Should I buy the the Firenze Card to visit Florence?

With a high concentration of masterpieces within the historical center, Florence is a great destination for art lovers.

We often receive questions on whether the Firenze card is "worth" the €85 it costs so we sat down to evaluate what the card offers and whether it is something we would recommend our visitors to purchase.

What we found is that there is no clear cut answer if you're making a decision based solely on the cost of the card: in that case, whether you should buy it or not depends on your plans, the time you have at your disposal and the size of your family or traveling group.

Keep in mind that museums have improved their services for Firenze Card holders, for example, by adding priority lines at the busiest museums: you'll find priority entrance at the Uffizi, the Accademia, at the Baptistery, Giotto's bell tower, Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti.

So if you're visiting in the summer or have limited time in Florence, it is without a doubt a benefit to skip any lines at the main museums in Florence regardless of the cost as you save time and then can go visit more sights in those 72 hours!

The Michelangelo room at the Uffizi Gallery

What do you want to see?

To decide whether the card is right for you, you first need to have an idea of which museums you definitely want to visit as well as others you might like to visit. With this list in hand, then you can figure out whether the card is a better deal or whether you'll pay less by paying for the normal entrance ticket (or just pre-booking tickets for the Uffizi or Accademia directly) which still allows you to cut the main line during the high season, which generally goes from April through September.

Benefits of buying the Firenze Card

Here are some of the benefits of purchasing the card:

• entrance to the major museums in Florence, including the Uffizi and Accademia. This includes any current exhibitions in the museums.

• jumping any normal lines AND no need for reservations (for most locations). This means you can go whenever you want, no need to book a time! The exceptions are: Uffizi, Accademia and the Brancacci Chapel. You can prebook a date & time before arriving in Florence for the Uffizi and Accademia by calling + 39 055-294883 or booking direct at one of the ticket offices you'll find on the FirenzeCard website. For the Brancacci Chapel, there is a whole procedure to follow online from their website, I suggest to go there for more info.

• children under 18 years old get to take advantage of the same benefits if their parents buy the Firenze Card (so no need to buy their own card) but consider that many museums (not all, but all State museums for sure) are already free to ALL kids under 18. There are several that aren't free so if parents buy Firenze Cards, this saves a few tickets for the rest of the family for those musuems. Make sure to "register" your kids when you buy your Firenze Card as being part of your family. If you don't, then they won't be recognized as belonging to the same family unit.

What does the Firenze Card offer?

• 72 hours validity, starting from first entrance into any museum

• One visit per museum: each museum can only be visited ONCE during the 72 hours (so no short visits to any site, hoping to make a return visit later on).
  

The FirenzeCard+ (not currently available)

This "plus" option allows you buy a separate card called the FirenzeCard+ at the cost of an additional 7 euro (total €92) per card to include:

• unlimited travel on local bus and tram public transportation for the duration of the card (72 hours).

You also get a Museum Guidebook, an exclusive Firenzecard+ bag and special offers which are only granted to those with the extra card.

If you're staying downtown, this option of unlimited bus travel is not necessary as many buses don't even cross the center! Even if you plan to use the bus a few times, you can just buy bus tickets for those trips, but if you're staying outside of center and plan on using the bus daily to get closer to all of the sights, then the card is definitely useful!

Should I buy the Firenze Card?

The long line at the Uffzi for those who arrive with no prebooked tickets or Firenze Card

I cannot give you a definitive YES or NO to this question. It really depends on how many people are in your family unit, even your nationality as EU citizens have advantages, the ages of your children and which museums you are planning on visiting. I recommend you take a look at the analysis below to help you decide.

1. COST:

Most people want to visit the two major museums in Florence, the Uffizi and Accademia. These are the main museums in all of Florence that have the longest lines, especially in the summer, and on Tuesdays and in the mornings year-round. For the Uffizi, ticket cost varies throughout the year, from €12 in the low season (November-February) to €25 in the high season (March-October). For the Accademia, admission is €12 euro throughout the year.

You can pre-book tickets ahead of time to these and other museums in Florence individually, which adds a booking fee to be paid to the museum as well as a commission fee to the reseller selling the tickets online. So the Uffizi and Accademia can cost an average from €16-29 each (no matter what the museum says the base ticket cost is). If you're only interested in visiting one or both of these two museums, then the Firenze Card is NOT worth the €85 since buying tickets online for both museums at the most will be around €45 per person). You can pre-book tickets just for the Uffizi and Accademia (read more about prebooking tickets and its advantages in this article), then buy tickets at all the other museums you want to visit individually on the spot. You'll likely spend less than the €85 of the Card.

2. LINES:

Again, major lines are at the same two most popular museums, the Uffizi and Accademia. Other museums might have a line at a certain time of the day but generally those lines move quickly. There is a separate priority entrance for Firenze Card holders at the Uffizi and Accademia, not at all of the other museums. The entrance for pre-booked tickets is separate, and sometimes does still have a line.

The Uffizi and Accademia require Firenze Card users to pre-book a date and entrance time. It is free to do so but it no longer means you can head to the museum whenever you want. Not having to book a date and time was a benefit to the card, now it seems to have been taken away. At this point, you can just pre-book a ticket for the museums and not get the card.

3. BUS travel: (extra option not available at the moment)

If you're staying in the center, you can get most everywhere on foot. The few buses that cross the center are likely not needed for your needs. It's likely then you don't even need to worry about buses at all during your entire stay, or if you do feel you need to use a bus (to get to Piazzale Michelangelo or Fiesole), you can easily pay the € 1,70 for the 90 minute ticket (each bus ticket lasts 90 minutes from the time you stamp it on the bus as soon as you get on, read more about using the bus system in Florence here) and save money in the end. In this case, there is NO added benefit to buying the additional FirenzeCard+ card.

4. # of Museums:

At its introduction in 2011, the card included about 33 museums which grew to 60 in 2013, and by 2014, the number reached 72 attractions which practically includes ALL of the museums in Florence. Today, there are less sights offered because the monuments around the Duomo are no longer part of the FirenzeCard circuit so you need to buy those tickets separately. In any case, the high number of museums is great, but how many can you realistically visit in 72 hours?

In my proposed, jam-packed 3 days in Florence itinerary, I managed to include just 12, two of which are actually free for everyone. If you were to follow this itinerary and bought tickets for each separately, you would more or less spend about the same amount as the purchase of the Card, depending on when you visit Florence (the Uffizi has introduced seasonal tickets that vary from 12 euro to there are temporary exhibits at the Uffizi or Accademia and costs of prebooking those two museums. So as far as number of museums listed and ones you can realistically actually visit in 72 hours, the number is not a particular plus of the card.

Visiting the museums: you can visit each one only ONCE!

Remember you can only visit each museum ONCE so that means you cannot stop for a quick visit, then come back the next day for a longer visit. Your entrance into that museum has been “used up”.

Conclusions

Do NOT get the Card if:

• You only want to see the main museums, such as the Uffizi and Accademia, and maybe a few others. Just prebook separate tickets for each museum plus the pass for Opera del Duomo monuments to see those you really want to see.
• You're staying in the center, so you do not need the unlimited bus travel that comes with the + option (in any case, not currently available for some reason). Just buy a ticket if you do need to use the bus to get somewhere out of the center.
• You're visiting Florence in the low season (from November through March). While there are still visitors to Florence year-round, lines during these months are short or non-existent. Pre-book individual tickets to Uffizi and Accademia (check out how to prebook them here), which give you a separate entrance, along with Firenze Card holders, and then buy museum tickets for other places directly at the museums.
• You're in Florence for one day: just prebook tickets for the museums you intend to visit!
• If you want to visit any museum with a tour and guide, DO NOT buy the Firenze Card. Just book your tour since all/most of them include entrance into the museum, then buy tickets for other museums you want to visit individually. Take a look a these popular guided tours in Florence.

Do GET the Card if:

• You're in Florence for at least 3 days!
• You're planning to see lots of places in those 3 days: to make the card worthwhile, you need to plan on visiting at least the Uffizi, Accademia, Palazzo Vecchio, the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens, the Medici Chapels and the Brancacci Chapel. If you do follow the 3 day itinerary I drew up, then you'll see the Firenze Card is worth buying to get through this itinerary!
• You're visiting in the SUMMER: the number of visitors in the summer do go up at all attractions, so not only would you skip any lines at the Uffizi and Accademia, but at other sights.

Should I buy the Firenze Card online?

I don't usually recommend it since you need to pick up a paper ticket once you get to Florence. You can just wait and buy it once you're here, they don't sell out.

If you buy online, an APP has been recently added so that you can download it, enter your voucher number and have a digital Firenze Card to use in the museums. You need to activate the voucher at the first museum you visit in Florence, that's when the 72 hours countdown starts! Make sure you don't activate the card digitally until you are here: there are no refunds given for accidentally activating it ahead of time.

If you arrive by train at SMN, the closest office where you can buy the card is the InfoPoint across from the station at Piazza della Stazione 4. If you want to purchase online, you can do so on www.firenzecard.it and decide whether you want to use the App or not (you don't have to).

You can also buy the Firenze Card at the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Vecchio, Bargello, Santa Maria Novella museum, Brancacci Chapel, Bardini Museum and Palazzo Strozzi as well as at the tourist info points located at Piazza SMN and Via Cavour. Check out the site above, they have the list and map.

Extra Notes to keep in mind

In your evaluation of whether to get the Firenze Card or not, make note that it doesn't make a difference if:

• You're traveling with KIDS under 18: you're a family with minors, they get in free most everywhere so they don't really factor into the equation as you try to figure out cost-wise whether to get it or not.
• have you heard or read of the Amici degli Uffizi card as a good alternative to visit museums in Florence? Forget about it! By decree of the governing body of the State museums in Florence, starting June 15, 2015, the Amici degli Uffizi pass only allows unlimited visits to the Uffizi Gallery and to the Pitti Palace museums (including the Boboli gardens) for the calendar year in which it is bought. If you're interested in visiting these museums more than once, take a look at the new annual passes the Gallerie degli Uffizi started offering in September 2017.

Museums included in the Firenze Card

These are the museums included in the Card, the * marks ones that offer free entrance on a general basis.

in Florence:
Church of Santa Croce and Museum
Brancacci Chapel
Medici Chapels
Casa Buonarroti
Last Suppers: Fuligno, Ognissanti del Ghirlandaio *, di San Salvi di Andrea del Sarto * and Sant'Apollonia di Andrea del Castagno *
Chiostro dello Scalzo *
Orsanmichele *
Palazzo Strozzi
Salvatore Romano Foundation
Foundation of Science and Technique
National Archaeological Museum
Uffizi Gallery (which now includes the Contini Bonacossi Collection)
Accademia Gallery
Casa di Dante Museum
Modern Art Gallery – Pitti
Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments – Pitti
Boboli Gardens – Pitti
Silver Museum – Pitti
Costume Gallery – Pitti
Porcelain Museum – Pitti
Bigallo Museum *
Soccer Museum
Museum of Opificio delle Pietre Dure
Museum degli Innocenti
Palazzo Davanzati
Museum of San Marco
Museum of Natural History – Anthropological and Ethnological Section
Museum of Natural History – Geology and Paleontology
Museum of Natural History – Minerals and Litology
Museum of Natural History – Zoology “La Specola”
Museum of Natural History – Botanical Garden “Giardino dei Semplici”
Museum and Institute of Prehistory “Paolo Graziosi”
Galileo Museum
Horne Museum
Marino Marini Museum
National Museum of Photography Alinari
National Museum of the Bargello
Bardini Museum, Villa and Gardens
Stibbert Museum
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Church and Cloisters of Santa Maria Novella
Synagogue and Hebrew Museum
Palazzo Vecchio – Museum and Tower
Novecento Museum
Forte Belvedere *
Museum House of Enrico Caruso
Cycling Museum Gino Bartali
Library Medicea Laurenziana
Museo Casa Rodolfo Siviero *
Museum of Casa Martelli *
Salvatore Ferragamo Museum

in Fiesole:
Archeological Area and Museum
Bandini Museum
Fondazione Primo Conti

in surroundings outside of Florence:
Villa Corsini in Castello
the garden of the Medici Villa in Castello *
Medici Villa of La Petraia *
Medici Villa in Cerreto Guidi and the Museum of Hunting and Territory *
Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano *
Villa Medicea di Pratolino *

Last updated: January 2024