Italy cracks down on Colosseum ticket scalping with multi-million-dollar fines for tour operators.

RomeThe long lines of tourists at the entrances to Rome's monuments are one of the most typical images of the Eternal City. Many travelers try to avoid them by purchasing tickets in advance, but they don't always succeed. For several years, it has been almost impossible to purchase tickets to visit the iconic Roman Colosseum without going through travel agencies, which, through opaque mechanisms, manage to secure most of the available tickets. An irregular practice whose days are numbered.

The Italian competition authority this week imposed fines worth €20 million on half a dozen agencies and tour operators for having "made it difficult" for visitors to purchase tickets online to visit the Roman Colosseum, Italy's most visited monument, with two platforms.

The Cultural Cooperative Society, which managed ticket sales for the Colosseum from 1997 to 2024, has borne the brunt: it will have to pay a €7 million fine. The fine is due to a series of practices that force tourists to buy tickets at significantly higher prices online, which add services such as tour guides or queue skipping.

According to the Italian antitrust agency, this company "has knowingly contributed to the phenomenon of the serious and prolonged unavailability of tickets for the Colosseum at the base price," the statement reads. "This has forced consumers to turn to tour operators and platforms that resold bundled tickets with additional services (e.g., tour guide, pick-up, skip-the-line access) and at significantly higher prices," it added.

Six more tour operators based in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland have also been fined for using bots and other automated systems to purchase large quantities of tickets in a short period of time, which often meant that tourists who approached the monument's ticket windows to purchase individual tickets were found to be sold out. In total, they will have to pay 13 million euros.

The solution: personal tickets.

The investigation began in 2023, when Rome City Councilor for Tourism Alessandro Onorato posted a video on social media exposing what was a public secret in the Italian capital: the impossibility of purchasing tickets at the base price to enter the Colosseum. The start of the investigation led the Colosseum Archaeological Park—operated by the Italian Ministry of Culture—to introduce personal tickets to prevent hoarding and resale by ticket agencies.

Currently, the price to enter the ancient Roman amphitheater is 18 euros for adults. Tickets can be purchased through the monument's official website, via the call center or at the six physical ticket offices for individual visitors, while supplies last. Only 25% of available tickets will be allocated to tour operators.