The best months to visit Venice are late September to early November and late March through April. Daytime highs run between 16 and 23 C, the access fee is either over for the year or confined to clusters of days, and the city is open in full. July and August are the hottest, averaging 27.2 C and 27.4 C by day (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2026). January and February are the quietest and the cheapest.
Three things decide when to come, and they do not move together. The weather follows a normal Adriatic cycle, warm and humid from June to August, wettest in autumn. The access fee applied on 60 separate days between 3 April and 26 July 2026 and was not charged for the rest of the year (ANSA, 2025). Acqua alta is a late autumn and winter phenomenon, with November the clear peak (ISPRA, 2026a). A visit in mid October catches mild weather, no fee and a real chance of a flooded pavement for an hour around high tide.
This page gives the month by month figures, the fee calendar and its likely 2027 shape, the tide statistics, the fixed festival dates and the quietest weeks. Each month has its own page with the detail: venice-in-january, venice-in-february, venice-in-march, venice-in-april, venice-in-may, venice-in-june, venice-in-july, venice-in-august, venice-in-september, venice-in-october, venice-in-november and venice-in-december.
When is the best time to visit Venice?
Two windows stand out. The first runs from the last week of September to early November: daytime highs fall from 22.7 C in September to 17.8 C in October and 12.5 C in November, the light is long enough at 12.5 hours a day in September, and no access fee was charged after 26 July in 2026 (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2026; ANSA, 2025). The cost is rain, since September, October and November are the three wettest months at 120, 118 and 125 mm.
The second window is late March into April, before the fee calendar thickens and before the heat. April averages 16.3 C by day and 8.9 C at night with 13.5 hours of daylight, which is enough to walk the city from early morning to a late dinner.
Avoid mid July and August if heat bothers you. Both months average above 27 C by day and stay above 19.9 C at night, and the lagoon itself reaches 26.7 C in August, so the air holds its humidity overnight (Open-Meteo, 2026b). Avoid the ten days around Carnival and the Easter weekend if crowds bother you. The two conditions rarely coincide, which is why the shoulder months win.
Venice weather month by month
These are the 1991 to 2020 normals for the historic centre, taken from the ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2026). Average daily maximum and minimum in C, then monthly rainfall in mm: January 7.1 and 1.5, 60 mm. February 8.7 and 2.0, 62 mm. March 12.3 and 5.1, 69 mm. April 16.3 and 8.9, 82 mm. May 20.8 and 13.5, 93 mm. June 24.8 and 17.6, 77 mm. July 27.2 and 19.9, 60 mm. August 27.4 and 20.2, 82 mm. September 22.7 and 16.1, 120 mm. October 17.8 and 12.0, 118 mm. November 12.5 and 7.2, 125 mm. December 8.0 and 2.6, 79 mm.
Rain in Venice arrives in bursts rather than drizzle. November has the highest total at 125 mm but only about eleven days with a millimetre or more, so the wet months are not uniformly wet.
Daylight matters as much as temperature for a walking city. Venice gets 9.2 hours a day in January, 13.5 in April, 15.6 in June and 8.8 in December (Open-Meteo, 2026a). Sea surface temperature in the northern Adriatic averaged 9.1 C in February and 26.7 C in August over the decade to 2025, which sets the swimming season at the Lido roughly from June to September (Open-Meteo, 2026b).
Which days does the Venice access fee apply, and at what price?
In 2026 the contributo di accesso applied on 60 separate days between 3 April and 26 July, always between 08:30 and 16:00, up from 54 days in 2025. The days were 3 to 6, 10 to 12, 17 to 19 and 24 to 30 April; 1 to 3, 8 to 10, 15 to 17, 22 to 24 and 29 to 31 May; 1 to 7, 12 to 14, 19 to 21 and 26 to 28 June; and 3 to 5, 10 to 12, 17 to 19 and 24 to 26 July (ANSA, 2025). That is seventeen days in April, fifteen in May, sixteen in June and twelve in July, concentrated on weekends and holiday bridges.
The price was 5 EUR per person when paid by the fourth-to-last day before the visit and 10 EUR inside the final four days. The 2026 season sold 679,553 vouchers for 5,215,035 EUR, with 316,099 at the 5 EUR rate and 363,454 at 10 EUR. Only one day passed 20,000 vouchers, Saturday 2 May with 25,471, against 5.6 per cent of days in 2025 (ANSA, 2026a).
Nothing has been fixed for 2027. The city has said it wants the fee to become permanent and to rise towards 30 EUR on the busiest days, while noting that national law currently caps it at the level of the overnight tourist tax, which is 10 EUR (ANSA, 2026b). Treat any 2027 figure you read as a proposal. See venice-entry-fee for the exemptions and the payment rules.
How often does acqua alta happen, and in which months?
Acqua alta is measured against the tide gauge at Punta della Salute. Water reaching 80 cm above the local datum is the level at which Piazza San Marco begins to flood, and 110 cm is the threshold that puts water across a large part of the centre (ISPRA, 2025).
In 2025 the tide passed 80 cm on 161 occasions, against 227 in 2024. Not all of those reached the city: since 2020 the MOSE barriers have closed the lagoon on the worst days, and ISPRA now counts sea and lagoon cases separately. In 2025 the 110 cm threshold was not crossed once inside the historic centre, while it was crossed seven times outside the barriers (ISPRA, 2026a).
The monthly pattern is sharp. In 2025 November had 26 events at or above 80 cm, the most of any month, and the highest monthly mean sea level of the year at 48.1 cm. March, August and October followed with 17 each. February recorded none at all, which fits the settled high pressure that usually sits over the northern Adriatic in late winter (ISPRA, 2026a). October to December is the season to plan around, and February is the safest month if dry feet are the priority. The underlying frequency is rising: the 2009 to 2025 period shows a clear intensification in both height classes, and 2019 holds the record with 28 events at or above 110 cm (ISPRA, 2025).
Venice festival dates: Carnival, Easter, Redentore and the Biennale
Carnevale di Venezia 2027 runs from 23 January to 9 February 2027, closing on Shrove Tuesday, with Ash Wednesday falling on 10 February 2027 (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2026). The final weekend and the Tuesday are the densest days in Piazza San Marco all winter. See venice-carnival for the programme and venice-in-february for what the city is like around it.
Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March, which pulls the first big crowd of the year into a week that also carries the Italian school holiday (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2026).
The Redentore is the city's own festival, held on the third weekend of July. In 2026 the votive pontoon bridge to the Giudecca opened on Friday 17 July and the fireworks over the Bacino di San Marco started at 23:30 on Saturday 18 July (La Nuova Venezia, 2026). Hotels in the centre sell out for that Saturday.
The Biennale sets the rhythm of the rest of the year. The 61st Art Exhibition ran from 9 May to 22 November 2026 at the Giardini and the Arsenale, and the 20th Architecture Exhibition runs from 8 May to 21 November 2027, with a pre-opening on 6 and 7 May (La Biennale di Venezia, 2026a, 2026c). The film festival takes the Lido for eleven days at the start of September: the 83rd edition ran from 2 to 12 September 2026 (La Biennale di Venezia, 2026b).
The cheapest and quietest weeks to visit Venice
The cheapest stretch is the second half of January and the first half of February, once Epiphany is over and before Carnival opens. It is also the coldest, at 7.1 C and 8.7 C by day, and the darkest, at 9.2 and 10.4 hours of daylight, so plan around museums, churches and long lunches (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2026). February 2025 recorded no tide above 80 cm at all, so the flooding risk is at its annual low (ISPRA, 2026a).
The second quiet window is the last ten days of November into the first half of December, after the Biennale closes on 21 November in 2027 and before the Christmas market weeks. November is the wettest month at 125 mm and the worst for acqua alta, which is exactly why rooms are cheap.
Early December, mid March and the first week of July also sit between peaks. In 2026 the fee calendar left 7 to 9 April, 13 to 16 April and 20 to 23 April free of charge, and the same weekday-cluster logic is likely to return if the 2027 calendar follows the pattern (ANSA, 2025).
Avoid Carnival's closing weekend, the Easter weekend, the 25 April and 1 May bridge, the Redentore Saturday, the film festival's first weekend and the Biennale opening week if budget is the priority.
Which month to choose for your kind of trip
For a first visit of two or three days, take the second half of October. Highs of 17.8 C are comfortable for walking, the fee has not applied since July, and the Biennale is still open in the years it runs. Bring boots and check the tide forecast each evening: October 2025 carried 17 events at or above 80 cm, and they pass in a couple of hours (ISPRA, 2026a). See venice-in-two-days for a route that works in short daylight.
For a budget trip, take late January or early February. Rooms are at their cheapest, the 80 cm threshold was not crossed once in February 2025, and Carnival has not started if you keep to the weeks before 23 January 2027 (Carnevale di Venezia, 2026). Expect 7 to 9 C by day and short afternoons.
For islands, boats and swimming, take June or September. June averages 24.8 C with 15.6 hours of daylight, and September holds a sea temperature of 24.5 C while the air cools to 22.7 C (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2026; Open-Meteo, 2026a, 2026b). June carried sixteen fee days in 2026, so book early and pay the 5 EUR rate rather than the 10 EUR one. September is the better of the two for the lagoon, with the caveat that the first fortnight belongs to the film festival.
