Visiting the Pantheon: how to buy tickets and avoid hassles
Tourists gather outside the Pantheon.
The Pantheon in Rome now requires admission tickets. We guide you through the process of purchasing tickets and enjoying your visit.
How to get Pantheon admission tickets
The Italian Culture Ministry has introduced an entry fee of €5 to enter the Pantheon in Rome. Two-thirds of the proceeds from the fee will help maintain the most popular cultural site in Italy and the other third goes to the Catholic Church’s charities.
With the Pantheon receiving about nine million visitors a year there should be some serious cash to keep the Pantheon in great shape.
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While the €5 visitor fee is modest it has caused some confusion in the early days of its implementation.
When the fee was first introduced on July 3rd, 2023 many tourists purchased the €10 audio tour on an official Pantheon website. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize their booking did not include the entrance ticket. The entrance ticket needs to be purchased from a different Culture Ministry site or wait in line to purchase on-site.
Officials are worried that a situation may develop similar to a recent ticketing fiasco at the Colosseum. At the Colosseum, all sorts of shifty characters began scamming tourists outside the site. You can read about that situation in our post Our Best Tips for Visiting the Roman Colosseum.
Our advice for Pantheon tickets is the same advice we gave for the Colosseum, use a reputable ticket or tour seller.
Get Your Guide offers a Fast Track Pantheon Entry Ticket with a smartphone Audio Guide for €15. Considering the official entry fee is €5 and the Pantheon sells their audio guide for €10, purchasing the tickets and audio guide through Get Your Guide’s simple and easy website for the same €15 sounds like a great idea.
You can purchase the tickets here.
We were in Rome a year ago and no entry ticket was required but when we return we’ll absolutely use this plan.
Note - This blog post contains affiliate links. This means that if we are recommending a product, activity, or hotel, we might be receiving a small commission if you buy or book from these links. This is done at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products we have personally used or have thoroughly researched.
Why visit the Pantheon?
So why exactly do nine million visitors a year deal with lines and now possible ticketing hassles to visit the Pantheon?
The Pantheon was built by the emperor Hadrian around 126 AD on the site of a temple built during the reign of Caesar Augustus.
Since it has been in constant use since it was built the Pantheon is one of Rome’s best preserved buildings.
Even after two thousand years, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The massive dome is thought to be the inspiration for the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The dome of the Pantheon.
The Pantheon is the burial place of Italian royals - King Vittorio Emanuele II, King Umberto I, and his wife, Queen Margherita.
The Pantheon is still used as a Catholic church and Mass is every Sunday at 10:30 am and on Saturday at 5 pm.
Since it is a Catholic church modest dress is required at all times, not just during Mass.
As with all churches in Italy the dress code rules are:
Shoulders must be kept covered at all times
Knees must always be covered.
No uncovered midriff
As with all major tourist attractions, the best time to visit the Pantheon is early in the morning. So if you book a tour try to get the earliest one possible.
How to get to the Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon is located in Piazza della Rotonda which is packed with cafés and restaurants. Piazza Navona and Piazza Venezia are also close by.
Metro – The nearest metro stations are Spagna and Barberini, both about a 15-minute walk.
Bus – Rome’s bus system offers so much flexibility that numerous bus lines access the area around the Pantheon. The best lines include 30, 70, 81, 87, and 628.
The iconic Piazza Navona is only a 5 minute walk from the Pantheon.
Bottom line Pantheon visit advice
On our most recent trip to Rome, we booked two tours ahead of time, the Vatican and the Colosseum. It helped us avoid the lines and hassles of translated Italian ticketing websites.
Now that the Pantheon requires a ticket we’d suggest adding it to our list of attractions that makes sense to purchase a ticket from a respected tour operator with an easy website.
If you are planning a visit to the Vatican here’s a link to our post tips for visiting the the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s Bascilia.
This post was researched and written by John of the Empty Nest Explorers. You can learn more about the Empty Nest Explorers here.
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