Accademia Gallery tickets: Michelangelo's David, prices and opening hours

People come to the Accademia Gallery for a single sculpture, and the ticket says as much: €20 full admission according to the price list on galleriaaccademiafirenze.it, plus a €4 booking fee if you want a fixed time slot. Twenty-four euros in total on the official channel, against the €28.75 the platforms start from at the time of checking.

Opening hours are 8:15–18:50 Tuesday to Sunday, last entry 18:10, closed on Mondays. Michelangelo’s David has stood here since the nineteenth century, when it was moved indoors from Piazza della Signoria: the two statues you see out in the city are copies.

Michelangelo’s David tickets: what they cost

Full admission rose to €20 with the institute’s latest price review, which covered every museum in the group. Booking costs €4 and is not compulsory, but without it you join the queue.

The gap with the official price is the widest of any Florentine museum: platform products start around €28–31 against €24, and resold “official” tickets climb past €40. Neither Tiqets nor GetYourGuide is an official Accademia box office: they resell allocations through accredited operators, and what you pay on top buys availability when the museum’s own channel is sold out, plus an audio guide and customer support. Platform prices quoted here are the ones recorded at the time of checking.

How to book, and how far ahead

The online channel authorised by the Ministry is B-Ticket, with the Firenze Musei call centre on +39 055 294883; in town there are the MyAccademia desks on via Ricasoli. Here, unlike at the Uffizi Gallery, the old Firenze Musei circuit is still the right one: if you read about B-ticket for the Uffizi, that page is out of date, but for the Accademia it is correct.

The museum states in black and white that booking is advisable, because without it waiting times can be long. That goes double between 10:00 and 13:00, when the tour groups arrive. The first morning slots and anything after 17:00 are the quietest.

How far ahead? The museum publishes no data on how quickly slots sell out: the only official line is that booking is “strongly” recommended because the wait can otherwise be long. The concrete measure is the B-Ticket calendar, which shows the first date and time still free: open it for your dates and judge from that. In any case the ticket office sells for the same day even when everything online shows as sold out — if you are already in Florence, turn up early and join the queue.

Firenze Card holders book free of charge, by phone or in person, and use the priority entrance; booking is also compulsory for minors linked to the card.

One difference that matters if your trip is not yet certain: the institute’s terms allow no refunds and no changes of date or time, except when the museum is forced to close for exceptional events. On the platforms the rule varies by product — many GetYourGuide tickets can be cancelled free up to 24 hours ahead, while Tiqets products for the Accademia are stated to be non-refundable. If there is a real chance of missing the visit, that clause is worth the mark-up.

Accademia and Bargello: the combined tickets that save money

The Accademia Gallery and the Bargello Museums are now a single institute, GAMB, with unified hours of 8:15–18:50 and two combined tickets:

• €26 for 48 hours: Accademia + Bargello National Museum. Bought separately they would cost €32 (20 + 12), so you save €6 and see Michelangelo’s David and Donatello’s half an hour apart.
• €38 for 72 hours: six museums in the group, namely the Accademia, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels, Palazzo Davanzati, Orsanmichele and Casa Martelli. Single tickets to the five open museums add up to €61, so the saving reaches €23.

The Medici Chapels also hold the group’s most unusual ticket: Michelangelo’s Secret Room at €32, booking compulsory, four people per time slot and fifteen minutes inside. You go down twelve steep, narrow steps: no access under the age of ten, and not advised for anyone with heart problems or claustrophobia.

Watch two details. Casa Martelli is closed for works, so the 72-hour ticket covers five sites in practice. And the booking fee is not uniform: the Accademia Gallery site lists it at €4, as do the museum pages on bargellomusei.it and the 72-hour combined ticket, while the “Tickets” pages of the individual Bargello Museums list €3. Budget €3 or €4 and check the exact amount at the B-Ticket checkout, which is the official channel.

Accademia Gallery opening hours, last entry and closures

The two figures that circulate, thirty and forty minutes, refer to different things: the official page sets last entry at 18:10, forty minutes before closing, and separately notes that the ticket office closes thirty minutes before. Closing procedures start at 18:40.

On a few summer evenings and for the Festa della Toscana the museum stays open beyond its usual hours, with a dedicated ticket desk: these are special openings announced case by case, not a fixed schedule. If your trip coincides with one, that is the best moment to see the Tribune almost empty.

Reduced tickets, free entry and free Sundays

Under 18s free with ID, always. Reduced admission at €2 for EU citizens from 18 up to and including the day of their 25th birthday. Free entry for visitors with disabilities and one companion, for licensed EU tour guides and interpreters, for teachers and students of the faculties listed by the Ministry, for ICOM members and registered journalists.

Free days are the first Sunday of every month, 25 April, 2 June and 4 November; on 8 March all women go free. On those days booking is switched off and there are no priority lanes: if you go, arrive before opening. Anyone short of time is better off paying for a weekday ticket and saving the free Sunday for a museum with a shorter queue.

What you see besides the David

The David stands at the end of the Tribune built specifically for it, under a skylight that changes the marble hour by hour. But the gallery leading up to the Tribune is the part that surprises people most: Michelangelo’s Prisoners, figures left unfinished that seem to be climbing halfway out of the block, and the Saint Matthew.

The rest of the route takes in the Gipsoteca, with plaster models from nineteenth-century Florence and their measuring points still visible on the surface; the Museum of Musical Instruments, holding instruments from the Medici and Lorraine collections; and the rooms of Florentine painting from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, including the gold-ground panels in the Sala del Colosso.

One honest warning: works are under way that affect exactly these sections. The rehanging of the Museum of Musical Instruments and structural work in the Gipsoteca, with sculptures being moved, may limit what you see. If you are coming for the instruments rather than the David, check the museum’s works page the day before.

The museum states no recommended duration and publishes no average visit time either. In practice the route is short: an hour is enough for the Prisoners and the Tribune at a relaxed pace, an hour and a half if you also look at the paintings and instruments. It is the opposite of the Uffizi, where the official minimum is two hours.

The three Davids of Florence: only one is the original

Michelangelo’s marble David is only here, in the Accademia Gallery, where it was moved to protect it from the weather. In its place, in front of Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria, stands a marble copy, outdoors and free to see.

The third statue is the bronze copy at Piazzale Michelangelo, ringed by the four Medici allegories: free, reached on buses 12 and 13 (city ticket €2.00 for 90 minutes) and set above the best view in the city at sunset. Neither copy, though, has the worked surface of the original or the setting of the Tribune: if the David is the reason for your trip, buy the ticket.

Rucksacks and bags: the Accademia has no cloakroom

This is the most common cause of arguments at the door. The museum has no cloakroom and no left-luggage facility: you can only bring in small personal bags and rucksacks, up to 40×30×18 cm. With a hiking pack or a wheeled case you will be refused entry, booking or no booking.

The nearest paid storage is at the MyAccademia sales point on via Ricasoli; if you are coming from the station with your bags, leave them at a luggage storage point first and arrive light. There is a metal detector at the entrance: no knives, scissors or metal and glass objects. Water is allowed in bottles up to half a litre, but you cannot eat or drink in the rooms.

Photographs for personal use are allowed without flash or tripod. Groups are capped at 20 people excluding guides, with whisper systems compulsory from six participants up; groups over eight and school parties can only book by phone. The audio guide costs €6 at the bookshop, leaving an ID as a deposit.

Accessibility and visiting with children

The museum provides tactile maps on the ground floor, in the Sala del Colosso, and on the first floor; the ground-floor tactile route is being revised. The entrance and ticket office are at via Ricasoli 60. Visitors with disabilities enter free with one companion.

For children, the Accademia is one of the easiest museums in Florence: the route is short, the David’s hall is spacious, and the unfinished Prisoners explain how marble is carved better than any commentary. Under 18s pay nothing, but they still need a booking if the rest of the family has one. The real constraint is the rucksack rule, not age.

Guided tours and combos with the Uffizi

A guide matters less here than at the Uffizi — the route is short and the headline piece speaks for itself — but guided tours almost always include a pre-booked entry, which solves the sold-out slot problem.

The best-selling pairing in Florence is still Uffizi + Accademia. Compare it with the official channels: €29 + €24 = €53. Anything above that is paying for audio guides, slots and support.

Every 5% combo pairing is compared on our combo tickets page, while the arithmetic of city cards against single tickets is on Florence Pass and museum cards. For one extra museum, the €85 Firenze Card does not pay for itself: you need a fourth major entry before it does.

Getting there and when to go

The entrance is at via Ricasoli 60, a five-minute walk from the Duomo straight up via Ricasoli, and a quarter of an hour from Santa Maria Novella station. The museum has no car park and sits inside the restricted traffic zone: arriving by car is not an option.

The best times are the 8:15 opening and the last hour and a half of the afternoon, once the groups have moved on. The worst: first Sundays of the month, long weekends and rainy mornings. The season-by-season picture is in when to visit Florence.

Nearby

A couple of streets away is the San Marco Museum with Fra Angelico’s frescoes, and towards the centre the Medici Chapels with Michelangelo’s New Sacristy: together with the Accademia they make up the city’s Michelangelo trail. Ten minutes towards the river, the Bargello National Museum rounds it off with fifteenth-century sculpture.

Prices, opening hours and availability for every major museum are collected on our Florence museum tickets page.

Accademia Gallery tickets for the David statue in Florence cost €20 at the desk and €24 booked on the official channel; the platforms ask a few euros more and give you slots when the museum is full, audio guides and, in some cases, free cancellation. If your dates are fixed and you have a little time in hand, the museum’s own channel is still the best value.