Milan Tickets and City Passes

Milan tickets are cheap by Italian standards — €11.50 to walk into the cathedral, €2.20 to cross the city, €13 for Italy’s largest science museum — which is exactly why a Milan city pass is not automatically a saving. The passes on sale range from €13.99 to €99, they include wildly different things, and three of them are the city’s own official product under the YesMilano name. Below: what each pass covers, the arithmetic that shows when it beats single tickets, and a table of single ticket prices by attraction so you can build your own total. Prices checked September 2026.

The passes at a glance

Milan City Card — €46.50

The tightest and most popular of the bundles, rated 4.1 across 118 reviews. It includes entrance to the Duomo di Milano, the Duomo Museum, the Church of San Gottardo (excluded on Wednesdays), the Duomo Rooftops, the Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci with its temporary exhibition subject to availability, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, and an audio guide app covering more than 100 points in the city.

The maths. Bought separately at partner prices: Duomo entry with rooftop access €26, science museum €13, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana €18.50, audio guide app €6 — €63.50 in total against €46.50. That is a genuine €17 saving, and it holds even if you skip the audio guide app (€57.50 against €46.50).

Who it suits. Two-day visitors who want the cathedral and the rooftops, one big museum and one quiet picture gallery, and who intend to walk. It buys no transport, and it does not include Teatro alla Scala, Castello Sforzesco’s museums or the Cenacolo.

Official Milan passes — YesMilano, €39.90 to €90

These are the city’s own passes, and the official pass site (citypass.yesmilano.it) sells three tiers, not the two you usually see quoted. All of them are fully digital, with maps and audio guides in the app and extra discounts of up to 30% inside it, and all include unlimited ATM travel in zones Mi1–Mi3 plus the Metro M4 run to and from Linate airport.

Flash, €39.90. A 24-hour transport ticket, one Duomo activity of your choice, one further activity of your choice, the free-entry civic museums, 20% off Monza attractions and the app discounts. This is the tier nobody mentions and it is the right answer more often than the €60 one: with a single full day in Milan you cannot use three days of anything.

Standard, €60. Duomo cathedral and rooftop by stairs — the official conditions say “Duomo Cathedral and Rooftop with stairs”, so the terraces are in, and this is the detail most write-ups get wrong. Then Sforza Castle museums with the Pietà Rondanini, Civic Aquarium, GAM Gallery of Modern Art, Archaeological Museum, Museo del Novecento, Natural History Museum, one premium activity of your choice, plus the three days of transport. Note that the official inclusion list does not name Galleria Campari, although the partner listing does — if that one matters to you, check it at the pass operator’s checkout rather than taking either list on trust.

All Inclusive, €90. Everything in the Standard tier with the rooftop upgraded to the lift, plus the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Bagatti Valsecchi, Leonardo3, the ADI Design Museum, Galleria Campari, the Triennale, the Sforza Castle panoramic walls, the Diocesan Museum, Highline Galleria, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana with the Crypt of San Sepolcro, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Villa Necchi Campiglio and the Museum of Senses. It is a genuinely long list, and the only pass here that reaches the two house museums the civic cards miss.

The maths on the All-Inclusive. Nine of its inclusions priced individually at partner rates — three days of ATM travel €15.50, Duomo with rooftop €26, Sforza Castle museums €20, Museo del Novecento €18.50, Natural History Museum €16.50, science museum €13, Museo Teatrale alla Scala €15.96, Villa Necchi Campiglio €18, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana €18.50 — come to €161.96. Against €90, this is the best-value pass in Milan for anyone who actually likes museums. The catch is stamina: nine museums in three days is a lot of indoor time, and the ratings on both official passes (3.5 and 3.6) reflect people who bought them and then used two entries.

Break-even. With transport included, the €90 pass pays for itself at roughly four paid museums plus three days of travel. The €60 Standard pays for itself at three. Below that, single tickets win.

Milan City Pass Zani Viaggi — €99

The bus-and-transport pass: 48 or 72 hours depending on the option, City Sightseeing hop-on hop-off included, ATM public transport for the same 48 or 72 hours, the Duomo rooftop terraces by lift, La Scala museum and theatre, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Museum of Science and Technology, Leonardo3 “The World of Leonardo”, Bagatti Valsecchi, the Museo d’Arte e Scienza, a city map and guidebook, and a discount voucher booklet.

The maths. Hop-on hop-off €25, ATM three-day €15.50, Duomo with rooftop €26, La Scala museum €15.96, Ambrosiana €18.50, science museum €13, Leonardo3 €16 — €129.96 against €99. It works, but only if you use the bus and at least four of the museums. Use two museums and the bus, and you have paid €99 for about €80 of product. Its 3.9 rating from 162 reviews reads like exactly that experience.

Who it suits. Three-day visitors who want the hop-on hop-off bus anyway and plan a museum-heavy itinerary. If you were never going to ride the bus, the €90 official pass covers more museums for less.

Transport: what ATM actually costs

According to the official ATM site, the integrated Milan fare zone Mi1–Mi3 works like this:

• €2.20 — urban ticket, valid 90 minutes from first validation, unlimited changes on metro, tram and bus.
• €7.60 — single-day ticket, 24 hours from first validation.
• €15.50 — 3-day ticket, three consecutive days until the end of service on the third day.
• €19.50 — carnet of ten 90-minute tickets.

Those fares are also valid on Trenord trains inside the zone. Contactless bank cards work directly at the metro gates and on board, which makes the €13.99 “Milan Public Transport Card” a hard sell — it rates 2.8 and does not state a clearer duration than ATM’s own tickets do. Unless you specifically want its audio guide, buy from ATM.

Tourist Museum Card

The Comune di Milano’s own card for the civic museums — Castello Sforzesco’s museums, GAM, Museo del Novecento, the Archaeological Museum, the Natural History Museum and the rest of the municipal network — valid three days. It is the cheap, no-frills alternative to the official passes if the Duomo and transport are not part of your plan: you buy museum access and nothing else.

€20, with one entry each to the Acquario Civico, GAM, the Castello Sforzesco museums, the Museo Archeologico, the Museo del Novecento and the Natural History Museum, plus the free-entry venues: Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano, Palazzo Moriggia–Museo del Risorgimento, the Mudec permanent collection and Palazzo Morando. Three of those six paid museums and the card has paid for itself; two and it has not.

The validity is more generous than it looks. It is sold open-date: the three consecutive days start on your first entry, not on the day you buy, and you have twelve months to use it. It is also not nominative, so a couple can share one card across different days — just not the same museum twice.

The catch is temporary exhibitions. The card’s own conditions state that where a museum has a surcharged exhibition inside the visitor route, you pay the difference at the ticket desk. So it buys the permanent collections, and the blockbuster show is extra. If the exhibition is the reason you are going, price that ticket on its own and treat the card as a bonus.

The 5% bundle route: no pass needed

If your list is short, skip passes and use Tiqets’ Duomo bundles instead. Buying the cathedral together with one other attraction takes 5% off the pair, with both tickets independently dated. The available pairings are the Duomo with The Last Supper, Teatro alla Scala, San Siro, Leonardo3, the Museum of Science and Technology, the hop-on hop-off bus, Museo del Novecento, or Villa Necchi Campiglio.

Five per cent is not dramatic — on €26 plus €39 it is a little over €3 — but it applies to exactly what you want, on the dates you want, with no minimum. For a two-day trip with three paid sights, this beats every pass on this page.

Single tickets by attraction

Italian-language searches for milan biglietti land on the same inventory; the prices above are the partner rates in euro, per person, and the official ticket office price at each attraction can differ — where we could not open the official page, the attraction’s own page on this site flags it.

What no Milan pass includes

Four of the city’s better tickets sit outside every pass on this page, and budgeting for them separately avoids an unpleasant surprise:

• The Last Supper. Cenacolo Vinciano slots are allocated through Vivaticket in timed batches and through operator allocations. No pass carries one.
• San Siro. The stadium tour and museum are a separate €37–40 ticket, and access is cut back on match days.
• Pinacoteca di Brera. A state museum, not a civic one, so it falls outside the Comune’s cards; entry is €22.
• Spas and experiences. QC Termemilano (€70) and De Montel (€45) are commercial venues.

Free is also an option worth planning around: the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II costs nothing to walk through, the Castello Sforzesco courtyards and Parco Sempione are free, and state museums such as the Pinacoteca di Brera take part in national free-entry Sundays.

That scheme is the first Sunday of every month, and in Milan it runs across both networks. The Comune’s own ticket shop confirms its civic museums are free for everyone that day — Museo del Novecento, the Castello Sforzesco museums, the Archaeological Museum, GAM, the Natural History Museum and the Acquario Civico. On the state side, the Pinacoteca di Brera’s own site confirms free admission on the first Sunday with a reservation, and the Cenacolo Vinciano takes part on the same booking-only basis. YesMilano also lists Palazzo Marino, Armani Silos, Fondazione Luigi Rovati and Gallerie d’Italia among the day’s free openings.

Two rules make or break it. Anything booking-only — Brera, the Cenacolo, Palazzo Marino — is gone days ahead, so a free Sunday needs planning rather than spontaneity. And free days are busy days: if your time in Milan is short, a paid Tuesday is the better visit. Note too that Mudec’s temporary exhibitions sit outside the scheme, and Fondazione Prada runs no free days at all.

Buying and using a pass

All the passes here are mobile products: you get a voucher or a code, and validity starts at first use rather than at purchase, so a three-day pass bought on Friday for a Monday arrival is not being wasted. Timed attractions are the exception you must plan for — the Duomo terraces and several museums work on slots, and a pass code usually has to be turned into a reservation before you turn up. Which inclusions need that step, and how you make it, is set by each pass operator rather than by the venue — so read the confirmation email the day you buy, not the morning you plan to use it. The reliable rule: assume the Duomo terraces and the science museum need a time slot, and check the rest. Cancellation is tighter than on ordinary tickets: the City Card and both official passes are sold as non-refundable, while the Zani Viaggi pass allows cancellation up to the selected date.

Decision rules

1. One or two paid sights, walking city centre. Buy single tickets and use a 5% Duomo bundle. Total for the Duomo with terraces plus the science museum: about €37.
2. Two days, three sights, no transport needed. Milan City Card at €46.50, if the Duomo, science museum and Ambrosiana are the three.
3. Three days, museum-hungry. Official All-Inclusive Pass at €90, transport included. This is the highest-value pass here.
4. Three days, want the tourist bus. Milan City Pass Zani Viaggi at €99 — but only if you will use the bus and four museums.
5. Civic museums only. Tourist Museum Card, €20 for three days.
6. Nothing but transport. ATM directly: €7.60 for 24 hours, €15.50 for three days, or tap a contactless card.

Whichever way you go, book the Duomo slot first and build the rest of the day around it — it is the one Milan ticket with a real queue, and terrace slots in season disappear days ahead. Then read tours if you would rather have a guide than a pass, since a guided ticket often costs less than a pass and covers more ground per hour.