Tickets
Almost every question about Colosseum tickets is really one question: which ticket opens which part of the building. The arena floor and the underground are not included in a standard entry, and one of them cannot be entered without a guide at all. Here is every guided tour on this site by price, what each one actually opens, and the three things that catch people out at the gate.
Quick answer
A guided Colosseum tour on this page starts at $43, and the most-booked one — the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill together — is $54 with 90,322 reviews behind it. Standard entry does not include the arena floor or the underground: both are separate add-ons, and the underground can only be walked with a guide. Tours that open both start at $108. Every tour on this page cancels free.
The one thing to understand first
Base admission covers three sites. The arena floor and the underground are extra, and the underground is guided-only.
The Colosseum does not sell a simple ticket, and this is the source of nearly every complaint you will read online. What is on sale is a combined admission to three places — the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill — all part of the same archaeological park, with a single timed entry to the amphitheatre itself.
On top of that base admission sit two add-ons, and they are the two things everybody has seen in photographs:
The arena floor. A reconstructed deck at the level the fighting once happened, reached through the gate the gladiators used. From up in the tiers you look down at the underground; from the arena floor you stand where the crowd was looking. It is a genuinely different visit, and a standard ticket does not include it.
The underground, or hypogeum. Two storeys of brick corridors, animal pens and lift shafts beneath the arena, roofed over by the wooden floor for the whole of the building’s working life and uncovered only by excavation. This one is not simply an upgrade: the hypogeum is entered accompanied, on a guided route, and there is no unguided ticket to it at all. If the underground is what you came to Rome for, a guided tour is not the expensive option — it is the only option.
So the honest way to read the table below is not cheapest to dearest. It is: what does this ticket open, and is the part I actually want in it.
Every trip, current fare
Eighteen guided tours with the column the ticket pages leave out: cost per hour, and what each one opens. It is the quickest way to see that the cheapest ticket here already includes the arena floor, and that the three-hour tours are not the expensive ones once you divide.
| Tour | Length | Price | Arena / underground | Cost per hour | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rome: Colosseum Arena Floor, Palatine & Forum Guided TourArena floor included, and the lowest price here | 2.5–3 h | $43 | Arena floor | $15.64 | 4.5 · 27,455 |
| Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Guided TourColosseum, Forum and Palatine, our top pick | 2.5 h | $54 | Neither | $21.60 | 4.8 · 90,322 |
| Rome: Colosseum regular or arena or undergroundA shorter visit with three access options | 1–2 h | $81 | Optional | $54.00 | 4.3 · 785 |
| Rome: Colosseum 3-In-1 Tour with Underground OptionThree sites with an underground upgrade | 1.5–3 h | $87 | Optional | $38.67 | 4.7 · 1,266 |
| Colosseum Underground Dungeons Tour or Gladiator Floor TourThe dungeons or the gladiator floor | 1.5–3 h | $87 | One or the other | $38.67 | 4.8 · 25 |
| Colosseum Arena, Forum & Hill Tour – Optional UndergroundArena floor, Forum and Palatine Hill | 2.5 h | $104 | Arena, underground optional | $41.60 | 4.5 · 1,938 |
| Rome: Colosseum Arena Floor or Underground TourArena or underground, Colosseum only | 2 h | $108 | One or the other | $54.00 | 4.8 · 338 |
| Rome: Vatican, Sistine Chapel & Colosseum HighlightsThe Colosseum and the Vatican Museums | 7–8 h | $110 | Neither | $14.67 | 4.7 · 16 |
| Rome: Full-Day Colosseum, Vatican Museums & St Peter's TourColosseum, Vatican and St Peter’s in a day | 8.5–10 h | $184 | Neither | $19.89 | 4.6 · 104 |
| Rome: Colosseum Underground Guided Tour with Arena FloorUnderground and arena in seventy-five minutes | 75 min | $218 | Both | $174.40 | 4.3 · 147 |
| Rome: Colosseum Underground and Arena Floor Guided TourUnderground, arena and the Palatine Hill | 1.5–2.5 h | $218 | Both | $109.00 | 4.1 · 6 |
| Rome: Colosseum with Undergrounds and Arena TourA longer tour of the undergrounds | 2.5–3 h | $251 | Both | $91.27 | 4.4 · 80 |
| Rome: Colosseum Underground, Arena, Forum, and Hill TourUnderground, arena, Forum and Palatine | 2.5 h | $314 | Both | $125.60 | New |
| Rome: Exclusive Colosseum Underground and Arena Guided TourA smaller group underground, three hours | 3 h | $327 | Both | $109.00 | 4.8 · 76 |
| Rome: Colosseum Underground and Arena Guided TourUnderground and arena in ninety minutes | 1.5 h | $492 | Both | $328.00 | New |
| Rome: Colosseum, Underground & Roman Forum Private TourA private guide, underground included | 3–3.5 h | $519 | Both | $159.69 | 4.9 · 72 |
| Rome: 1-Day City Highlights & Colosseum Private Guided TourA private guided day across Rome | 6 h | $601 | Neither | $100.17 | 4.9 · 8 |
| Colosseum: Guided tour of the Underground, Arena, Roman Forum and Palatine HillThe top of the market, and the price anchor | 3 h | $1,093 | Both | $364.33 | 4.5 · 7 |
The cheapest tour on this page already includes the arena floor. The underground is the part that moves the price — and the part you cannot buy without a guide.
What the underground actually is→Before you book
All seven are on the listing, and each one moves the number.
This is the first line to read on any listing. The tour at $43 includes it; the most-booked tour at $54 does not, because it spends its time across three sites instead. Neither is wrong — they are different days.
Three words to look for: included, optional upgrade, or nothing at all. The three-site tour at $87 offers it as an option, which is the cheapest route to the hypogeum on this page.
Colosseum only, or Colosseum plus the Forum and Palatine Hill. Two hours inside the amphitheatre is a different product from two and a half hours across a whole archaeological park, and the second is much more walking.
Seventy-five minutes to ten hours on this page. The short underground tours are intense and they are over quickly; the three-hour ones let a guide actually finish a thought.
The exclusive tour at $327 and the private ones cap the numbers. In the underground corridors, where the passages are narrow and sound carries badly, that is not a comfort question — it decides whether you hear the guide at all.
Two tours here cross Rome and add the Vatican Museums. That is a full day, from $110, and it is the most ground anything on this site covers.
One tour here carries 90,322 ratings. Three carry almost none, because they are new listings this season. Neither fact is a verdict, but they are very different kinds of evidence.
Book direct
The cheapest guided tour, the most-booked one, the cheapest route to the underground, and the one that opens both add-ons.
★ 4.5 · 27,455 reviews
★ 4.8 · 90,322 reviews
★ 4.7 · 1,266 reviews
★ 4.8 · 338 reviews
The three things that catch people out
Be early, travel light, wear shoes you would walk two kilometres in.
The time slot is real. Entry to the Colosseum is timed, and the gate holds you to the window on your ticket. Guided tours ask you to be at the meeting point twenty to thirty minutes before that slot, because the guide has to gather the group, hand out the headsets and get everyone through screening as one party. Arriving at the time printed on the ticket is, in practice, arriving late.
Security screening. Everyone goes through an airport-style check at the entrance, and large bags and backpacks are not allowed in. There is no meaningful left-luggage at the gate, so the bag you bring is the bag you carry all day. A small daypack is fine; a cabin case is a problem you will have to solve on the pavement.
The ground underfoot. The Forum and the Palatine are ancient paving, gravel and slopes, and the walk between the three sites is longer than the map suggests. There is very little shade anywhere on the Palatine. This is why the two-and-a-half-hour tours feel longer than two and a half hours in July, and why sandals are a decision you regret at the halfway point.
Common questions
A guided tour on this page starts at $43, and that one already includes the arena floor. The most-booked tour, covering the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, is $54. Tours that open both the arena floor and the underground start at $108.
The combined admission covers the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, which are one archaeological park. What varies is whether your tour takes you round all three or concentrates on the amphitheatre. Check the itinerary, not just the ticket.
No. The arena floor is a separate add-on. On this page the tour at $43 includes it, and several others offer it as an upgrade.
No. The hypogeum is entered accompanied, on a guided route, which is why every tour on this page that reaches it is a guided one. There is no unguided underground ticket to buy.
Yes, and not mainly for the queue. Entry is timed and the slots for the arena floor and the underground are limited, so the tours that include them are the first to close out. Every tour here cancels free, which means booking early costs you nothing.
The arena floor, Palatine and Forum tour at $43. It is the lowest price on this page and it already includes the arena floor, which is unusual at that number.
Yes. All eighteen tours on this page are free to cancel, which is why booking the slot you want as soon as your dates are fixed is the sensible move.
Go deeper
What two and a half hours across three sites actually covers.
UndergroundThe hypogeum, and why there is no unguided ticket to it.
Arena floorA separate add-on, and the upgrade most people are happiest they paid for.
VerdictEighteen tours ranked for one decision, with a straight answer.
ForumOn the same ticket, and the part that needs a guide most.
Skip the lineWhat fast track skips, and the queue it cannot remove.
Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Guided Tour
★ 4.8 · 90,322 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h