How to Book tickets for Florence Museums Ahead of Your Arrival

How to book Florence museum tickets to not wait in line

Florence is known as the "Cradle of the Renaissance" for its palaces, churches and museums, turning the city into an open-air museum that attracts millions of visitors from all over the world every year, year round.

This means that at some times of the year, the lines at the most popular museums, mainly the Uffizi Gallery and Accademia Gallery, are really very long! They are Florence's most visited museums and you can skip some of the long lines by buying your tickets ahead of time. In the busiest season, from Easter on to September, even with tickets in hand, you will still have a bit of a wait but it is shorter if you already have tickets in hand to enter at a specific time. You can always just wait and buy tickets once you're in Florence, but be prepared for lines if you're in Florence in busy months.

Here are my tips on making it easier to book ahead of your visit and save some time!

Two options to choose from first: museum only or with a guide?

First, you should really decide on one thing first: buy just tickets and visit the museum on your own or visit the museum with a guide. The guided visit always includes the cost of the guide and tickets. That's why it is the first decidion you need to make.

I understand that a guide makes the visit more expensive, but all of the times I've been on a guided visit to the Uffizi or Accademia, it was completely worth it! It transforms the visit from a "check down the list, see the masterpieces" sort of visit to an actual informed and interesting museum visit, where you hear stories and the history and people of who painted, commissioned and are in the work itself. It completely transforms your experience from saying you visited the Uffizi to actually saying you visited the Uffizi and learned something fun and interesting while you were there!

I would also recommend a guided visit to those that have limited time in Florence: the guided visits already have set times of how long the visit is, how large the group is and the itinerary through the museum is planned to have you go see and learn about the main works of art, without spending time on lesser works. This is quite important when you know you have only a short time for a museum, especially if you want to include both the Uffizi and Accademia in a day (totally doable, I have personally done it, and one way to get through a visit to Florence in a day!)

We have chosen to work with Viator.com as an affiliate partner - it is a marketplace for local tour operators, so you can search for and find options for a variety of tours and book (and, as part of the international TripAdvisor network, secure and dependable). Museums do not offer guided tours themselves directly, so you will need to book a guided tour offered by an external tour operator and the Viator website collects all of the offerings together to make it easier to find the right tour for you. You generally book a tour, you're given a meeting place and time, and then go into the museum together as a group, the guided having your ticket. There are many tours you can choose from, including museum toours plus walking tours, as well as large group tours and small group tours and private tours: take a look at the options to find something you would enjoy.

Which museums should you visit? Which ones need pre-booking?

While you're visiting Florence, you'll want to visit lots of these museums but which ones? Check out our top recommended sights to see in our 2 day itinerary.

Are you wondering whether you need to book ahead for some and not others? YES! I definitely recommend you book tickets for the Uffizi and Accademia ahead of time in the high season (from Easter through the end of September) for sure, and in low season you could likely wait. It depends on how much time you have in Florence.

Florence does have a quieter or "low" season, from November until March, when the number of visitors are definitely lower. It doesn't mean the city is deserted but with less numbers, the city center is a bit more enjoyable. All joking aside, during the rest of the year, the lines at the Uffizi and Accademia are shorter as well as impossible to predict. You can take your chances and NOT book ahead of time, enjoying the city just like the locals in its "off-season". You might be pleasantly surprised to walk right in at the Uffizi on the day you decide to visit.

The Uffizi and Accademia Galleries are Florence's Most Visited Museums

The Uffizi Gallery, with over 2200 works of art, is one of the most visited museums in all of Italy with almost 2 million visitors just last year. Even though Uffizi tickets can be reserved easily online or by phone, long lines still form every day in front of the museum and visitors with no tickets wait hours to be able to get inside. You can shorten the wait time by booking your tickets ahead of time, particularly for the Uffizi Gallery.

It is important to know that the Uffizi Gallery does limit the number of people inside the museum at any one time for security measures and sets aside the number of tickets it will sell in advance. These advance tickets are sold through various channels, including authorized resellers. During the high season, some dates can be sold out on one website and still be available elsewhere so it makes sense to check your dates and book your Uffizi Museum tickets as soon as you know when you'll be in Florence. Just remember that the Uffizi Gallery is always closed on Mondays.

Among the other museums in Florence which merit booking tickets ahead of time is the Accademia Gallery. At the Accademia is where you'll find the original marble statue of David by Michelangelo and his Prisoners, as well as other masterpieces by Perugino, Filippino Lippi and Botticelli. Just like the Uffizi, the Accademia is visited by over 1,2 million visitors every year.

The long lines at the entrance on via Ricasoli wind around the nearby corner. To avoid queuing under the sun or rain (there is no portico to protect from the elements as there is at the Uffizi Gallery), we highly recommend you book tickets ahead of time as entry times are shortened.

How to buy just museum tickets ahead of time

Why do I even need to write this article? The reason is simple: to help you make sense of the mess that the booking system is for museums in Florence. 

The museums are either independent, city-run or state-run and even those run by the state have been divided up into consortiums that are managed as separate museums. Each one has a separate way to book tickets. I suppose the easiest are the ones you know are private or independent as the only way to buy tickets there is to go directly to the museum's website and buy tickets on their website. This is the case for the Galileo Museum, the Medici Riccardi Palace and Palazzo Strozzi, to name just a few.

So I'm making a list below, dividing them to start with the main ones you're likely to be interested in, and by the types so you can go ahead and book tickets yourself.

The Uffizi and Accademia

Both are State-run museums but both belong to separate entities and, therefore, have separate websites for booking tickets. There have also been important changes in 2025 that merit me re-writing this entire page.

The Uffizi Gallery consortium also includes the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens, as well as the Vasari Corridor: they are all together called "the Uffizi Galleries" or the Gallerie degli Uffizi, since they were joined together. The museum tickets booking has always been handled by an external agency, and since this agency was changed at the end of summer 2025, there is a new website for booking tickets manage by CoopCulture called https://tickets.uffizi.it/. There are individual tickets for each museum as well as options for visiting some of them or all of them over the course of 5 days. As of writing, full price tickets for the Uffizi are €25 and €19 for the Pitti Palace, €10 for the Boboli Gardens and €47 for the Vasari Corridor. The best deal is if you're visiting all the museums, including the Vasari Corridor, to get the 5 pass ticket at €58, so you have to start by booking that.

Tickets are now only being sold for the upcoming 3 month trimester, opening up a month earlier (so early December for visits from January through March 2026). So if you're traveling to Florence is about six months, you will have to mark it on your calendar to return at the start of the trimester of when you're traveling to buy your museum tickets. For example, if you're visiting in June, make sure to check in early March. This is a new change, as tickets with the old vendor for open for the entire calendar year.

You can also book tickets ahead of time by phone, and pay with a credit card. There is an Italian toll-free number if you call from within Italy: 800-615-615 but from abroad, you have to call +39-055-035-4135 between Monday and Sunday, from 8am to 7pm local Italian time.

The Accademia Gallery is also State-run and used to run by itself but has recently been joined to the consortium called the "Bargello Museums" or the Musei del Bargello. The Bargello National Museum and other smaller museums were joined together a few years ago, but the addition of the Accademia just occurred this year (2025). For now, all of the museums of this consortium still sell their tickets on the "old" website managed by B-ticket/ATI. The website is: https://webshop.b-ticket.com/webshop/webticket/timeslot and, on this page, you can buy tickets for the Bargello Museum as well as the Medici Chapels, Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati, and the underground "secret room" where Michelangelo stayed in under the Medici Chapels when he was hiding away from the Medici family (this last one includes a visit to the Medici Chapels, so don't buy two tickets).

The Bargello museums also offer a 3 day cumulative ticket for visiting the Bargello, Medici Chapels, Palazzo Davanzati and Orsanmichele, but not the Accademia. The Bargello costs €13 by itself, while the cumulative is €25. The Medici Chapels are €12, Orsanmichele €11 and Davanzati is €9. Michelangelo's Secret Room is €32. The B-ticket website lets you book for dates in all of 2026.

Please note: All of these tickets bought ahead of time have an extra booking fee added on, from €2-4, depending on the museum. All of them. Uffizi tickets, if bought on the spot, cost €4 less at the ticket window. Something to consider if you're tight on budget: you can always wait and buy tickets directly at the museums. Keeo in mind everyone under 18 enters free and all EU citizens between the ages of 18 and 24 only pay €2 to visit Italian State-run museums, which includes all of the ones mentioned above. Everyone else pays full-entry fee.

"Musei Civici Fiorentini" or City-Run Museums

The network of museums run by the city of Florence are called "Musei Civici Fiorentini" and include Palazzo Vecchio, the museum of Santa Maria Novella, the Brancacci Chapel, the Museo Novecento and the Stefano Bardini Museum. You can buy tickets for those museums on this website: http://ticketsmuseums.comune.fi.it/

Now the question is, do you need to buy tickets for these museums ahead of time? I would say NO; most of these city museums never have long lines, unless there are special events going on, and you can just wait a short time and buy museum tickets directly when you go visit. You can avoid the extra €1 booking fee per ticket, and kids under 18 are free.

Other State-run museums in Florence

All of the other State-run museums not mentioned in three consortiums above fall into the Polo Museale della Toscana network, which includes museums in Florence and across all of Tuscany. In Florence, this includes the San Marco museum, the Archeaological museum, several of the "Last Suppers" and the Medici villas near the airport area as well as the Opificio delle Pietre Dure museum. You can buy tickets for these museums on the new CoopCulture website: https://ticketing.coopculture.it/ 

Museums with their own booking systems

Some of the other main museums in Florence that are not found in these other websites require that you book directly on their own website:

• The Opera del Duomo (which includes the climb up the Duomo, the Baptistery and the climb up the Giotto bell tower) - you must book this ahead of time to book the climb up the Duomo: https://tickets.duomo.firenze.it/ 
• the Santa Croce complex: https://ticket.santacroceopera.it/en/ 
• Palazzo Strozzi which offers two large temporary exhibitions every year: https://palazzostrozzi.vivaticket.it/ 
• the Galileo Museum: https://biglietteria.museogalileo.it/ 
• Stibbert Museum: https://www.museostibbert.it/ (a museum I would say does not require advance tickets, just planning on how to get there)

The Firenze Card

If you're in Florence for at least 3 days and plan to visit lots of museums, the other option to booking tickets or tours is to get the Firenze Card which is the city's museum pass that only includes entrance into museums, no guided visits. While you still need to book specific entrance times for the Uffizi and Accademia, the rest of your schedule can be more flexible and you can visit all of the museums in Florence (one time each) in those 72 hours whenever you want. My linked post has a lot of information on how the card works, so make sure to read that before making a decision on whether to buy individual museum tickets or the museum pass.

With limited time in Florence, always book ahead

If you're in Florence for a limited time, like with only a day or two in the city, then do not leave it to chance and plan to have museum tickets ahead of time as it will save you time in skipping lines! You will want to make the most of the time you are in Florence, so whether you choose to buy tickets or book a tour, make sure you'll have precise times set up for visiting the museums you want to see!

First Sundays of the Month are FREE!

The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage is offering free entrance to all State museums every month on the FIRST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH throughout the year. This means that the Uffizi, Accademia and the rest of the State museums in Florence (see the list here) are free but you CANNOT book advance entrance on that day and will need to wait in line along with everyone else. Lines can be long on those free Sundays, so be prepared! 

Only in Florence for a few hours?

Regardless of the time of the year, if you're visiting Florence for only a few hours (as is the case for many doing day trips from cruise ships that stop in Livorno), I recommend you BOOK your museum tickets ahead of time. You don't have much time to dedicate to Florence so you don't want to spend time in line. Booking your tickets ahead of time will be one way to ensure you have more time to see beautiful Florence!

Guided Tours are a fun and interesting way to visit museums... and to skip the lines

Like I mentioned earlier, I have personally found guided tours are a great way to visit both the Uffizi and Accademia museums (and the rest of Florence) because a licensed tour guide can explain the importance of the main artworks in plain yet interesting ways that makes history and art quite fun!

We recommend Viator because it offers a wide variety of tours (which in turn also include the ticket to the museums) as well as combinations of museum tours with walking tours of Florence. Take a look at the many tours offered, there are many options for group size, time of the day, duration of tour and places you visit during the tour.

Have any questions on booking museums or where to buy tickets? Post your questions below!

Last update: 12/29/2025