Borghese Gallery tickets: how to book your two-hour slot, and why there is no skip-the-line

💡 The Short Version: Book before you go: nobody gets in without a ticket for a time slot. The official ticket is €16 plus a €2 booking fee, from the gallery’s ticket page. Entry is on the hour, 180 people a slot, for two hours, and the gallery is closed on Mondays. It says it sells no skip-the-line tickets and warns against resellers who do. Or book a tour: the gallery’s own English tour is €8 on top of the ticket; a small-group tour on GetYourGuidead (from £73.28) keeps the group to 15.

The tickets, compared

Official prices from the gallery’s ticket page, 30 September 2026, converted at the ECB rate of 29 September 2026 (€1 = £0.857). GetYourGuide prices are its lowest “from” price on 30 September 2026.

• Reduced and free tickets: €2 for ages 18 to 25 and free under 18, for EU citizens and citizens of non-EU countries with reciprocal terms or a residence permit. Bring proof: a free ticket without entitlement is cancelled and you pay the full price again. Both still carry the €2 booking fee.
• Five tickets at most can be bought at a time. Prices can rise while a temporary exhibition is on, and the exhibition is included in the same ticket.
• Roma Pass holders still book, by phone on +39 06 32810 (Monday to Friday, 9:30 to 18:00), on the Roma Pass booking site or by email, and pay the €2 fee. The Roma Pass guide works out whether the pass is worth buying for it.
• Tickets cannot be changed or refunded.
• Beware resellers. The gallery warns about resellers who charge more and about “skip-the-line” tickets.

The front of the Galleria Borghese, in Villa Borghese park. Photo: Alessio Damato, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

There is no skip-the-line

The gallery admits visitors only at the start of each hour, and offers no skip-the-line option. You queue for your time slot, and the queue generally moves quickly. Tickets sold as “priority”, “fast-track” or “skip-the-line” still enter on the hour with everyone else; the extra is a guide or an app.

Tours worth paying for

The official English guided tour is the cheapest way to a guide, at €8 on top of the ticket: it runs Tuesday to Sunday at 9:10, 11:10, 15:10 and 17:10, lasts 90 minutes and takes at most 15 people. It is booked from the same ticket page or by phone, subject to availability. If it is full, the tours below add a guide. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” price on 30 September 2026.

Guided tour, small group

From £73.28 · 4.8 stars from 1,046 reviews · 2 hours

Borghese Gallery Guided Tour with priority entrancead is a guided visit with an expert, in a group of no more than 15. Entry is still on the hour.

Small-group tour with free cancellation

From £71.14 · 4.6 stars from 176 reviews · 2 hours

Borghese Gallery Small-group tour and skip-the-line entrancead takes in the Old Masters from Bernini to Caravaggio, with free cancellation, which the official ticket does not give.

Entry ticket and audio guide, resold

Borghese Gallery entry ticket and audioguide Appad is from £37.71 (4.7 stars from 832 reviews). It is the same two-hour slot as the official ticket, at more than twice the official £15, with an app audio guide added.

What to see

The collection is one cardinal’s: Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, who began it in the early 1600s. It fills 20 frescoed rooms over two floors, with the sculptures downstairs and the paintings on the first floor. In two hours, see the ground floor first.

Ground floor, rooms 1 to 8

1. Room 1, the Paolina Room: Canova’s statue of Paolina Bonaparte Borghese as Venus Victrix.
2. Room 2, the David Room: Bernini’s David, made in 1623 and 1624, at the centre.
3. Room 3, the Apollo and Daphne Room: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, the group the room is named for.
4. Room 6, the Aeneas and Anchises Room: Bernini’s Aeneas and Anchises, made between 1618 and 1620 with his father, and his Truth Revealed by Time.
5. Room 8, the Silenus Room: six of Caravaggio’s twelve paintings once owned by the cardinal, among them Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Sick Bacchus, St Jerome and David with the Head of Goliath.

Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne in its room on the ground floor. Photo: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

First floor, rooms 9 to 20

6. Room 9, the Dido Room: Raphael’s Baglioni Deposition and Lady with a Unicorn.
7. Room 10, the Hercules Room: Correggio’s Danae.
8. Room 20, the Psyche Room: Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, and Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man.

On the 17:45 slot, which lasts 1 hour 15 minutes, stay on the ground floor. The garden outside the gallery is Villa Borghese park, which is free.

The lake and the Temple of Aesculapius in Villa Borghese park. Photo: Krzysztof Golik, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

When it sells out

• Try another slot or day. Tickets are sold per hour, from 9:00 to 17:45, Tuesday to Sunday.
• Go to the ticket office. It sells a limited number of last-minute tickets from minute 20 of every hour, two per person, for a visit of 1 hour 30 minutes. The waiting time can be long, and same-day entry is not guaranteed. The ticket office opens at 8:30 and stops selling an hour before closing. On the free days below there are no last-minute tickets.
• Book the next available date at the ticket office in person.
• Free days: the first Sunday of the month, 25 April, 2 June and 4 November. Tickets are free apart from the €2 fee and are released 10 days before the date.

Opening hours and rules

• Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 19:00, last entrance 17:45. Closed on Mondays, 25 December and 1 January.
• Slots start on the hour from 9:00 to 17:00, with a final slot at 17:45. Each is for 180 people.
• Bags: only a small pouch or handbag up to 21 x 15 cm goes in. Everything larger goes to the cloakroom by the entrance, which takes trolleys only up to cabin size, subject to space.
• Getting there: the gallery is in the Villa Borghese park, and its nearest gate is on Via Pinciana, by the Pinciana/Museo Borghese bus stop. From Termini, buses 910 and 92 go to that stop; from Barberini on metro line A, buses 52, 53, 63 and 83 do.
• Café and bookshop: open to anyone without a ticket, from 8:30 to 19:00 for the café; the cloakroom and toilets are for ticket holders.

For what else to book, and which day each sight is closed, see what to book before you go in Rome. The 3-day Rome itinerary puts the Borghese on day three, and the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are the other two tickets that sell out.