Buy vaporetto tickets online: voucher, machine, validation

Why buy before you travel

A ticket bought online is the same official ACTV travel card that the machines in Venice sell. What changes is where you spend your first half hour in the city. At Piazzale Roma and at Santa Lucia station the queue at the ticket machines is longest exactly when you arrive: trains, airport buses and the first boats of the morning put their passengers on the same pavement within a few minutes of each other.

The second reason is that the choice is easier at home. The durations run from 75 minutes to seven days, and a timed pass starts to pay from the third ride of a day. That is a calculation worth doing before you stand in front of a screen with a suitcase in each hand. Every amount is in the price overview, and the ticket overview matches the durations to the number of days and rides you have planned.

The voucher and the PNR code

Booking online gets you a voucher by email, not a ticket. The voucher carries a QR code and, printed underneath it, a PNR code: a short booking reference. The PNR is the part that matters in Venice. You type it into a ticket machine and the machine prints the ACTV ticket itself.

This is the route AVM describes for the platforms it authorises to sell ACTV tickets, GetYourGuide among them: the code is converted into a travel document at an automatic ticket machine before the first ride. The voucher on your phone is not a ticket. Holding it against the reader at the landing stage does nothing.

Where you collect the ticket

Collecting the ticket is rarely a detour. Vela, the sales company of the AVM group, runs around 110 ticket machines and 25 ticket offices across the Venice network, alongside several hundred licensed resellers.

Do it before you board, not after. A voucher cannot be converted on the boat, and the crew cannot turn a booking reference into a ticket. Build the exchange into the walk from the station or the bus terminal to your first landing stage, and you are done with the paperwork for the rest of the stay.

When the validity starts

The voucher can be redeemed on any day, and collecting the ticket does not start the clock either. The validity begins at the first validation, when you hold the printed ticket against the white-and-yellow reader on the landing stage before boarding. A 24-hour ticket validated at 14:00 runs until 14:00 the next day; the 48, 72 and 168-hour tickets run the same continuous way, by the hour and not by calendar days.

Validate again every time you board and every time you change to another boat or bus. That applies to every duration, the seven-day pass as much as the 75-minute ticket. What you cannot change afterwards is the booking: an online ticket is neither refundable nor rescheduled, so check the duration and the number of travellers before you pay. The travel day itself stays open until you validate.

Paying with a bank card instead

There is a second way into the network that needs no voucher at all. The ACTV readers have accepted contactless bank cards and wallets since June 2024, activated ticket type by ticket type, under the name Best Fare. You tap the card at the reader instead of a ticket, and the system charges the cheapest fare for what you actually travelled.

The first ride on the water network costs €9.50. Keep tapping the same card and the total stops climbing:

Up to five people can travel on one card: five taps at the same reader within a minute, travelling together. Tap in every time you board and every time you change. On the boats and on the People Mover there is no tap-out, only the buses ask for one. Mastercard, Visa, V Pay, Maestro and American Express work contactless, as do the phone and watch wallets built on them; PagoBancomat is not accepted. During a check you show the card you tapped with or give the last four digits of its number.

Two limits matter before you rely on it. The day pass created by tapping is not valid for journeys to or from Marco Polo Airport, not on the extra-urban buses and not on the Trenitalia trains. And a ride without a tap-in counts exactly as a ride without a ticket.

Buying a ticket on board

Selling tickets on board did not stop. Where and when the service is provided, you ask the sailor as you step on and buy at the door. Since 1 July 2024 only digital payment is accepted, by card at the crew's terminal, and the ticket is handed over already validated. The exceptions are the tram and the People Mover between Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto: neither sells on board, so buy before you get on.

The Venezia Daily Pass, the 24-hour ticket, can be bought this way too and also comes already validated, which means the day starts at the moment of purchase rather than at a reader of your choosing. Treat the on-board sale as a fallback rather than the plan: it depends on the sailing and on the crew's card terminal.

What a missing ticket costs

Travelling without a valid ticket is not a flat fine. The bill has three parts: the sanction itself, the fare you did not pay and the administrative costs. On the water network it works out like this.

What the ticket does not cover

The one gap that catches most travellers is Marco Polo Airport. No timed ACTV ticket is valid for a journey starting or ending there. The Aerobus supplement, €7 one way and €13 return, bought together with the timed ticket, is the only bridge between the two; every other way in from the airport, with fares and journey times, is on Marco Polo Airport to Venice. Inside the city the ticket is also not valid on ACTV lines 16 and 19, on the Casinò line or on the Alilaguna boats.

The purchase steps, machines and penalties on this page follow the official information of AVM and its sales company Vela, which runs the Venezia Unica network, together with the published ACTV tariff and the conditions for contactless payment.