Italy
Venice
A city where canals stand in for streets. Cars stop at the gateway square; beyond it, walk or ride the vaporetto.
Taxi and water taxi (taxi acqueo)
Updated on August 19, 2026
How to ride
- 1Decide land or water firstOnly a water taxi reaches a hotel's water door in the islands; a land taxi stops at Piazzale Roma.
- 2Take one at a rank, or callLand taxis have seven ranks; water taxis wait at municipal stations or any public jetty, or call 199 48 49 50.
- 3Ask for the fixed price before you startAsk, or it will not apply. It covers only a direct trip by the shortest route - you cannot ask for stops or detours.
- 4A radio booking starts the meter earlyWhen you order by phone or app, the meter starts as the car sets off towards you, not when you board.
- 5Check the water-taxi price before boardingEach station's board, published as a PDF, carries the prices; the airport has no board, so ask the staff there.
Typical costs
Fixed-price routes8
How the meter adds up8
Estimates use exchange rates as of November 4, 2026
Wait at a rank, or order by phone or app. Land taxis have seven ranks - Mestre station, Ospedale dell'Angelo, Mestre Centro (via Poerio), Marco Polo airport, Piazzale Roma, the Lido and the Stazione Marittima - but the cruise terminal rank only operates when cruises are in. For a water taxi, go to a municipal taxi station (14 of them, in the historic centre and on the Lido) or any public or private jetty, or call the water radio taxi on 199 48 49 50; the land radio line is 041 5964. On land, NCC private-hire cars may not stand at public ranks and cannot be flagged down. On the water, 200 of the 250 licences are bivalenti - one boat holding both a taxi licence and an NCC authorisation - so what decides whether you can hail it is not the licence but whether that boat is working as a taxi.
Payment
Card payment on board 
App tickets 
Cash UnverifiedQuick facts
Facilities
Lifts (step-free)（Limited）Of the 50 water-taxi-only licences, 25 are reserved for boats fitted with a wheelchair lift. On land there are 22 equipped cars - 16 of the maximum 108 plus 6 of the 9 reserve cars - and you book one by phoning the radio switchboard on 041 5964; the same operator advertises free travel for wheelchair users and for passengers carrying a white cane. What nobody explains is how to ask for one of the lift-equipped boats.
Suitcases & luggageA fixed price already includes the supplements, luggage among them
Rules
Smoking（Banned）No smoking - the city's service charter lists it among the passenger's duties
Apps & info
Journey planner app (Google Maps)Useful for finding the ranks and jetties, and for rough journey times
English signageFare boards at the ranks are in Italian and English
Operating hours（Limited）The land radio service (Cooperativa Artigiana Radiotaxi, 041 5964) runs around the clock every day of the year, and it is the same operator that serves Marco Polo airport; the water-taxi radio line is 199 48 49 50. What is not published anywhere official is the shift pattern of each individual rank, or the hours the water taxis work. Since a fixed price is only valid during the departure rank's own shift, whether one applies late at night has to be checked at the rank.
Heads-up
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Open the water-taxi tariff board before you set out
The city sets water-taxi fares, and the authority is the board posted at each of the 14 municipal taxi stations. The city does publish every board, as a per-station PDF anyone can download, but each one is a scan with no text layer, so it never turns up in a search. Before you set out, open the sheet for the station you will use and read the base price for your destination and the supplements: EUR 5.00 for each passenger beyond four (EUR 10.00 where it applies to a station-to-station base price) and EUR 3.00 for each bag beyond four. The municipal stations are in the historic centre and on the Lido only - there is none at the airport, so there ask the staff the price before boarding, as the airport's own guidance says. Figures quoted on third-party sites are not guaranteed to match the posted tariff.
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A phone or app booking normally loses the fixed price
A land taxi's fixed price is a rank-to-rank fare, valid during the departure rank's own shift hours, and as a rule it does not apply to a ride ordered by phone. The exceptions are the call points at Marghera-Piazza Mercato and Favaro-Piazza Pastrello, between 07:00 and 22:00. So if you want the fixed price from the airport or the cruise terminal, join the queue at the rank rather than ordering through an app.
Timetable
Editor Naotaka