Castel Sant'Angelo tickets: the €18 entry, the Passetto di Borgo tours, and the first-Monday openings

💡 The Short Version: The ticket is €18 since 1 July 2026, in your name, from CoopCulture, the castle’s official seller; the museum recommends booking every day, and above all at weekends. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 19:30, last admission 18:30, and closed on Mondays, except a €5 opening from 14:00 on the first Monday of each month until 7 December 2026. The first Sunday of the month is free, by queuing at the ticket office. Or book a tour: the castle’s own Passetto di Borgo tours, from €24 with entry included, take in the papal escape corridor to the Vatican; on GetYourGuide, the entry ticket with a digital audioguidead is from £15.43, the price of the official ticket.

The tickets, compared

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

• The ticket is in your name. At the entrance, show the ticket and an original identity document; if the details do not match, you are refused and not refunded. The name can be changed once, up to midnight the day before.
• House museums: the ticket gives free entry to the Boncompagni Ludovisi house museum and the Hendrik Christian Andersen house museum on the day and the two days after, until 31 December 2026.
• Free Sundays: nothing is booked online. Everyone, groups included, queues at the ticket office for a free ticket that carries no name, and the usual route may be changed when it is busy.
• Book by phone on +39 06 399 671 00 (Monday to Friday 9:00 to 18:00, Saturday 9:00 to 14:00).

Tours worth paying for

The castle’s own tours are the ones to choose: they add the Passetto di Borgo, which cannot be walked without a tour. Prices from CoopCulture, 30 September 2026.

Passetto di Borgo, by day

€28 with Castel Sant’Angelo entry · one hour · Fridays to Sundays, not the first Sunday

The Passetto is the corridor along the top of the Borgo walls that joins the Vatican to the castle. Nicholas III conceived it in the 13th century, and Clement VII used it to escape during the Sack of Rome in 1527. The tour is the €18 ticket plus €10 for a one-hour guided visit of the Passetto and the San Marco Bastion, in groups of 25. A silent 30-minute version is the ticket plus €6, €24 in all. The tour starts at Lungotevere Castello 50, not inside the castle; arrive 15 minutes early. Buy it on the Musei Italiani site or app, or through CoopCulture.

The Passetto di Borgo, with St Peter’s Basilica at the top left, seen from the castle. Photo: Chris 73, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Passetto di Borgo, at night

€28 · one hour · Saturdays, 19:00 to 23:00

A €4 ticket plus €24 for the guided tour: the Passetto and the San Marco Bastion, then a walk through the castle after closing, by the dromos, the ramparts and the Pauline Room, with no other visitors.

Tosca on the audioguide

€8 with the admission ticket

The castle’s musical audioguide, in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish, is led by the musicologist Giovanni Bietti and plays music from Tosca, a recording of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma made on 14 January 2025. The tour begins at the Bastion of San Matteo.

Entry with an audio guide on GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide’s entry tickets cost the same as the official ticket or a little more, and add an audio guide. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” price on 30 September 2026.

Entry and digital audioguide

From £15.43 · 4.6 stars from 8,888 reviews · 2 hours

Rome: Castel Sant’Angelo Entry Ticket & Digital Audioguidead is entry with a digital audio guide and the view of the city from the roof, with free cancellation and a listed 30-minute minimum notice.

Entry and audio app

From £18.86 · 4.3 stars from 6,008 reviews

Rome: Castel Sant’Angelo Entry Ticket & Audio Appad is entry for a time you choose, with an audio guide on your phone. It costs £3.43 more than the official ticket and needs two hours’ notice.

What to see

Hadrian built the castle in the 2nd century AD as a mausoleum for himself and his family. It became a fortress, then a papal residence, at its height under Paul III Farnese (1534 to 1549), then a prison, and a national museum in 1925. The name comes from a legend that in 590 Pope Gregory the Great saw the Archangel Michael sheathe his sword here, ending a plague.

Castel Sant’Angelo from the Tiber, with the bronze angel on the top. Photo: Fallaner, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

CoopCulture’s short route runs in this order:

1. The ambulatory of Boniface IX, the helical ramp and the Hall of Urns.
2. The Angel’s Courtyard.
3. The Hall of Justice and the Hall of Apollo.
4. The Clement VII rooms and the Loggia of Paul III.
5. The Library and Treasure Room, then the Pauline Room.
6. The Loggia of Julius II.
7. The Angel’s Terrace, with the view over Rome.

CoopCulture’s list of what not to miss adds the views along the walls, and the history of the castle in the armoury. Allow two hours.

The Angel’s Courtyard inside the castle, with the marble angel at the left. Photo: daryl_mitchell, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Hours and rules

• Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 19:30, last admission 18:30. Closed on Mondays, 25 December and 1 January.
• First Mondays: from 3 August to 7 December 2026 the castle opens from 14:00 to 20:00 (last admission 19:00) on the first Monday of the month, for a €5 ticket sold only on site. The dates left are 5 October, 2 November and 7 December.
• No cloakroom.
• Getting there: the castle is at Lungotevere Castello 50. From Termini, take metro line A to Lepanto, or bus 40 to Ponte Vittorio Emanuele (CoopCulture, 30 September 2026). The Borgo, the old lanes between the castle and St Peter’s, is where the hotels near the Vatican sit.

The castle stands at the end of the road to St Peter’s, so it pairs with the St Peter’s dome climb and the Vatican Museums on a Vatican day, and the 3-day Rome itinerary fits them together. For every other ticket to book, see what to book before you go in Rome.