🇮🇹St Peter's Basilica: Free Entry, the Dome Climb, and Lift versus Stairs
The basilica is free but the security queue is long. What the €7 audio ticket buys you, whether to pay €5 more for the dome lift, and the dress code that gets people turned away.
2026-09-05
St Peter's is the largest church in the world and one of the holiest sites in Catholicism. Raphael and Michelangelo both worked on it; the dome is Michelangelo's. It holds up to 60,000 people. The three things most visitors come for are his Pietà, Bernini's bronze baldachin over the high altar, and the Chair of St Peter behind it.
Visitor information
Time needed: 2–3 hours covering the interior, the dome and photographs on the square.
Entry is free. You can either queue on the day at no cost, or reserve online — but the online reservation requires buying the €7 audio guide ticket, which is effectively what you're paying to skip the queue. In high season the free queue can run well over an hour, so most people find the €7 worth it.
There is exactly one official site: basilicasanpietro.va. The basilica is run by the Fabbrica di San Pietro, and the dome ticket is sold there and nowhere else.
⚠️ Don't book the wrong system. The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel are a completely separate operation at museivaticani.va. A museum ticket does not include the dome, and a dome ticket will not get you into the museums. Most of what ranks above the official site in search results is a reseller charging a markup.
Prices below are what was actually paid at the time of the visit; check the official site for the current figure.
Tickets and hours
- Interior only: audio guide ticket €7 (no Chinese audio available), open 7:00–19:10. Allow 1–1.5 hours.
- Dome opening hours: late March to late October 7:00–18:00; late October to late March 7:30–17:00.
- Dome with Stairs: from €17. All 551 steps on foot.
- Dome with Lift: from €22. Lift to the terrace, then still 320 steps to the top.
Both dome tickets already include basilica entry and the digital audio guide, so you don't also buy the €7 basilica ticket. Prices as shown on the booking page on the day; full breakdown in the dome climb guide.
Getting there: Metro line A to Ottaviano, then about 800 metres on foot. Or walk 15 minutes from Ponte Sant'Angelo, which is a much nicer approach.
St Peter's Basilica guided entry and dome
GetYourGuide · from from €7
Booking ahead is mainly about skipping the security queue
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The dress code catches people out
No shorts or skirts above the knee, and no bare shoulders. This is enforced at the door, for everyone, and there's no cloakroom of loaner clothing. In summer, carry a light scarf or shirt — plenty of visitors get sent away after an hour in the security queue.
Lift or stairs?
The lift ticket is not a way out of the climb. It stops at the terrace, and the last 320 steps are on foot whichever ticket you hold. The two tickets differ only by the ~231 steps below the terrace (551 − 320) — and those are the easy half.
First visit: take the lift and book an early slot. For the full comparison, the official booking page, the queue-by-hour table and who should not attempt the climb, see the St Peter's dome climb guide.
Pairing it with the Vatican Museums
They're adjacent, and most people do both in one day. The efficient order is Vatican Museums first thing in the morning, then the basilica — the museum route ends at the Sistine Chapel, and from there there's a passage down into St Peter's that skips the main security queue entirely. See the Vatican Museums guide.
Back to the Rome travel guide for the full Vatican day.