Best Tickets for the Trevi Fountain
Seeing the Trevi Fountain is free. Underneath it, though, is a Roman quarter, and a guided tour takes you down into it.
A guide meets you at the fountain for the history and the sculpture, then takes you down into Vicus Caprarius, the “City of Water”: Roman streets, a wealthy house, and the channel of the aqueduct that feeds the fountain. Headsets keep you with the guide. Free cancellation up to a day before.
Trevi Fountain underground: the Domus tour
The underground on its own, guided through the three sections of the City of Water, starting at the site entrance a minute from the fountain. Free cancellation up to a day before.
Highlights
Tickets & Prices
You can stand in the piazza, take your photos and watch the water without paying a thing.
One exception, since February 2026
- To go down into the gated area right at the water’s edge, the city charges €2 a head, between 9:00 and 22:00.
- Before nine in the morning and after ten at night the barrier is open and the edge is free again.
- It is a City of Rome scheme, capped so only so many people stand at the water at once, and booked through the city rather than any tour company.
- Residents, young children, and disabled visitors with a companion go free. You book it on the city’s official Trevi page, at tourist points around Rome, or at the card machines on site.
The guided tours here go underground:
For a wider Rome trip, the Rome Tourist Card bundles the Colosseum, the Vatican and more.
Plan Your Visit
When to Go
- The fountain is out in the open and free to look at at any hour.
- Early morning is the calm window. By seven the square is nearly empty, quiet enough that the fountain is the loudest thing in it.
- After dark it is floodlit and glowing, though between about 22:00 and 1:00 it stays busy.
- The middle of the day is the crush. By midday in summer the square fills, and you see phones and selfie sticks more than the fountain.
Getting There
- Piazza di Trevi, in the centre of Rome. The nearest metro is Barberini on Line A, about a five-to-seven-minute walk.
- Buses run nearby along Via del Tritone.
Map & Address
What to See & Do
The Trevi fills a small square where three streets meet, and the crowd reaches you before the water does.
The fountain and the coin toss
natursports/DepositphotosNicola Salvi designed it, and it is pure Baroque theatre, built into the front of Palazzo Poli. In the centre the sea god Oceanus rides a shell chariot, drawn by two sea-horses and led by two tritons. One horse is calm, the other rears and fights the reins, the two of them the moods of the sea.
The water pours down the rock and into a wide basin below.
Look to either side of Oceanus. Abundance stands in the left niche, water spilling from her urn, and Health in the right, a snake drinking from her cup.
Above them, two carved panels tell how the water got here: the general Agrippa approving the aqueduct, and the young girl who, the story goes, showed thirsty soldiers the hidden spring that gave the Aqua Virgo its name.
Off on the right balustrade sits a big travertine vase the Romans call the “Ace of Cups”. The tale is that Salvi set it there to blot out the view of a barber who kept picking holes in his work.
If the whole thing looks like a film set, it has been one. Anita Ekberg waded into this basin in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
For all the crowds, there is a lot to pick out, and the scale takes a while to register.
Maridav/DepositphotosThen the coin. Stand with your back to the water, take a coin in your right hand and throw it over your left shoulder. One coin, the legend goes, brings you back to Rome. Two is for romance, three for a marriage. The coins are swept up and given to Caritas, the Catholic charity, for food banks and shelters across the city. Roughly a million euros a year lands in the water.
Beneath the fountain: Vicus Caprarius and the aqueduct
The Trevi has been fed the same way for two thousand years, down the Aqua Virgo, the one ancient Roman aqueduct still working. You can go and see it. A few steps from the fountain, a stair drops about nine metres into the site below.
Down there is a Roman apartment block later turned into a wealthy house, and the aqueduct’s cistern, where the water still gathers and runs on towards the fountain above. Display cases hold a hoard of coins and old amphorae. It is small, a single house, and cool and quiet even in August. After the crush upstairs, that is the whole point.
Insider Tips
- Keep a hand on your bag and your phone. The tight, distracted crowd is a pickpocket’s favourite.
- Don’t climb into the water or sit on the marble. Both bring a fine.
- When the heat and the crowds get too much, the underground is the escape: cool and quiet, right below the square.
- The €2 for the water’s edge buys you a calmer spot at the water, away from the scrum on the steps above.
- Look for the smaller fountain to the right, the lovers’ fountain. The legend says couples who drink from it stay together.
Did You Know?
- Nicola Salvi designed the Trevi and died before it was finished, in 1762, by Giuseppe Pannini.
- The water comes down the Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct the Romans built in 19 BC under Augustus. The same channel still feeds the Barcaccia fountain at the Spanish Steps.
- The three-coin tradition was made famous by the 1954 film “Three Coins in the Fountain”.
FAQs
Do you need a ticket for the Trevi Fountain?
No. The view from the piazza is free. The city charges €2 to step down into the gated area at the water’s edge, and the guided underground beneath it is a separate ticket.
How much is the Trevi Fountain fee?
€2 a person for the water’s-edge area, charged from 9:00 to 22:00 and booked through the city. It costs nothing before 9:00 or after 22:00, when the barrier comes up.
What is the best time to visit the Trevi Fountain?
Early morning for calm, or late evening for the floodlit fountain. The middle of the day is the busiest, and the hardest to see anything through.
When was the Trevi Fountain built?
It was finished in 1762, to Nicola Salvi’s Baroque design, and fed by an aqueduct the Romans built over 2,000 years ago.
How does the Trevi Fountain coin toss work?
Right hand, over the left shoulder, with your back to the water. One coin is the wish to come back to Rome, two and three for romance and marriage.
Can you go under the Trevi Fountain?
Yes, on a guided tour. It leads down into Vicus Caprarius, a Roman house and the aqueduct cistern that still feeds the fountain overhead.