Scrovegni Chapel tickets: how timed entry and booking work

Why every visit has to be booked

Booking ahead is compulsory at the Scrovegni Chapel. The chapel's own rules say so in plain terms, and there is no queue you can join on the day as a fallback. The reason is the frescoes. Giotto painted the whole interior in about two years, between 1303 and 1305, and those walls are fragile. Every body that comes through the door brings warmth, moisture and dust from the street.

To protect them, entry is limited to a maximum of 25 people every 15 minutes, and that count includes any guide. Before you reach the chapel you spend 15 minutes in a climate-controlled waiting room, part of a technical building added in 2000, while the air around your group settles to match the chapel's microclimate. Then the automatic doors open once to let you in, and once to let you out, after 15 minutes inside.

The care is long-standing. The climate-controlled building went in during 2000, the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro began a full restoration in 2001, and the chapel reopened in March 2002. In 2021 it became part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, Padua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles, which takes in eight buildings across the city. The slot system is part of the bargain that keeps the chapel open to visitors at all.

Small groups and a fixed rhythm are what make the visit possible at all. They also mean that once a slot holds 25 people, it is full, and nobody can be squeezed in.

The daily slot grid, 9:00 to 18:45

The chapel is open all year for day visits from 9:00 to 19:00. Entries start at 9:00 and run every 15 minutes, with the last day slot at 18:45. That gives 40 day slots, each for up to 25 people.

Your ticket names one of those slots, and the time printed on it is the time your group enters the waiting room, not a window you can turn up within. The whole visit takes about 30 minutes: 15 in the waiting room, 15 in the chapel. If you plan to see the Musei Civici Eremitani as well, which your ticket includes, leave time for them before or after.

Early slots suit people who like a quieter start to the day and want the museums afterwards. Late afternoon slots suit day-trippers arriving by train from Venice or Verona.

No same-day booking, and why the day before is risky

There are no same-day bookings. Online sales for a given date close the day before the visit, so the latest you could ever book is the previous day. Many people read that as permission to leave it until then. We would not.

The problem is choice. A full slot cannot be booked, and the nearer you get to your date the fewer open slots remain. On the last possible day you may find only times that clash with your train, or nothing at all. A request that reaches us late on that day also leaves very little room to place it on the official system before sales close.

If your dates are fixed, book as soon as you know them. If they are not, book anyway once you have settled the day you will be in Padua, because the slot is the one part of the visit you cannot sort out on arrival.

How far ahead you can book: release batches

The chapel does not keep a rolling calendar open a year ahead. It releases day slots in batches. The current batch went on sale at 12:00 on 24 September 2026 and covers day slots up to 10 February 2027.

The next batch has no published date yet. Until it opens, nobody can book a day visit after 10 February 2027, through us or through anyone else. When the chapel announces the next release, those dates become bookable like any other.

If your trip falls inside the current batch, you can choose your slot now. If it falls beyond it, read the next section.

Sold-out dates and dates not yet on sale: our waiting list

Two things can stop you booking the date you want: the date is fully booked, or it sits beyond the current release. In both cases you can join our waiting list. You tell us the date, the time of day that suits you and the fares you need. You pay nothing to join.

If a place on that date becomes bookable, because a new batch opens or a slot frees up, we email you a secure payment link. You pay only then, and only once there is a real place to book. If nothing opens, you have paid nothing and lost nothing.

We will be straight with you: we cannot promise that a place will open. We do not know whether a full slot will free up, and nobody yet knows when the next batch will appear. The waiting list is a way to be first in line if something changes, not a guarantee that something will.

The four fares and who qualifies

We book four fares. Each one is a timed entry for a single 15-minute slot, and each includes the Musei Civici Eremitani, plus Palazzo Zuckermann from Tuesday to Sunday. Adult is for anyone aged 18 or over who does not qualify for a reduction. EU visitors 65+ is a reduced fare for citizens of an EU country over 65; bring a passport or national ID card that shows both your nationality and your date of birth.

Ages 6 to 17 is the young people's fare; bring something that shows the child's age, such as a passport. Students is for holders of a valid student card, and it covers university and academy students of any age, not only the young. Bring the card itself. Staff at the desk can ask to see proof of any reduction, so keep it with your ticket.

You can mix fares in a single booking. A couple travelling with a 15-year-old and a university student would book two Adult places, one Ages 6 to 17 place and one Students place, all in the same slot. Every place counts towards the limit of 25, so a slot with only a few places left cannot take a larger party. If yours is a big group, keep an eye on that when you choose.

Children up to 5 go in free. You do not buy them a ticket: tell us how many are travelling and we add them to your booking at no charge, so they are counted in the slot with you. Admission is also free for disabled visitors and a companion. Because there is nothing to sell for those places, contact us before you book and we will talk through your group with you.

No refunds, no changes: choosing a slot you can make

This is the rule that catches people out. Scrovegni Chapel tickets are non-refundable and cannot be changed to another date or time. That is the chapel's rule, applied to every ticket, and it applies to bookings made through us too. If you miss your slot, the ticket is gone, and seeing the chapel means booking and paying for another one.

Late arrival counts as a missed slot. You need to be at the chapel's entrance pavilion at least 5 minutes before your time, and the doors run to a fixed cycle. Nobody joins a group once it has gone in.

So pick a slot with slack in it. If you are coming in by train, allow for a delay and the walk or tram ride from the station, then the ticket pick-up. If you are visiting on a travel day, put the chapel well away from your departure. Families with small children may find a late-morning slot easier than a 9:00 start. A slot you can keep comfortably is worth more than the ideal one you might miss.

Closures, Mondays and what your ticket covers

The chapel closes on 25 and 26 December and on 1 January. In 2026 it is also closed to the public from 16 to 27 November for the annual inspection of the frescoes by the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro, the national body that led the restoration completed in 2002. No slots are sold on those dates.

Mondays work slightly differently. The chapel and the Musei Civici Eremitani are open every day, but Palazzo Zuckermann, which holds the applied and decorative arts collections and the Bottacin coin museum, is closed on Mondays that are not public holidays. A Monday ticket therefore covers the chapel and the Eremitani only. From Tuesday to Sunday, Palazzo Zuckermann is included too, open from 10:00 to 19:00.

The Eremitani complex is worth the time. It brings together the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Medieval and Modern Art in the cloisters of a former friars' convent, and it keeps Giotto's painted Crucifix that once hung over the chapel's altar.

How booking through us works, step by step

We are Scrovegni Chapel Ticket Concierge, an independent booking service. We are not the chapel and not the City of Padua museums. First, you choose your date, your slot and your fares on our booking page, and add any children under 6. Second, you pay us. Third, we book your places on the chapel's official booking system for exactly the slot and fares you chose.

Fourth, your e-ticket arrives by email. Check that the date, time and number of people match what you asked for, and keep it on your phone or printed. Fifth, on the day, go to the ticket office at the entrance of the Musei Civici agli Eremitani, Piazza Eremitani 8, about 100 metres from the chapel, at least 30 minutes before your slot to collect your ticket. Bring any ID or student card that backs up a reduced fare.

A practical point about bags. Backpacks and bags go into the cloakroom or the lockers at the museum, and the lockers take items up to 44 by 31 by 46 centimetres. Trolleys and suitcases are not allowed in the museum, so if you are arriving straight from the station with luggage, plan to leave it somewhere else first.

Food and drink are not allowed in the chapel either. Walk across to the entrance pavilion at least 5 minutes before your time. Photography for personal use is allowed, without flash, lights or tripods. The rest is 15 minutes of waiting and 15 minutes under Giotto's blue vault.

Evening visits: Giotto sotto le stelle

In some seasons the chapel also runs evening openings called Giotto sotto le stelle, Giotto under the stars, sold separately from the day slots. In the current release, presales for these evenings run to 6 January 2027.

We do not book the evening visits. Everything we offer is a day slot between 9:00 and 18:45, and the fares, rules and arrival times in this guide all refer to those day visits. If an evening visit is what you are after, check the chapel's own information on it before planning around it.