Visiting Pompeii: Tickets, Hours and Entrances
Pompeii sells two different tickets to the same gate, and they buy two different cities. Get that one choice right and the rest of the day is straightforward — the hours are simple, the entrances are signposted, and every guided option here already has admission inside the fare. Fares sit with the Pompeii Italy guided tours listings.
The two tickets, and what each one opens
This is the table worth reading twice, because one line of it decides whether you see the most famous painted room in the Roman world.
| Ticket | Price | What it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Pompeii Express | €20 | The ancient city only. The suburban villas are excluded. |
| Pompeii with the suburban villas the listings call this “Pompeii Plus” | €25 | The ancient city plus the Villa of the Mysteries, the Villa of Diomedes and Villa Regina at Boscoreale, with the shuttle bus. |
| Pompeii Plus, three-day pass | €30 | All of the above plus Oplontis, Villa Arianna, Villa San Marco and the Stabiae museum. Valid three days, one entry per site. |
| Boscoreale, Oplontis or the Stabiae museum, each | €8 | That site alone. |
| MyPompeii annual pass | €45 | Every site and the shuttle, for a year. |
Reduced rate: €2 for EU citizens aged 18 to 24, and for non-EU holders of an Italian residence permit. Under-18s enter free. Bring a passport or ID card if you are claiming either, because it is checked at the gate.
What “Pompeii Express” leaves out
Express is the ticket most guided tours bundle, and for a two-hour visit it is exactly the right one. It covers the whole walled city: the Forum, the Temple of Jupiter, the House of the Faun, the Stabian Baths, the Lupanar, both theatres and the Amphitheatre. Nothing inside the walls is off it.
What it does not cover is what lies outside them — and that includes the Villa of the Mysteries, whose Dionysiac frieze is the single most reproduced image from the site. If that is why you are coming, you need the €25 ticket.
Opening hours and last admission
| Season | Opens | Last admission | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 March – 14 October | 9:00 | 17:30 | 19:00 |
| 15 October – 15 March | 9:00 | 15:30 | 17:00 |
Pompeii opens every day of the week. It closes on two days a year: 25 December and 1 January. The smaller sites in the same group — Oplontis, the Stabiae villas and the Stabiae museum — close on Tuesdays, but Pompeii itself does not.
Note the winter last admission. It is an hour and a half before closing, not the usual thirty minutes, so a two-hour tour starting at 15:00 in January is not something you can book on the day.
The time slots, and why the afternoon is smaller
Between 16 March and 14 October, admissions are split in two. The morning slot from 9:00 to 13:00 takes up to 15,000 people. The afternoon slot from 13:00 to 17:30 takes 5,000. That is a third the size, on the half of the day most people assume is quieter.
The practical consequence is simple: in high summer the afternoon sells out first. If you want the cooler end of the day, book it early rather than turning up for it.
Your ticket has your name on it
Tickets are personal and non-transferable. Each one carries the holder's name and an entry slot, staff may ask for photo ID at the gate to check the two match, and a mismatch means no entry and no refund. Names and dates cannot be changed after purchase.
Two things follow. Book with each traveller's real details rather than one name for the party — one operator here asks for every participant's full name and age before the day. And treat a ticket bought direct as fixed: it is non-refundable except when the park itself closes, which is one practical reason to book the ticket and the guide together instead.
Free entry on the first Sunday
Entry is free every first Sunday of the month under Italy's national Domenica al Museo scheme, and that is a real saving rather than a technicality. The catch is that free tickets cannot be reserved in advance, so on a site with a 20,000-person daily cap your entry is not guaranteed and the queue forms before opening.
Operators on this list say so in their own booking notes. If a free Sunday is the only day you have, arrive at 9:00. If it is not, a guided walk on any other morning costs about the price of two coffees more than the ticket alone.
What you can bring through the gate
The park publishes its rules and enforces them at the bag check:
- Bags: nothing larger than 30 × 30 × 15 cm. Bigger goes to left luggage.
- Food: eating is allowed only in designated places. There is one cafeteria for 66 hectares.
- Dogs: up to 10 kg and 40 cm at the shoulder, on a lead and carried indoors. Guide dogs are admitted without those limits.
- Wheels: no bicycles, scooters or motorised vehicles of any kind.
- Cameras: personal photography is free. Professional cameras, microphones and drones need written authorisation.
- Audio guides: only from the park's own approved concessionaires.
Do you need a guided tour?
Honestly: not always. If you have read up beforehand, or you are coming back, a ticket from the park's own seller and a good plan will serve you perfectly well, and this page has told you which ticket to buy.
What changes the answer is that Pompeii labels almost nothing. Streets and houses carry small signs and very little else, so a first visit without a guide, an audio guide or a book is a walk through empty rooms. A two-hour guided walk with the Express ticket inside it starts at from $34, which is a few euros over the price of the ticket on its own. That is the arithmetic most people do, and it is why the guided format is the one that sells.
Which Pompeii tour fits your day?
Seventeen guided options compared on ticket grade, hours on site, starting city and what the fare actually covers.
The route in from Naples, Rome and Sorrento is on getting to Pompeii; the layout once you are inside is on the site map; and the rest of the practical questions are answered in the FAQs. Every fare sits on Pompeii Italy Tours.
Sources
Ticket grades, prices, opening hours, time slots, the named-ticket rule and the visitor regulations are published by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. Prices and hours change — check before you travel.