Short answer: Parking in Venice always means parking at the edge of the old town, never inside it. Three options make sense: the Tronchetto car park (€29 per 24 hours, then 3 minutes by People Mover to Piazzale Roma), the Autorimessa Comunale at Piazzale Roma (€35 per 24 hours, right at the old town, max. height 2.20 m) or park & ride in Mestre (from roughly €8 to €12 a day, then 10 to 12 minutes by train or tram). Day visitors also paid Venice’s access fee in 2026 on 60 days between 3 April and 26 July: €5 if paid at least four days ahead, otherwise €10 – only on cda.ve.it. All prices from the operators’ websites, as of 11/2026.
2:10 pm, Ponte della Libertà. Four kilometres of bridge across the lagoon, water on the left, water on the right, and a sign ahead: Tronchetto – Piazzale Roma. You have ten seconds to decide, and a coach is already honking behind you. This is the moment when “Venice by car” turns into either a relaxed afternoon or an expensive one. We know the feeling: we drove down from Vienna in early May 2025, spent three days in a room with a roof terrace right above Piazzale Roma and watched the bus station, the rooftops and the evening light over Marghera from up there.
In this article: all three parking options with the operators’ current prices, the way from the car park into the old town, the access fee for 2026 and 2027, the traps that cost real money, a checklist and answers to the most common questions. How we experienced Venice as a whole is in Venice without the tourist traps.
| Car park | Price per 24 h (as of 11/2026) | Max. height | Into the old town | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venezia Tronchetto Parking (Interparking, parking island) | €29 (1 h €6, 2 h €12, 3 h €18, 4 h €25) | 2.10 m | People Mover €1.50, 3 min to Piazzale Roma; or vaporetto from Tronchetto | several days, value for money |
| Autorimessa Comunale (AVM, Piazzale Roma) | €35 (night rate €15 from 5 pm to 5 am) | 2.20 m | on foot – you are already in town | accommodation nearby, lots of luggage, kids |
| Garage San Marco (Piazzale Roma) | €45 (10 h €35, 5 h €25, evening rate €20 from 5 pm to 5 am) | 2.10 m | on foot | when the Autorimessa is full, short visits |
| Mestre / Marghera (park & ride, station car park) | from approx. €8 (P&R), from approx. €12 (Mestre station) | mostly 2.00 m, P&R without limit | train approx. 10 min to Santa Lucia or tram T1 approx. 12 min to Piazzale Roma, approx. €1.50 each | small budget, campervans, staying on the mainland |
Sources: interparking.it (Tronchetto), muoversi.venezia.it (Autorimessa Comunale), garagesanmarco.it, treffpunkt-venedig.de for Mestre guide prices (as of 08/2026) – all retrieved 11/2026. Prices change, check before you drive.
Sounds like small differences? Over three days it adds up to anywhere between €25 and €135 – and the decision is made on the bridge. So let’s take them one by one.
Piazzale Roma is the last square a car can reach in Venice. Buses, taxis, the tram from Mestre – and two large car parks. The Autorimessa Comunale belongs to the city-owned AVM and charges a flat rate of €35 per 24 hours, not divisible, for cars up to 2.20 m high. You can reserve online until midnight the day before and then drive in via the fast lane on the left. Useful in summer and at weekends, when the car parks at Piazzale Roma fill up quickly (source: muoversi.venezia.it, as of 11/2026).
Next door is the privately run Garage San Marco, open around the clock, €45 per 24 hours. The shorter tariffs are the interesting ones: €25 for 5 hours, €35 for 10 hours and an evening rate of €20 between 5 pm and 5 am – ideal if you only come for dinner and St Mark’s Square at night. A ground-floor space costs €10 extra (source: garagesanmarco.it, as of 11/2026).
Our experience: We chose Piazzale Roma because our room was right next to it – luggage in, forget the car, three days on foot and by vaporetto. For three days in May 2025 we paid €75 in total for parking. The price is the downside, the location the upside: from the parking deck you cross the Scalzi bridge in ten minutes and you are in the real Venice.
And if the barrier says “completo”? Then there is still the parking island next door – which is cheaper anyway.
Tronchetto is an artificial island right next to Piazzale Roma, built for parking and nothing else. The multi-storey car park (run by Interparking) costs €29 per 24 hours, and every further day is another €29. Short stays are staggered: €6 for one hour, €12 for two, €18 for three, €25 for four – from six hours you are practically paying the day rate. The entrance is limited to 2.10 m; taller vehicles use the open-air area at different rates (source: interparking.it, as of 11/2026).
From Tronchetto the People Mover takes you to Piazzale Roma in three minutes – an automatic elevated railway, €1.50 per ride, tickets from the machine. Alternatively, vaporetto line 2 stops right at the island, heading for Rialto and San Marco. Expect €9.50 per vaporetto ride; the day pass pays off from three rides. With a pushchair or a heavy suitcase the People Mover is more comfortable than it sounds: step-free, with a lift, no crowds.
Honestly: Tronchetto is a concrete block, and at the exit people sometimes approach you shouting “water taxi” or “car park full”. Keep walking to the People Mover or to the official vaporetto stop with the ACTV logo. Prices there are on signs, not negotiated.
The only cheaper option is on the mainland – but there the saving costs you a few minutes of travel.
If you want to save, park before the bridge. In Mestre there are car parks right at the railway station and several park-and-ride sites along tram line T1. Guide prices: from around €8 a day at the P&R sites (such as Park Costa or Vega in Marghera), from around €12 a day in the car park at Mestre station (source: treffpunkt-venedig.de, as of 08/2026 – check on site). From there the regional train takes about ten minutes to Venezia Santa Lucia station, tram T1 about twelve minutes to Piazzale Roma; a ticket costs roughly €1.50 either way.
Who is this for? Anyone staying several days without sleeping in the old town, campervans and tall vehicles (many mainland sites have no height limit), and families arriving by train who don’t need a car in Venice. The catch: after 11 pm trains and trams thin out, and if you are still strolling across St Mark’s Square in the evening you will need a timetable and some patience.
In return you get something no car park offers: you cross the lagoon by train in the morning, and when you step out at Santa Lucia the Grand Canal lies right in front of the station steps. Your first view of Venice is a gift, not a hunt for a parking space.
Since 2024 Venice has charged day visitors an access fee (contributo di accesso) on selected days. In 2026 it applied on 60 days between 3 April and 26 July, from 8:30 am to 4 pm: €5 per person if paid at least four days in advance, otherwise €10. Children under 14 are free. Overnight guests in Venice pay nothing but must register on the official portal and keep the QR code handy. Without proof you risk a fine of €25 to €150 plus the €10 fee (source: comune.venezia.it, as of 11/2026).
For 2027 the city decided in October 2026 on 72 fee days between 26 March and 15 August; the exact rules and hours will be published on the portal (source: ÖAMTC, 19 October 2026). Important for drivers: if you only park at Piazzale Roma or Tronchetto and do not enter the old town, you pay nothing – but nobody actually does that.
The trap: You pay the fee exclusively on cda.ve.it, the City of Venice portal. There are websites selling “Venice tickets” or “entry passes” at several times the price. None of them is official. When in doubt: close the browser and type the address yourself.
From Vienna it is about 600 kilometres and roughly six hours of driving: the A2 to Graz, the A9 through the tunnels to Carinthia, the A2 to Villach, over Tarvisio onto the Italian A23 and from Udine on the A4 to the Venezia exit. In Austria you need the digital vignette (also available as a one-day vignette since late 2023, prices on asfinag.at), in Italy you pay tolls at the toll stations, cards work everywhere. From Germany or Switzerland you arrive via the Brenner (A22) or Lake Garda and join the A4 near Verona. From Mestre simply follow the sign Venezia – and then comes the bridge.
On the Ponte della Libertà the lanes split: Tronchetto on the left, Piazzale Roma on the right. Set your sat nav to the specific car park beforehand, not to “Venice”. If you get it wrong you drive a loop through the traffic at Piazzale Roma – no disaster, but easily twenty minutes in summer.
Flying is simpler: compare flights to Venice or Treviso on Kiwi.com (ad) – from Marco Polo airport the bus reaches Piazzale Roma in about 20 minutes. But if, like us, you travel with a dog and too much luggage, you take the car. It pays off when you have more than Venice in mind – Padua, Verona and the Dolomites are on the way.
Avoid these and nothing is left of the parking question – except what to do with the money you saved. Our suggestion: cicchetti in Cannaregio. Where exactly is in Venice: the sights that are really worth it.
With pushchair and suitcases Piazzale Roma is unbeatable: no changing, short distances, vaporetto stops at the door. If you have booked a place in Santa Croce, San Polo or Cannaregio you walk there in 10 to 20 minutes. With a dog Venice is more relaxed than many think – the vaporetto and most restaurants take dogs; only on crowded bridges is a small dog better carried. How we choose accommodation is explained in Booking Airbnb the right way; hotels close to Piazzale Roma are on Booking.com (ad).
More family tips – from packing to the travel first-aid kit – are in Travelling with kids: our best tips. And if Venice gets under your skin: the Frangipani guide “Venice without the tourist traps” sums up arrival, vaporetto, food and quiet corners on a few pages – with all official links as QR codes.
Italy is part of the EU and the Schengen area. EU citizens need a valid passport or national ID card and no visa; children need their own document. Border checks have returned in parts of the Schengen area from time to time – keep your ID within reach. Austrian travellers find current advice on bmeia.gv.at → Reiseinformation → Italien. Travellers without an EU passport (UK, US, Canada, Australia and others) should read about the new Entry/Exit System (EES) and the ETIAS travel authorisation exclusively on travel-europe.europa.eu, the EU’s own website (as of 11/2026).
Warning: For ETIAS, the access fee and even motorway vignettes there are broker websites charging several times the real price just to pass on your data. We once fell for a site like that ourselves – since then our rule is: official websites only, type the address yourself, never via an ad. In the guide you will find all official links as QR codes.
New: Venice vaporetto tickets 2026: prices, day pass, Line 1 and the traps
€29 per 24 hours at Tronchetto, €35 at the Autorimessa Comunale on Piazzale Roma, €45 at Garage San Marco. In Mestre you park from roughly €8 to €12 a day and take the train or tram in (operators’ prices, as of 11/2026).
Not in the old town or on the parking islands. On the mainland there are a few free street spaces, but with time limits and no security – the park-and-ride sites from around €8 are the more honest choice.
Tronchetto if you stay several days and want to save (€29 instead of €35 to €45). Piazzale Roma if your accommodation is nearby or you travel with children and a lot of luggage. The People Mover links the two in three minutes for €1.50.
From Piazzale Roma or Tronchetto by vaporetto (line 1 along the Grand Canal about 45 minutes, line 2 faster) to San Marco or San Zaccaria; on foot it takes 35 to 45 minutes from Piazzale Roma through the alleys.
Only as a day visitor on the designated days (2026: 60 days between 3 April and 26 July, 8:30 am to 4 pm; 2027: 72 days between 26 March and 15 August). Overnight guests are exempt but must register on cda.ve.it.
Yes, but not into the multi-storey car parks: entrances are limited to 2.10 to 2.20 m. Campervans use the open-air area at Tronchetto or the mainland sites in Mestre and Marghera without height limits; campsites at Fusina and Punta Sabbioni have boat connections to Venice.
Passend dazu:
Want more? If Venice has got hold of you, read Venice without the tourist traps next – or plan the onward journey right away: our 40-day road trip across the Balkans to Greece started on this very motorway.
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