Duomo Milan Tours: Frequently Asked Questions

Guided tours here start at $30 per person and run to $551 for a private group of two. The floor is the Veneranda Fabbrica's own combined ticket; guided departures with a live guide begin around $80. Duomo Milan ticket prices at the cathedral's own counter are separate and lower, because they buy no guide.

For the cathedral and the terraces you can usually walk up, though you will queue twice — once for the ticket and once for security. For anything that includes the Last Supper you must book well ahead, because entry is a timed 15-minute slot with a hard daily cap. Duomo Milan booking in advance also fixes your rooftop time slot, which matters on a summer Saturday.

The cathedral, the terraces and the archaeological area open daily 9am to 7pm; the Duomo Museum and San Gottardo open 10am to 7pm and close on Wednesdays. The last ticket is sold at 5.50pm, the last admission is 6pm and closing operations begin at 6.30pm. From 5 June to 13 September the whole complex runs to 8pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

No. The €10 cathedral ticket covers the church floor, the museum and San Gottardo, and the terraces are sold separately at €16 or €18. Look for a combined ticket, or for a tour that names the rooftops in its own inclusions — several here name only the cathedral.

The stairs are 251 steps and €2 cheaper; the lift saves you the first stage and costs €18. The lift reaches the first level only, so there are around 80 steps above it either way, and the Fabbrica's access regulations put the descent on the stairs. Take the lift if the climb is the question and the descent is not.

Yes, and it is enforced at the door: shoulders and knees covered, and no shorts, miniskirts, sleeveless tops or hats inside the cathedral. A cover is sold at the ticket offices for €3 if you arrive in the wrong thing. Reviewers on three of the tours here mention travellers being stopped, so dress for it rather than gamble.

Allow an hour for the cathedral floor and another hour for the terraces, plus security at the door. Add 45 minutes for the museum and San Gottardo and half an hour for the archaeological area if your ticket covers them. A guided rooftop tour does the two main parts in two hours because it does not queue.

No. Leonardo painted it on a refectory wall beside Santa Maria delle Grazie, about 1.5 km west of the cathedral and a 20-minute walk away. It is a separate building with a separate ticket and its own timed slot, which is why half the tours here bundle the two and charge accordingly.

Most of the guided ones do and they say so in their own inclusions, which is worth reading rather than assuming. A couple here never enter the cathedral at all, and a couple more sell the ticket as an add-on you tick at checkout. Every card says which of the four it is.

Yes, if you come to pray: the cathedral is open for prayer from 7.00am to 8.30am every day and no ticket is needed in that hour and a half. Access is to the church for worship, not to the terraces, the museum or the archaeological area. Outside those times a ticket is required for everyone except the categories that qualify for free entry.

The cathedral floor is: two 20-metre ramps with handrails and an 8% maximum incline bring you in at the west front. The terraces are reachable by the South Elevator, which measures 77 by 106 by 130 cm with a 78 cm passage, daily between 10am and 5pm, and only as far as the retrochoir. An accompanying person is required for the roof and for the baptistery, and a manual wheelchair is lent free at the ticket office.

No — and there are none inside the cathedral or at the Piazza Duomo 14/A ticket office either. The toilets are in the Duomo Museum, or outside the cathedral for a fee. The accessible toilet is always free and families with children under six may use it too.

Wednesday. The cathedral, the terraces and the archaeological area stay open on their normal 9am to 7pm timetable, and the cathedral ticket drops to €8 that day to reflect what is shut. San Gottardo in Corte, which is reached through the museum, is closed with it.

Children under 12 may go up only with an adult of at least 18, and open pushchairs and prams are not allowed on the terraces at all — a folded one carried is fine, and wheelchairs are excepted. There are also no toilets up there. Plan the roof for after a stop at the museum, which has them.

Nearly all of them refund in full up to 24 hours before you travel, and most offer reserve-now-pay-later so nothing leaves your account at booking. One walking tour closes its window three days out instead, and its own card says so. Tickets bought at the Fabbrica's own counter are non-refundable.

€10 full price for the cathedral, the Duomo Museum and San Gottardo in Corte. The terraces are €16 on foot or €18 by lift, and the combined tickets that bundle church and roof are €22 by stairs and €26 by lift. Those are the Veneranda Fabbrica's published 2026 rates, valid for one admission within two days.

It is a €15 ticket covering the cathedral, the archaeological area under the square, the Crypt of Saint Charles, the Duomo Museum and San Gottardo, valid across two days. It does not include the terraces, which is the thing most visitors assume it does. If you want the roof you want a combined ticket instead.

Because the Duomo Museum and San Gottardo in Corte are closed that day, so the cathedral ticket drops from €10 to €8. The terraces keep their normal hours and their normal price. If the museum matters to you, come on any other day.

Children aged 6 to 18 and school or religious groups pay the reduced rate, and children up to 5, visitors with disabilities and their helpers, group guides and military personnel go free. Documents are required in every case. Free tickets must still be collected from a ticket-office desk rather than walked past.

They can. The Veneranda Fabbrica reserves the right to change admission times and access in adverse weather, and the terraces are open marble with no shelter on them. A guided rooftop departure that cannot run refunds under its own cancellation terms, which is one practical argument for booking one rather than a bare ticket.

First thing, at 9am, and the last hour before the 6pm cut-off. Midday between March and October is the busiest the square gets, and the terraces are hardest work in July and August because there is no shade on them. Winter mornings are the clearest of the year, and on a good one you can see the Alps from the roof.

Marco d'Agrate's flayed Saint Bartholomew in the south transept, the 55 stained-glass windows, the meridian line set into the floor and the red light high in the apse that marks where the Holy Nail is kept. The Quadroni di San Carlo hang through the nave in the autumn. A guide is worth having for the last two, which are easy to walk past.

Yes, in the cathedral, for personal use. Flash is restricted and professional equipment needs permission. At the Last Supper the rules are the operator's and differ by listing, so check the one you book — two of the tours here say no photography at all in the refectory.

It is already paid for by the €10 cathedral ticket, which most visitors never realise, and it holds the full-size replica of the Madonnina you can never get close to on the roof, along with original statues taken down from the facade. Allow 45 minutes. Not on a Wednesday, when it is closed.

The Baptistery of San Giovanni alle Fonti, built in 378, where Ambrose baptised Augustine in 387 when Milan was the capital of the Western Roman Empire. Its octagonal font is still there. The area also holds the footprint of Santa Tecla and Santa Maria Maggiore, the two churches the cathedral replaced.

Yes, on a €3.50 add-on to a cathedral ticket, or bundled into the €15 Culture Pass. It is closed on Sundays and religious festivals. It is reached by stairs and is not step-free.

Large bags, suitcases and backpacks are refused, and there is no cloakroom on site. Weapons, sharp objects, glass, sprays, drones and umbrellas are all on the prohibited list. Everyone passes a security check with pockets emptied of metal and bags opened, which is usually the real queue rather than the ticket line.

Comfortable shoes, and the regulations say so explicitly for the terraces. Metal-soled footwear is banned because it damages the flooring, and heels are advised against because parts of the route are narrow, steep and uneven. The marble is slippery in the wet.

Yes. Video guides in Italian Sign Language with subtitles are available by QR code, and guided tours for blind and partially sighted visitors use thick-printed tactile boards with Braille captions. Both are arranged through the Fabbrica rather than through a tour operator.

It depends what you want from the roof. A €26 combined ticket puts you on the terraces for €8 less than the cheapest guided rooftop departure, and you set your own pace. A guide earns the difference if you want the spires, the glass and the Holy Nail explained rather than looked at, and the best Duomo Milan guided tours here run two hours with headsets.

Yes, on the private departures. One private walking tour here is offered in Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Ukrainian as well as English, and two more run in Italian. The shared small-group tours captured here are English-only.

Several private products are quoted per group rather than per person, in units of two, six and twenty travellers, so the sum flips with your party size. A €551 fare for a unit of two is a couple's price; a $349 fare for six divides to under $60 a head. Check the unit before you compare it with a per-person fare.