Rome City Pass or Roma Pass?
This is the question we are asked most often. They are the two best-selling passes, and at first glance they look alike. In fact, they take very different approaches. Four points make the difference clear.
Rome City Pass
Turbopass · 1 to 7 calendar days
- Colosseum
- Vatican
- Public transport at extra cost
Choice of attractions
The Roma Pass lists more sights, but it has two limitations. At most two visits are free, everything else is only discounted, and most of what is on offer are museums and archaeological sites. The Rome City Pass covers the same big names and adds a hop-on hop-off bus, a guided city tour and a catacombs tour. The decisive difference, however, lies elsewhere: with the City Pass you use as many of the included services as you can manage within its validity.
Purchase price
The Rome City Pass costs considerably more, and public transport is not yet included in it. The Roma Pass is clearly cheaper and comes with a travel ticket. You will find the current prices of both passes above in the comparison table.
One difference that is easily missed when comparing is how validity is counted. The City Pass runs in calendar days, the Roma Pass in hours. If you arrive in Rome at midday, you lose half a day with the City Pass, but not with the Roma Pass.
Cancellation
The Rome City Pass can be cancelled up to one day before the first day of validity, but for a fee of €50 per pass. The Roma Pass cannot be cancelled at all, neither through a booking platform nor on the official website. For that reason, only buy it once your travel dates are certain.
Reservations
With the Rome City Pass, the provider takes care of registering you for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums; for Castel Sant'Angelo you make the reservation yourself via a link. With the Roma Pass, you handle all reservations yourself, and each attraction has its own procedure. This can be done online via the Roma Pass app, but it should be done early: for the Colosseum and the Galleria Borghese, the provider itself recommends booking around ten days ahead, and closer to twenty in high season.
In short
If you want to see a lot in a few days and do not want to spend much time on organisation, the Rome City Pass is the better choice. If you are watching your budget, travel a lot by bus and metro and are planning two or three visits, you will do better with the Roma Pass.
Besides these two there are seven more Rome passes. All of them are side by side in the comparison table on the home page.