Venice water taxis, route by route

What “water taxi” really means in Venice

In Venice the word taxi covers very different services, and plenty of websites lump them together. Before you look at prices, it pays to pull them apart.

A water taxi proper is a motorboat with a city licence. The Comune di Venezia issues a fixed number of them: 250 licences in total, 25 of them reserved for boats with a wheelchair lift. Fares are set by the city council (resolutions 227/2011 and 516/2011) and posted at every official taxi rank. You hire the whole boat, so the price is per boat, not per person.

A shared water taxi is a transfer sold by the seat. You board a motorboat with other passengers and the boat makes several stops along the way. You pay per person and accept that you may not be the first one off.

Alilaguna is a scheduled waterbus service between the airport and the city, run by a private company with fixed timetables and stops. It is not a taxi, even when a booking platform calls it a “boat transfer”.

The ACTV vaporetto is the city’s public waterbus. It doesn’t run from the airport, but it’s the cheapest way to get around the city and out to the islands.

Platform prices are the figures we found on the day we checked; city fares are taken from the boards posted at the taxi ranks.

The five routes nearly everyone asks about

Most travellers need one of these trips. For each, you’ll find the official fare, where there is one, and the price you actually pay online.

From Marco Polo airport

The water-taxi dock is in the airport’s boat basin, a 7–10 minute walk from arrivals along a covered walkway with moving walkways. Everything else depends on how many of you there are and where you’re staying. The full guide, with the fare for every part of the city, is on our water taxi from the airport page; for the return trip, including how early to leave for your flight, see water taxi to the airport.

From Santa Lucia station and Piazzale Roma

This is where the gap between the official fare and the market price is widest. The city tariff sets €50 to Rialto and €60 to San Marco. Private transfers sold online from the station cost a good deal more, because they include a meet-and-greet and drop-off at your hotel. At the station (the Ferrovia) there are two taxi ranks: one opposite the Scalzi church, the other next to the ACTV vaporetto stop. All the details are on our train station page.

From the cruise port and Tronchetto

From Tronchetto the tariff sets €60 to San Marco or Rialto. The People Mover also runs between Tronchetto, Marittima and Piazzale Roma for €1.50 in a few minutes, and it’s often the most sensible first leg. Read our cruise port page before booking, because ships now dock at several terminals.

To Murano, Burano and Torcello

From the historic centre to Murano the fare is €60 per boat; to Burano or Torcello, €115. The vaporetto costs €9.50 per person. The taxi pays off when there are four or more of you, or when time is short. The full sums are on our Murano and Burano by water taxi page.

The taxi as a Grand Canal ride

A water taxi isn’t only for getting somewhere. You can also book an hour’s private cruise on the Grand Canal, or take vaporetto line 1, which runs the whole length of the canal and stops everywhere. Many of these private tours are new and have very few reviews: we compare them without pulling punches on our Grand Canal by water taxi page.

Within the city

For trips inside the city the taxi runs on time: €15 flag fall plus €2 per minute, under the Comune di Venezia tariff. A 10-minute ride therefore costs €35 per boat, a 15-minute ride €45. If you call the boat to a spot that isn’t a taxi rank, add €5. In practice, drivers often ask between €60 and €90 for a short hop in the centre: always ask the price before you board.

What it costs per head: the sum that changes the choice

A private taxi price looks steep until you split it. Take the private airport transfer sold on GetYourGuide, about €215 per boat for up to 6 people, and set it against a seat on the shared taxi at about €39.

• 2 people: €107.50 each for the private boat against €39 for the shared one. The shared taxi wins hands down.
• 4 people: €53.75 each against €39. The gap shrinks to less than €15 per person, and the private boat takes you straight there, with no stops on the way.
• 6 people: about €36 each. The private boat costs less than the shared one.

The break-even point is between 5 and 6 passengers. With five of you the shared taxi still works out €20 cheaper in total, but with stops on the way; with six, booking individual shared seats no longer makes sense.

Watch the surcharges. Under the city tariff, from the fifth passenger you pay €5 or €10 extra per person (the fare sheet isn’t entirely clear on which amount applies to fixed routes), plus €3 for every suitcase beyond the fourth and beyond the number of passengers. Online products state their own limits on the voucher: check them before you pay. Every surcharge and discount is on our water-taxi prices page.

From cheapest to most comfortable

Here are the main ways into the city, from cheapest to most expensive, with platform prices as they stood at the time of checking.

Two points to be clear on. The GetYourGuide product with “3 routes” at €18 is an Alilaguna ticket, not a taxi: it only suits you if a waterbus with fixed stops is fine. And the car-plus-boat option shows a group price without saying in the title how many people it covers: the maximum number of passengers and bags is on the product page before you pay. The difference between the three modes is explained in our comparison: water taxi, Alilaguna or vaporetto.

Choose by your situation

No option is best for everyone. What matters is who you are, how much luggage you have and where you’re staying.

If what matters most is having the boat to yourselves, read our private water taxi page. If you’d rather understand how the multiple stops and waiting times work, see the shared water taxi page.

The situations that complicate the trip

On paper the routes are simple. Then come the tide, the time of day and the suitcases.

Hotels with no landing. On the Grand Canal many hotels have a landing stage or a water door; along the smaller inner canals, many don’t. In that case the taxi drops you at the nearest reachable landing, usually within about five minutes’ walk, and the last stretch nearly always includes a bridge with steps. Ask your hotel in writing whether it has a usable water entrance.

High and low tide. When the water is high, there may not be enough clearance under the bridges on the side canals. When the tide drops a long way, the canal may be too shallow, or the hotel’s steps end up too far from the side of the boat. Either way, you land somewhere else. Our luggage and accessibility page explains how to prepare.

Late arrivals and dawn departures. Between 22:00 and 06:00 the city tariff adds a €10 night surcharge. Some operators apply their own terms, which differ from the city’s. Times and alternatives are on our night water taxi page.

Arriving by car or from Treviso. Cars stop at Piazzale Roma: you can’t drive any further. From there it’s the vaporetto, a water taxi or your own two feet. Road-taxi fares and connections from Treviso are on our road taxis and Mestre page.

How to book without overpaying

You have three options: book online, turn up at the desk at the airport, or phone. Online, you know in advance what you’ll pay and you get a voucher with the exact meeting point. At the airport desk you may find a queue, and on the shared taxi you wait for the boat to fill. By phone, it’s best to call a consortium directly; the Comune also lists the number 199 48 49 50 for taxis, without saying who answers.

Three rules always apply:

1. Before you board, find out whether the figure covers the whole boat or each passenger.
2. Agree the price before you set off, especially for metered trips within the city.
3. Check the cancellation terms of each product: they aren’t the same everywhere.

The full procedure, what details to give and what to write when you book: see how to book a water taxi.

Who runs the boats and who sells them

Behind a transfer sold online there are often three different parties. There’s whoever holds the licence and drives the boat, the consortium or agency that organises the service, and the platform that sells it. The same boat can appear on several websites at different prices, and with different ratings, because each platform calculates its scores in its own way.

We’ve put together profiles of water-taxi consortia, public transport companies, official portals and booking platforms. On our operators and platforms page you’ll find who’s who, how to spot a licensed boat and where to make a complaint. There are also individual reviews, for example of Consorzio Motoscafi Venezia and Alilaguna.

A note on transparency: we earn a commission when you book through GetYourGuide or Tiqets. That doesn’t change the facts we publish, or the city fares we quote alongside our partners’ prices.

Frequently asked questions