cash or card (2026).

Two places where only a card works

A vaporetto ticket bought on board in Venice costs 9.50 euro for 75 minutes and can be paid only on the card terminal, never in cash (2026). It is issued already validated, and it covers the combined network of waterbus, bus, tram and People Mover.

The Scala dei Turchi at Realmonte, in Sicily, works the same way. The 6 euro ticket is paid only by POS at the entrance, after you book by email with the comune (2026).

POS is the word Italians use for the card terminal. A sign that says solo POS means card only, and no amount of cash will change the answer.

Where a contactless card is the ticket

In Naples, EAV's Tap&Go lets you pass the Circumvesuviana gates with a contactless bank card: you tap in and out with the same card and the system charges the best fare afterwards, capped at 4.60 euro on the Napoli to Sorrento line (2026). The same card opens the Cumana, the Circumflegrea and metro Line 1.

Contactless also works on the platforms of the Leonardo Express at Fiumicino, a 14.00 euro single to Roma Termini, and on the Cagliari airport train, a 1.30 euro single, under the name TAP&TAP. The transfers themselves are on the Fiumicino and Cagliari pages.

Where the driver takes either

The Alibus from Catania airport sells its 4 euro ticket on board in cash or by card, as well as in the AMT Catania app, at resellers and at partner hotels (2026). It is the one case in this list where both are accepted at the point of sale.

The catch there is the ticket, not the payment: ordinary AMT city tickets are not valid on the Alibus, so a carnet bought in town will not get you on.

The tourist tax: priced, but not how it is collected

Rome's tourist tax runs from 3.00 euro per person per night in campsites to 10.00 euro in 5-star hotels, for a maximum of 10 consecutive nights in the same property (2026). A 4-star hotel charges 7.50 euro, not the 7.00 euro that several guides still print.

How the property collects it, in cash at check-in or on the card with the room, is not stated in the sources we verified. Ask when you book, and if the answer is vague, keep enough cash for the nights times the rate. The other cities are on the tourist tax page.

What the seven cases add up to

In six of the seven verified cases a card works, and in two it is the only option. The seventh, the tourist tax, is unknown rather than cash-only, and none of the verified rules takes cash while refusing a card.

That is a pattern from our sample, not a national law. No verified source tells you how much cash to carry per day, or which foreign cards official ticket sites turn down, so this page does not pretend to. Daily costs are on the travel budget page, and the coperto on tipping in Italy.

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