Venice in February: Carnival, Weather, Tides and Costs

What is the weather like in Venice in February?

February is the month the Venetian winter starts to give way. On the 1991 to 2020 reference period the mean daily maximum is about 8.6 degrees C and the mean daily minimum about 3.8 degrees C in the MERRA-2 reanalysis for the city point (NASA POWER, 2026). That grid cell sits over open water and runs warm overnight, so the better figure for the minimum is the 1.8 degrees C recorded at the Venice airport station over the same thirty years, where the mean maximum comes out at 8.9 degrees C (Meteostat, 2026). Read the night figure as about 2 degrees C.

Against January the gain is about a degree and a half by day. Roughly 18 of the 28 days still fail to reach 10 degrees C in the afternoon, against about 27 days in 31 in January, so the cold is loosening rather than lifting.

February also has the fewest wet days of the year. It averages about 57 mm of rain spread over roughly 6.7 days recording 1 mm or more, the smallest count of any month in the series (NASA POWER, 2026). Settled high pressure is the reason, and 2025 showed it plainly: February carried the highest monthly mean atmospheric pressure of that year at 1024.5 hPa and the smallest spread in daily maxima at 8.1 degrees (ISPRA, 2026). The station extremes run from 18.1 degrees C on 27 February 2019 to minus 9.0 degrees C on 7 February 1991 (Meteostat, 2026).

When is Venice Carnival in 2027?

Carnival always ends on Shrove Tuesday, and the church calendar fixes that date rather than the organisers. Ash Wednesday falls on 10 February 2027 (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2026), which places Shrove Tuesday on 9 February 2027 and Giovedi Grasso, the Thursday that opens the final stretch, on 4 February 2027. Easter 2027 is early, on 28 March, which pulls Carnival to the front of February.

The start date is set each year by the organisers and published in the autumn. The official Carnival site returned HTTP 403 when this page was written, so no 2027 opening date is stated here. The shape of the event is documented even so. Across the six editions measured in the only peer-reviewed study of the modern carnival, the main run lasted eleven or twelve days and closed on Shrove Tuesday every time, and two of them added a separate opening weekend a week earlier: 25 January to 5 February 2008, 14 to 24 February 2009, 6 to 16 February 2010, 9 to 20 February 2011, 4 to 5 and 11 to 21 February 2012, and 26 to 27 January with 2 to 12 February 2013 (Santoro & Massiani, 2014).

On that pattern the busy stretch in 2027 falls in the first nine days of February, with the final weekend on 6 and 7 February and the two peak days on 8 and 9 February. Check the official programme before booking, since the opening date can move by several days.

Is Venice crowded during Carnival?

Less than the reputation suggests, and far more than the rest of February. The measured figures separate the crowd Carnival adds from the crowd that would have come anyway. Across the six editions from 2008 to 2013 the event drew 18,000 to 34,000 additional hotel arrivals, 54,000 to 108,000 additional hotel nights and 250,000 to 500,000 additional day trips, against roughly 4.1 million arrivals and 12 million day visitors for the city in a full year (Santoro & Massiani, 2014). The day-trip estimates come from police counts at the city gates and from railway records.

The same study puts the public cost of the event at 1.56 to 2.27 million euros a year and the measured benefit at 12.2 to 15.5 million, and it says directly that it could not put a price on overcrowding, which is the cost residents raise.

Two practical points follow. First, the crowd is concentrated rather than spread: most of those day trips land on the final weekend and on Shrove Tuesday, in Piazza San Marco, which is where queues, closed access and one-way pedestrian routes appear. Second, the event is what keeps the winter trade alive, since the study notes it allows many hotels to avoid closing for the season. A visit in the last week of February, after Carnival has ended, gets the same winter light and hours without any of that.

Does Venice flood in February?

Rather more often than January, and less often than autumn. Tide heights are measured against the Punta della Salute datum of 1897, and 80 cm above it is where the lowest ground in Piazza San Marco begins to flood (ISPRA, 2026).

Of the 324 tides of 110 cm or more recorded at Venice between 1872 and 2019, 34 fell in February. That places the month fourth, behind November, December and October, and ahead of January with 28 (ISPRA, Comune di Venezia & CNR-ISMAR, 2026). February also reaches higher than January does. Three of the 25 exceptional tides of 140 cm or more in that record are February events: 140 cm on 17 February 1979, 158 cm on 1 February 1986 and 144 cm on 12 February 2013. The 1986 event is the fourth highest tide in the Venice series, behind 194 cm in November 1966, 189 cm in November 2019 and 166 cm in December 1979.

When February floods, it comes in runs. Six events fell between 1 and 6 February 2015, and four between 1 and 3 February 2019.

Since 2020 the MOSE barriers have taken the top off the range. February appears twice in the 2020 to 2024 register, on 9 and 10 February 2021 and from 10 to 12 February 2024, with levels of 111 to 127 cm measured at sea rather than in the centre. Across 2025 no tide of 110 cm or more was recorded in the historic centre against seven at sea (ISPRA, 2026).

Low water in February, when the canals drain

The distinctive February tide runs the other way. The register of low tides of 90 cm below datum or lower at Punta della Salute holds 41 events between 1923 and 2024, and 20 of them, nearly half, fell in February (ISPRA, Comune di Venezia & CNR-ISMAR, 2026). No other month comes close, with nine in January, nine in December and three in March.

February holds the record in that register as well. The lowest level it contains is 121 cm below datum on 14 February 1934, part of four consecutive days that read 113, 121, 108 and 101 cm from the 13th to the 16th. February 1932 produced another four-day run, from the 21st to the 24th. Only the minimum of 124 cm below datum on 18 January 1882 sits lower, in a series whose extreme range is 318 cm.

The cause is the settled weather described above. In 2025 February was the only month with no tide at or above 80 cm and carried the lowest monthly mean sea level of the year, about 5 cm below its own 2005 to 2024 average while every other month ran above, which ISPRA attributes to persistent high pressure over the basin (ISPRA, 2026).

On the ground a very low tide means mud rather than water in the smaller canals, moored boats sitting on the bottom and some side routes out of use for a few hours. It passes within the same day.

What does a visit to Venice in February cost?

The fixed costs are the same as any winter month, and the variable one is the bed.

There is no access fee. The 2026 calendar applied the day visitor charge on 60 days only, from 3 April to 26 July, between 08.30 and 16.00, at 5.00 EUR for visitors who paid by the fourth day before arrival and 10.00 EUR for those who paid later, covering the historic centre alone (Venice Visit Pass, 2026). No February date has carried the charge so far, and no 2027 calendar had been published when this page was written.

Transport does not vary by season. A single 75 minute Rete Unica ticket is 9.50 EUR, the Venezia Daily Pass is 25.00 EUR, and the multi-day tickets run 35.00 EUR for two days, 45.00 EUR for three and 65.00 EUR for seven, with a three day Rolling Venice ticket at 27.00 EUR for ages 6 to 29 on a 6.00 EUR card (ACTV, 2026). The St Mark's Square museums ticket, which covers the Doge's Palace, is 35.00 EUR full and 15.00 EUR reduced, or 30.00 EUR online thirty days ahead (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, 2026).

Accommodation is where February splits in two. Carnival is the one stretch of the winter when rooms are in demand, since it is what keeps many hotels open through the season (Santoro & Massiani, 2014). The days after Shrove Tuesday return to low season rates. Winter sales in the Veneto run to 28 February (Regione del Veneto, 2026).

Is February a good time to visit Venice?

It depends on which February you book. The first nine days of 2027 are Carnival, with costumes in the campi, a programme on the water and in Piazza San Marco, and the crowding described above. The rest of the month is the quietest and cheapest part of the Venetian year.

Daylight improves quickly. Venice gets 9 hours and 48 minutes between sunrise and sunset on 1 February 2027, 10 hours and 28 minutes on the 15th and 11 hours and 8 minutes on the 28th, a gain of 1 hour and 19 minutes across the month. The sun is up at about 07.30 and down at 17.18 local time at the start, and 06.49 to 17.57 by the end (Sunrise-Sunset.org, 2026).

Winter opening times shorten the usable day. From 1 November to 31 March the Doge's Palace opens 09.00 to 18.00, last admission 17.00 (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, 2026). St Mark's Basilica admits visitors from 09.30 Monday to Saturday, last entry 16.45 (Procuratoria di San Marco, 2026). On Sundays and public holidays the basilica opens to visitors only at 14.00, while the museum and the Loggia dei Cavalli still open at 09.30. Both Carnival weekends include a Sunday, so plan those as afternoons.

Pack for cold damp rather than for rain: a warm coat, layers and shoes that cope with wet stone. Check the ISPRA forecast the evening before each day, since in February the low end of the tide is the one more likely to change your route.