Italy travel guide

Most visitors to Italy, including US and UK citizens, can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa under the Schengen rules. Two things changed in 2026: the EU Entry/Exit System (EES) now scans non-EU travellers’ faces and fingerprints at the border instead of stamping passports, and Venice charged day visitors an access fee on selected dates until 27 July. The ETIAS travel authorisation has still not started as of October 2026. This guide covers entry, where to go and when, trains, local taxes, money, data, calling and plugs.

Entry rules: Schengen, EES and ETIAS

Italy is part of the Schengen area. The EU’s official EES site defines a short stay as up to 90 days within any 180-day period, calculated as one total for all the countries using the system, so days in France or Spain on the same trip count too. Visa requirements depend on your passport, so check your nationality before you travel.

The Entry/Exit System. The EES registers non-EU nationals on short stays each time they cross the external border. The EU says it rolled out gradually over six months and has been fully operational at all external crossing points since 10 April 2026, when manual passport stamping was abolished.

• Your first crossing since the EES started: officers take a photo of your face and/or your fingerprints. Your passport is not stamped. Some airports offer kiosks or a mobile app to pre-register data, but you still meet an officer.
• Later crossings: your data is on file, so officers only verify it, which is faster. Biometric passport holders may be able to use self-service gates where available.
• Counting days: the system now calculates your remaining authorised stay automatically.

ETIAS. As of October 2026, the official ETIAS website says ETIAS “is currently not in operation” and no applications are being collected. Once it starts, travellers from 59 visa-exempt countries and territories, including the US, Canada, the UK and Japan, will need it. The EU says it will cost 20 euros, be valid for three years or until your passport expires, and that the launch date will be announced several months ahead. Use only the official europa.eu/etias site when the time comes; the EU warns that many unofficial sites charge higher fees.

Where to go

Italy rewards slow travel. Trying to fit Rome, Florence, Venice and the Amalfi Coast into one week means spending much of it on trains. Pick two or three bases.

Region	Best for	Good base	Notes
Rome and Lazio	Ancient sites, Vatican, food	Rome	Plan at least three days
Florence and Tuscany	Renaissance art, hill towns, wine	Florence, Siena	A car helps in the countryside
Venice and the Veneto	Canals, islands, Verona	Venice, Mestre, Padua	Check access fee dates for day trips
Amalfi Coast and Naples	Coastal towns, Pompeii, pizza	Naples, Sorrento	Narrow roads, ferries in season
Milan and the lakes	Design, shopping, Lake Como	Milan, Varenna	Good rail links to Switzerland
Sicily	Beaches, Baroque towns, Etna	Palermo, Catania	Fly from the mainland or take the ferry

Photo by Chris Czermak on Unsplash

When to go

Spring and early autumn are the easiest seasons for city sightseeing, with milder weather and shorter queues than midsummer. Midsummer is the busiest and hottest time at the big sights and on the coast, so book popular museums and beach hotels well ahead. Winter suits museums and cities, with fewer crowds and lower hotel prices, though some coastal resorts shut for the season.

Prices for flights and rooms swing a lot by week. Our guides on finding cheap flights and booking hotels explain how to compare, and the flight search sites and hotel booking sites comparisons list the tools.

Trains

Trains are the best way to move between Italian cities. Trenitalia runs both high-speed Frecce services, such as the Frecciarossa, and slower regional trains, and the rules differ:

• High-speed tickets bought online are already validated for the date and time you chose. Staff may ask to see ID on board.
• Paper regional tickets must be validated before the train departs, using the machines at the station. Trenitalia says you must finish the journey within four hours of validation. If the validators are missing or broken, ask the on-board staff to validate it without a surcharge.
• Digital regional tickets validate automatically at the scheduled departure of the train you chose.

Travelling without a valid ticket or ID means paying the full fare plus a fine. Booking high-speed trains early usually gets a better fare.

Tourist taxes and the Venice access fee

Accommodation taxes. Many Italian cities charge a per-person, per-night tax on top of your room rate, usually collected by the hotel or host. In Rome, Turismo Roma says the current rates have applied since 1 October 2023 and vary by accommodation type and classification. Check your booking confirmation for the exact amount.

Venice access fee. The City of Venice charges day visitors an access fee on selected dates. Its official site says the 2026 trial period has ended, and that as of 27 July 2026 you can visit Venice without paying or requesting an exemption. The fee returns in 2027 on set dates from 26 March to 15 August 2027, between 8:30 and 16:30, and the city says the arrangements will be announced by 31 December 2026. If you plan a day trip next spring or summer, check cda.ve.it before you go.

Photo by Dan Novac on Unsplash

Money

Italy uses the euro. Cards are accepted in most hotels, restaurants and shops in cities, but keep some cash for small bars, markets, rural areas and tips. When a card terminal or ATM offers to charge you in your home currency, you can pick euros instead and let your own bank handle the conversion; check your card’s foreign transaction fees before you go.

Getting online

Wi-Fi in hotels and cafes is common but uneven, and you will want mobile data for train apps, maps and digital regional tickets. A travel eSIM is the easiest fix if your phone supports it: install it at home and turn it on when you land.

Pelesim sells prepaid, data-only eSIMs for Italy, with fixed-GB plans and daily-unlimited day passes that have a fair-use limit. The plan starts when it first connects in Italy, you can share it as a hotspot, and it is refundable within 30 days of purchase if not activated. If Italy is one stop on a longer European trip, compare regional plans in our eSIMs for Europe guide.

Calling home

Messaging apps such as WhatsApp call people who use the same app over the internet. That works for friends and family, but to reach a bank, an airline, a hotel or any landline, you need an app that calls the phone network.

To reach a hotel, a restaurant or your bank back home, CallTuv calls regular landlines and mobiles from your browser or phone, pay as you go from $0.03 a minute, with credit that never expires. It makes outgoing calls only and cannot make emergency calls, so dial 112, the free EU-wide emergency number, from any phone. See how to call home from abroad for more.

Plugs and power

Italy runs at 230 volts and 50 Hz. Types C and L are the official socket standards, and Type F sockets are also used but not everywhere. A universal adapter that covers types C, F and L is the safest choice. Most phone and laptop chargers handle 100 to 240 V; check the label on hair dryers and other appliances, which may also need a voltage converter.

Staying longer: remote work, visas and setup

The Schengen rule above limits a visit to 90 days in any 180. Staying longer in Italy means a national visa, and since 2024 Italy has one for remote workers. There is no single national page for it, so the details below come from Italian consulate pages, which differ in places. This is not legal or tax advice: check with the Italian consulate that covers where you live, which is where you apply.

The digital nomad and remote worker visa

It has two tracks: digital nomads (freelancers and independent professionals) and remote workers (employees who work fully remotely for a company).

• Qualifications: a university degree or a post-secondary qualification of at least 3 years, or 5 years of comparable work experience, plus at least 6 months of experience doing the remote work itself.
• Income: at least three times the threshold for exemption from health-service charges, earned from the remote work itself, not from pensions or rent. The Italian embassy in Tbilisi gave this as about €25,500 a year in May 2026, the New York consulate still showed a 2024 figure of €24,789, and some consulates add a floor based on the average Italian salary.
• Health insurance: covering medical care and hospital treatment in Italy for the whole stay, with a minimum of €30,000 according to the consulates that state one.
• Accommodation: a lease or deed in your name for the whole visa period. The New York consulate does not accept a hotel booking or someone else’s offer to host you.
• Length: a residence permit of up to one year, renewable at the local Questura (police immigration office).
• Family: a spouse aged 18 or over and children under 18 can join you. Adult children and parents cannot.

For people with large, steady passive income who do not plan to work, the elective residence visa is the other common route. The New York consulate puts the income it expects at around €31,000 a year per person.

After you arrive

• Residence permit: within 8 working days of arriving on a national visa, apply for a permesso di soggiorno. For many permit types you send a kit from a post office with the “Sportello Amico” sign, which gives you a receipt and a Questura appointment.
• Declaration of presence: on an ordinary visit, if you arrive from another Schengen country, you declare your presence to the police within 8 days. Hotels do this for their guests.
• Residence registration: non-EU permit holders must register with the anagrafe, the town hall’s register of residents.
• Tax code: the codice fiscale is Italy’s tax number. The Questura issues one with a first permit, and Italian consulates and Agenzia delle Entrate offices issue them to others.
• Health cover: permit holders either keep private insurance or enrol voluntarily in the national health service, which costs at least €2,000 a year under rules now being challenged in court.

Tax

The Agenzia delle Entrate treats you as a tax resident if, for 183 days or more of the year, you have your habitual residence in Italy, your domicile there (where your personal and family ties mainly are), your name on the register of residents, or simply your physical presence there. Since 2024 physical presence alone is enough, and parts of days count.

Renting

A transitional lease (contratto transitorio) runs up to 18 months for a documented temporary need, such as a work move. Short lets of up to 30 days are a separate category, and listings must show the property’s CIN, the national identification code for short-term rentals.

Where remote workers base themselves

The Italian tourism board ENIT recommends eight cities of art for working remotely: Bologna, Bari (for its low rents), Pisa, Florence, Padua, Venice, Trento and Palermo. It also promotes workation schemes in smaller places, such as reduced rents in Santa Fiora in Tuscany for stays of at least two months, and free coworking desks in Brindisi for stays of at least four weeks. Its pages are undated, so check that a scheme is still running before you plan around it.