British tourists have been warned as a popular Italian city prepares to double its controversial tourist tax.
The tourist tax for Venice will be extended through next year as well as increasing the number of days on which tourists have to pay to enter the city.
The fee will also be doubled to €10 (£8.34) for last-minute visitors, city officials announced on Thursday.
The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, stressed that the tax aims to help the city and its citizens battle overtourism. The new pilot system will commence on April 18 2025 and run until July 27 2025.
The fee will apply to Fridays as well as weekends and holidays, and therefore will be in place for a total of 54 days compared to 29 in 2024.
Tourists who fail to make a reservation in advance will be forced to pay €10 (£8.34) instead of the usual €5 (£4.17). The tax will be in place during peak hours which is from 8.30am to 4pm.
Residents, Venetian-born visitors, students and workers as well as tourists who have hotel or other lodging reservations or are under the age of 14, will not have to pay the fee.
“Venice is at the forefront in tackling overtourism,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said. “Bookability has allowed us to have the numbers of visitors to this city, numbers we have never had available before and that gave us very interesting information.
“The experiment worked and now we can move forward by maintaining the period but increasing the days.
“The goal is always the same: to define a new system for managing tourist flows and discourage daily tourism in Venice in certain periods, in line with the city’s sensitivity and uniqueness, to guarantee it the full respect it deserves.
“We are the city that is a pioneer in this sense and the whole world is watching us.”
At the end of July 2024, Venice officials said that the tax had netted £2 million, accounting for about 1,000 entrances on each of the test days.
Of those who visited the ticket website, the largest majority were Italians, then followed by Americans, Germans and finally, French citizens.
The city of canals has battled with the damaging impact of overtourism for several years, with around 20 million people visiting annually. The ‘tourist tax’ was originally delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic but launched in April 2024.