Venice in March: Weather, Easter, Tides and Costs

What is the weather like in Venice in March?

March is where the Venetian year turns. On the 1991 to 2020 reference period the mean daily maximum is 12.3 degrees C and the mean daily minimum 5.1 degrees C in the ERA5 reanalysis for the city point (Open-Meteo, 2026). The airport station record agrees closely at 12.9 and 5.3 degrees C, so both figures can be read as they stand (Meteostat, 2026).

The gain on February is about 3.7 degrees by day, and the change in how the month feels is larger than that number suggests. February keeps about 19 afternoons below 10 degrees C and about seven nights at or below freezing. March has about five such afternoons and one such night. April then adds another four degrees, which is why the same pattern shows up in the ISPRA record as a rise of roughly 4 degrees a month in mean maxima from February to May (ISPRA, 2026).

Rain is moderate and spread out: about 68 mm over close to eight days recording 1 mm or more (Open-Meteo, 2026). Single months vary widely. March 2025 collected 94 mm over 13 rainy days, the third wettest month of that year and the one with the most rainy days of any month in it (ISPRA, 2026). The station extremes for March run from 23.4 degrees C on 24 March 1994 to minus 6.2 degrees C on 1 March 2005 (Meteostat, 2026).

Does Venice flood in March?

Rarely at any depth, and often enough at the shallow end to be worth checking. 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 starts to flood (ISPRA, 2026).

Of the 324 tides of 110 cm or more recorded at Venice between 1872 and 2019, 11 fell in March. That places the month sixth, well behind November with 108, December with 79, October with 45, February with 36 and January with 28 (ISPRA, Comune di Venezia & CNR-ISMAR, 2026). None of the 25 exceptional tides of 140 cm or more in the same register is a March event, and the highest March reading it holds is 125 cm on 31 March 2013. The other March entries above 120 cm are 122 cm on 31 March 1992, 121 cm on 5 March 2016 and 124 cm on 18 March 2018, a year that produced three March events. Since the MOSE barriers entered service the register carries one March entry, 118 cm on 10 March 2024.

Shallow flooding is a different story. In 2025 March recorded 17 tides at or above 80 cm, second only to November with 26, and its monthly mean sea level ran about 8 cm above the 2005 to 2024 average for the month (ISPRA, 2026).

Low tides in March, when the canals drain

March closes the season at the other end of the range as well. The register of low tides of 90 cm below datum or lower at Punta della Salute holds 41 events between 1923 and 2024, and every one of them falls between December and March: 20 in February, nine in January, nine in December and three in March (ISPRA, Comune di Venezia & CNR-ISMAR, 2026).

The three March entries are 100 cm below datum on 11 March 1926, 90 cm below on 13 March 1926 and 112 cm below on 30 March 1935. The last of those is among the lowest half dozen readings in the whole register, whose minimum is 124 cm below datum on 18 January 1882 and whose maximum excursion between a high and the following low is 318 cm.

What that means on the ground is mud rather than water in the smaller canals for a few hours, moored boats resting on the bottom, and side routes that gondolas and delivery boats cannot use. Very low water of that order has not been recorded in March since 1935, so treat it as a possibility rather than a plan. The daily ISPRA forecast gives both ends of the range for the next few days and is the thing to check the evening before.

When is Easter 2027 and what does it mean for a March visit?

Easter falls inside March in 2027. Palm Sunday is 21 March, Holy Thursday 25 March, Good Friday 26 March and Easter Sunday 28 March, with Easter Monday following on 29 March (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2026). The last third of the month therefore carries Holy Week, an Italian long weekend and the first big travel dates of the year, while the first three weeks stay in low season.

Carnival is over by then. Carnival 2027 closes on Shrove Tuesday, 9 February, so March holds none of it (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2026).

Two practical consequences follow. First, the churches keep visiting hours around the liturgy: St Mark's Basilica admits visitors from 09.30 Monday to Saturday with last entry at 16.45, and on Sundays and public holidays it opens to visitors only at 14.00, while the Museo and the Loggia dei Cavalli still open at 09.30 (Procuratoria di San Marco, 2026). Easter Sunday is one of those afternoons. Second, book rooms and trains for the Easter weekend well ahead, and expect the quietest stretch of the month in the fortnight before Palm Sunday. The Su e Zo per i Ponti walk, which fills the bridges in spring, falls outside March in 2027, on 18 April (Su e Zo per i Ponti, 2026).

Daylight, the clock change and opening hours

March adds an hour and 36 minutes of daylight. Venice gets 11 hours and 11 minutes between sunrise and sunset on 1 March 2027, 11 hours and 55 minutes on the 15th and 12 hours and 46 minutes on the 31st, with the first day longer than twelve hours falling on 17 March (Sunrise-Sunset.org, 2026).

The clocks then move. European summer time begins on the last Sunday in March at 01.00 UTC, which in 2027 is 28 March, the same day as Easter (IANA Time Zone Database, 2026). Clocks in Italy go from 02.00 to 03.00 that night. Sunset jumps from 18.25 on 21 March to 19.34 on 28 March and 19.38 on the 31st, so the last week of the month gives long evenings that the first week does not.

Opening hours run the other way round. The winter timetable holds for almost all of March. Palazzo Ducale and the St Mark's Square museums open 09.00 to 18.00 with last admission at 17.00 until 31 March, and move to 09.00 to 19.00 with last admission at 18.00 on 1 April (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, 2026). The Campanile keeps winter hours as well, opening at 09.30 with last entry between 18.00 and 18.45 (Procuratoria di San Marco, 2026). Plan indoor visits for the morning and the new evening light for walking.

What does a visit to Venice in March cost?

March sits below the charged season on every count that the city controls.

There was no access fee in March. 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, and it covered the historic centre alone, with Murano, Burano and the Lido excluded (Venice Visit Pass, 2026). No March date has carried the charge in any calendar published so far, and no 2027 calendar had been published when this page was written, so check before travelling if your dates fall near the end of the month.

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 Aerobus to the airport is 10.00 EUR one way and 18.00 EUR return.

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 bought online at least thirty days ahead (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, 2026).

Is March a good time to visit Venice?

For most purposes it is the best of the cheap months. The weather has turned, the daylight is back, the flood risk is at its lowest since October, and the city has not yet started charging day visitors or running summer hours.

The crowd picture splits in two, as the calendar does. The Comune's own charged days give a usable signal of when it expects pressure: in 2026 the charge began on 3 April and ran to 26 July, which puts March outside the period the city treats as busy (Venice Visit Pass, 2026). In 2027 the Easter weekend of 28 and 29 March sits at the end of the month, and that weekend will behave like April rather than like March.

Bring layers, a waterproof and shoes that cope with wet stone. March rain arrives in ordinary quantities, about 68 mm over eight days on the long record, and one month in the recent series delivered half again as much (Open-Meteo, 2026; ISPRA, 2026). The city is also windier and more changeable in March than in midwinter, since January, March and October carry the widest monthly swings in atmospheric pressure of the year, around 40 hPa (ISPRA, 2026). Check the ISPRA tide forecast each evening, aim the museums at mornings, and keep the last hour before sunset free.