Ostia Antica Tickets and Entrance Fee 2026

Ostia Antica admission prices 2026

Prices in euros. The ticket is valid for eight days from first entry for one visit each to the excavations, the Museo Ostiense, the Decorated Houses and the Necropolis of Porto.

* Reduction for EU citizens aged 18 to 25 with ID. Prices according to Parco archeologico di Ostia antica and CoopCulture, as of 26 September 2026; the park usually adjusts its prices at the start of the year. On 8 March admission is free for women. Special openings such as the Lapidary Gallery are announced separately. Train and audio guide are providers’ prices and change.

Ostia or Pompeii: which is more worth it?

• Ostia if you are in Rome: Half an hour by train instead of a day’s journey to Campania, €18 instead of €20 to 25, and a town as large as Pompeii with a fraction of the visitors. Ostia shows the Roman city of the imperial age: apartment blocks with balconies, warehouses, baths, bars, guild offices with mosaics. What it lacks are the casts of the dead and the drama of a single day.
• Pompeii if you want the catastrophe: Villas with complete wall paintings, theatres, an amphitheatre, bakeries with loaves, the casts. That is the snapshot found nowhere else, and it costs a whole day from Naples plus the crowds. If you can see both, you experience two different towns, not a duplicate.
• The day at Ostia: At the entrance at 8.30 am, along the decumanus to the theatre and the Piazzale delle Corporazioni, then the House of Diana, the Thermopolium and the forum, midday in the shade of the pines, in the afternoon the House of Cupid and Psyche, the synagogue and the Porta Marina, the museum last. Three to four hours for the highlights, six for the whole town.
• First Sunday of the month: Free admission and correspondingly busy by Ostia standards, yet quieter than Pompeii on any weekday; if you can choose, come on a Tuesday or Wednesday early in the morning.

Ostia Antica opening hours

The park is closed on Mondays, on 1 January and on 25 December; on public holidays falling on a Monday it usually opens by exception, and the official site lists the dates. The Decorated Houses, houses with wall paintings, open only at set times or with an escort. The Museo Ostiense opens later than the park.

Buying tickets: online from CoopCulture or at the booth

Just the ticket? Buy it online from CoopCulture, the park’s official ticketing partner: choose a date, €18 plus a booking fee, ticket as a QR code on your phone. Or at the booth at the entrance, Viale dei Romagnoli 717, where hardly anyone queues except on free Sundays. Free and reduced tickets are issued only at the booth with ID. Current rules and special openings are on ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it.

With a guide or transport? Then a package makes sense. Providers such as GetYourGuide bundle ticket and audio guide, a tour with an archaeologist, or ticket plus train from Rome; half-day tours collect you at the metro. The value lies in the guide: Ostia is large and signposted but uncommented, and the best houses lie away from the decumanus.

Note: The ticket is valid for eight days but for one entry per site; if you leave the park you cannot come back in the same day. The excavation is two kilometres long and short of shade, and the paving is uneven; only the main paths suit pushchairs and wheelchairs. The café is in the middle of the park by the Forum Baths.

Free admission and discounts

• Under 18: free with ID, regardless of nationality.
• EU citizens aged 18 to 25: €2 with ID; non-EU citizens of that age pay full price.
• People with disabilities and one companion, teachers, EU tour guides and interpreters, ICOM members, journalists: free under the Italian Ministry of Culture rules, proof at the booth.
• First Sunday of the month, 25 April, 2 June, 4 November: free for all; collect the ticket at the booth on the day. On 8 March free admission for women.
• Fidelity Card: a year of unlimited entry to the excavations and the Castello di Giulio II; worth it from the second visit.

Ostia Antica with a guide: on site or from Rome

Ostia is a whole town, and the signs explain buildings, not connections: why the shipowners laid mosaics, who lived in the House of Diana, what a mithraeum was. A three-hour tour puts decumanus, theatre, forum and residential quarters in order and takes you to the houses you would miss on your own. Most tours run in English, some in German; choose the language when booking.

Affiliate links to GetYourGuide: we may earn a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you. Prices, languages and availability change; the provider’s listing prevails. Selection checked on 26 September 2026.

Getting there: from Rome, from the airport and by car

Ostia Antica lies in the south-west of Rome, 25 kilometres from the centre. The easiest way is the Metromare, the former Roma–Lido railway: from Porta San Paolo, right next to Piramide station on Metro B, trains run every ten to fifteen minutes, and the journey to Ostia Antica takes about 30 minutes. The ordinary Rome ticket, the ATAC BIT, is valid, and covers the metro to get there. From the station cross the footbridge over the Via Ostiense and turn left along Viale dei Romagnoli, five to ten minutes to the booth. The Metro B stations San Paolo and Eur Magliana also connect to the Metromare.

By car, take the Via del Mare or the Via Ostiense out of town, 30 to 40 minutes from the centre, or the exit towards Ostia from the GRA ring road; there is a paid car park at the entrance. From Fiumicino airport it is only six kilometres as the crow flies: a taxi takes a quarter of an hour, while train and bus go via Rome or Lido di Ostia. For the beach, Lido di Ostia is three stations further on.

Entrance, ticket office and routes

Entrance, Viale dei Romagnoli 717

The only entrance, at the eastern edge of the excavation near the Porta Romana: ticket office, toilets, bookshop, audio guides. From here the Decumanus Maximus runs as the main axis two kilometres west to the Porta Marina; the highlights lie to its right and left.

Museo Ostiense

In the middle of the park near the forum, reopened in 2023 after restoration: sculptures, portraits, sarcophagi and the finds from the mithraea. Opens at 9.30 am and closes before the park; included in the ticket.

Decorated Houses

Houses with surviving wall paintings, such as the Insula delle Muse and the Insula dei Dipinti, open only at fixed times or with an escort for conservation reasons; the times are posted at the booth.

Castello di Giulio II

The castle of 1486 in the borgo, five minutes from the entrance, with its own ticket from CoopCulture and limited opening hours. The borgo with the church of Sant’Aurea, where Monica’s epitaph was found, is freely accessible.

The entrance, the station, the houses and three routes are on our Ostia Antica map. How the town rose, was abandoned and found again is told in our history of Ostia Antica.

Around Ostia: Portus, Isola Sacra, Lido

The artificial harbour of Portus built by Claudius and Trajan lies four kilometres north by Fiumicino airport; Trajan’s hexagonal basin survives as a lake, and the park of the imperial harbours has its own opening days and its own ticket from CoopCulture. The Museo delle Navi in Fiumicino shows Roman ships from the harbour. The Necropolis of Porto on the Isola Sacra, with the brick tombs of the harbour workers, is included in the Ostia ticket.

Lido di Ostia, Rome’s beach, is three Metromare stations further on; in summer the day among the ruins can end with a swim. In Rome the Museo Nazionale Romano and the Vatican Museums show many finds from Ostia, including the statues the popes had dug up in 1801 and 1855. Pompeii and Herculaneum lie two train hours further south; prices are in our guides.