Piazza della Signoria Florence: Palazzo Vecchio tickets, prices and tower

Piazza della Signoria in Florence is a free public square in front of Palazzo Vecchio; the museum inside costs €18, and the Arnolfo Tower + museum ticket costs €20. This page covers official prices, opening hours (Thursday closing at 14:00), the rules for the 418-step climb and how the city’s own ticket office compares with skip-the-line tickets online.

Piazza della Signoria tickets: museum, tower and online

Tickets are sold by the City of Florence (bigliettimusei.comune.fi.it, with support from Firenze Smart). MUS.E runs visitor services and guided tours but is not the sales channel for standard tickets.

Reduced: ages 18–25 and university students. Free: under 18, school groups with teachers, guides and interpreters, journalists, disabled visitors plus a companion, ICOM/ICOMOS/ICCROM members. Free tickets must be booked too, and the €1 online fee still applies.

On booking platforms the museum starts at about €30.50 (with an optional audio or video guide), and tower-plus-museum tickets from third parties rise to €50–€60. You are paying for convenience and customer support, not for a different official price. For a wider comparison see Florence tickets.

Cancellation: within 5 working days of purchase on the city’s channel. After that there is no withdrawal and no refund for an unused slot, unless the museum closes.

Opening hours that trip up afternoon plans

Museum: Mon–Wed and Fri–Sun 9:00–19:00; Thursday 9:00–14:00. Tower: 9:00–17:00 on the same days, Thursday 9:00–14:00. The ticket office closes one hour earlier, and you should be at the tower 15 minutes before your slot.

Fixed closure: 25 December. On 1 January the museum opens in the afternoon only, 14:00–19:00 (tower 14:00–17:00), following the holiday schedule the city publishes each year. Because Palazzo Vecchio is still the town hall, there are institutional closures and days when the Salone dei Cinquecento is left out of the route: check the “Comunicazioni per i visitatori” notices before you go.

During a red heat alert the Tesoretto, the Terrace of Saturn and the Mezzanine may close. Groups are limited to 25 people, guide included.

Arnolfo Tower: numbers and limits

Height 95 m. The official page counts 223 steps in the tower and 418 steps in total from the museum. Not allowed under 6; minors must be accompanied. The tower closes in rain and during heat alerts, when access is limited to the battlements, with no refund. It is not accessible to visitors with reduced mobility and is not advised for anyone with heart problems, asthma or vertigo.

If you only want the museum, you save €2 and skip the tower queue. If you want the view, buy Tower and battlements straight away: it already includes the museum.

What to see inside (90–120 minutes)

Outdoors, Piazza della Signoria gives you the copy of the David, the Neptune Fountain and the Loggia dei Lanzi (Cellini’s Perseus, Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women) — all free. Inside:

1. Cortile di Michelozzo — the entrance courtyard; the ground-floor “Tracce di Firenze” section is free.
2. Salone dei Cinquecento — Vasari and the Medici cycle; check it is open on your chosen day.
3. Monumental apartments — the Apartments of Eleonora, the Studiolo of Francesco I and the map room: the core of the visit.
4. Tower — only if your legs and the weather allow.

The Secret Passages tours are intense (max 10 people, 75 minutes) and best kept for a second visit. The Roman theatre excavations run on Sundays: 30 minutes, €8 plus museum ticket.

The free cloakroom on the ground floor, by the Cortile della Dogana and ticket area, is compulsory for umbrellas, backpacks and large bags. The city publishes no explicit rules on suitcases, so with a large case use luggage storage before you reach the square.

What the museum ticket actually covers

The museum ticket opens the monumental apartments: the Salone dei Cinquecento (when not closed for official events), the state rooms, the map room and the spaces linked to civic and Medici history. It does not include the Secret Passages or the excavations, which are separate MUS.E activities, and nothing in the square is ticketed.

If your main goal is the Salone, check the monthly notices: it is the room most often closed or restricted for ceremonies. Your ticket stays valid, but the visit shifts toward the Studiolo, the Apartments of Eleonora and, weather permitting, the tower.

Firenze Card, Card del Fiorentino and passes

The Firenze Card (€85, 72 h) includes the museum and the tower; booking is mandatory and free. It does not cover the Secret Passages or the excavations. A quick sum: Uffizi (€29) + Accademia (€24) + Palazzo Vecchio (€19 with booking fee) ≈ €72, so the card alone does not pay off for those three; adding Pitti & Boboli (€25) and other civic museums changes that. Details: combos.

The Card del Fiorentino costs €10 for 365 days and is only for residents of Florence and its metropolitan area. It covers the civic museums (tower included), other venues and three guided tours. Collect it at the Palazzo Vecchio ticket office (9–17, Thursday 9–12:30) or at the Museo Novecento. There is no resident discount on the standard Palazzo Vecchio ticket without this card.

On the first Sunday of the month (Domenica Metropolitana), residents of the metropolitan area enter the civic museums free, with tours on booking; the programme is published the Monday before.

Other schemes worth asking about at the ticket office if they apply to you: the annual UniFi university card and 2-for-1 offers for Unicoop members when running. For everyone else the price list stays €18/€20.

Online vs official: when paying more makes sense

Official: a named time slot at €18/€20 plus €1. Booking platforms typically charge €12–€14 more for the museum, and more for the tower, in exchange for an audio guide and their own cancellation policy. If you already have a Firenze Card, do not buy the museum again online: just book the free slot. If you travel without a card and want flexibility and an English-language checkout, the mark-up can be worth it; if you want the lowest price, stay with the city’s site.

There is also an entrance on Via dei Gondi. Ticket office phone 055 2768325. MUS.E: +39 055 0541450 (individuals), +39 055 0541451 (schools).

How long to allow

Museum only: 90 minutes is enough if you do not linger in every room. Museum + tower: two hours, including breaks and the wait for your slot. Secret Passages: add a fixed 75 minutes. Sunday excavations: 30 minutes plus waiting time. Turning up “just for a photo from the tower” without a slot can cost you the afternoon: time slots are mandatory and the ticket office closes an hour before the end of service.

On Thursday the window is short (9:00–14:00), so for museum and tower go at opening. On other days an after-lunch visit works, but if you want the tower, remember it closes at 17:00.

Short itinerary around the square

Morning: museum, plus the tower if the sky is clear. Then the Uffizi, two minutes away, if you have an afternoon slot, or the Bargello for sculpture. Avoid Thursday afternoon, when the museum closes at 14:00. The Ponte Vecchio is a five-minute walk, and the Duomo is close too. If you want the Brancacci Chapel the same day, it is across the river in the Oltrarno with limited slots: do not schedule it right after the tower.

Getting there and practical rules

Piazza della Signoria is pedestrianised, about fifteen minutes on foot from Santa Maria Novella station. Tour buses and cars stay outside the limited-traffic zone. Groups larger than 25 including the guide must split up.

Personal photos are usually allowed in the museum rooms under the rules posted on site; do not assume flash or monopods are fine. During a red heat alert some terraces and rooms may close without a refund of the museum ticket if the main route stays open: read the notice of the day.

Before you go

• Check the weather if you are aiming for the tower, and the city’s notices if the Salone matters to you.
• Bring ID for reduced or free entry, and book a slot even for under-18s.
• With children under 6: museum yes, tower no.
• Firenze Card holders should complete the free museum/tower booking in the app or on the card’s website before arriving: staff check both slot and ID.

Common mistakes

• Buying the museum only and discovering at the top of the stairs that the tower needs a different ticket (buy Tower and battlements from the start).
• Planning a visit for Thursday at 16:00.
• Turning up in the rain expecting to reach the top (battlements yes, summit no, and no refund).
• Taking children under 6 to the tower.
• Skipping the booking because “it’s a small civic museum”: the time slot is mandatory.
• Confusing the Cortile di Michelozzo, the entrance courtyard, with the paid monumental apartments. Some guides say the courtyard can be entered without a ticket, but the city’s page does not state this, so do not count on it.

In short: Piazza della Signoria Florence tickets

Piazza della Signoria is free to visit; Palazzo Vecchio is not: €18 for the museum, €20 for tower plus museum, open only until 14:00 on Thursday, tower closed in rain and off-limits under 6. Use the widget for online availability and prices; for practical questions write to travel@alltours.florence.it. We are an independent guide: if you book through our Tiqets or GetYourGuide links we may earn a commission; the price you pay does not change.