Highlights
The endless list of masterpieces within the Vatican Museums puts this labyrinthine complex of art on the bucket-list of most art lovers and travellers. Describing the Vatican Museums without using a massive number of superlatives would be impossible. The art inside forms one of the world’s most valuable and extensive collections of fine art. As one could imagine, these fabulous art collections attract a very large number of tourists on a daily basis. Large queues and crowds often form both at the entrance doors and inside the most popular galleries. As the official Vatican Museums tour provider, we have designed a tour that will keep you completely out of any type of crowd. With this super VIP tour, you will visit the Vatican Museums and the superb Sistine Chapel in the most exclusive way! You will have no one but your guide around you as you visit the superb galleries of the Vatican.
Highlights
On a normal day, the Vatican Museums close to visitors at 6:00 p.m. and empty out by 8:00 p.m. Our after-hours experience begins right there — when the last day-visitors have left and the galleries fall silent. You enter through the Museums' main gate on Viale Vaticano with a licensed English-speaking guide, and for the next two-and-a-half hours you walk rooms that hold twenty thousand people at midday with maybe ten other guests, sometimes fewer.
It is not a shortcut through the standard route. It is a different visit. You stop where you want. You look up in the Sistine Chapel without a shoulder in your peripheral vision. Your guide talks in a normal voice instead of over the din of a hundred groups. It is the closest a modern visitor gets to what the Museums felt like when they were still a private papal collection.
When visiting the Vatican Museums at normal hours you discover collections numbering in the tens of thousands of pieces — and a moving river of visitors that pushes you through the corridors whether you want to linger or not. After hours, the Pinacoteca, the Belvedere Courtyard with the Laocoön and the Apollo, the Gallery of the Candelabra, the Gallery of the Tapestries, and the Gallery of Maps all become spaces you can stand still in.
Your guide, one of our licensed English-speaking Vatican specialists, adjusts the itinerary to what you care about. If you want ninety minutes on Raphael, that's ninety minutes on Raphael. If you want to spend twenty minutes staring at the ceiling of the Gallery of Maps that most visitors don't even glance at, the group waits with you. This is impossible on a scheduled daytime tour.
Imagine having one of the world's most famous rooms almost entirely to yourself. Michelangelo's ceiling and the Last Judgement, painted by a single artist across four years and later completed by another over the same duration, in a space where you can hear your own breath instead of a hundred other people's. Attendants are still present and the standing photography ban still applies — but the pressure to move through in three minutes is gone. Some guests spend twenty minutes in the Sistine on the after-hours visit; standard daytime tours give you closer to seven.
After-hours access is not scheduled every day. The Vatican typically releases a limited number of evening slots per week, concentrated in the high tourist season (roughly April through October). Because the slots are limited and the tour is priced at the top of our range, we handle each booking as a request-and-confirm rather than an instant-purchase — we check availability with the Vatican's Group Office, secure the slot, and confirm your date and time by email.
Lead time: two to three weeks in normal conditions, longer in peak season. Reach out at the enquiry form on this page with your preferred date, group size, and any specific interests (Raphael, Etruscan, Egyptian collection, etc.), and we'll reply with availability and price.
Approximately 2 hours 30 minutes inside the Museums, plus the meeting-point buffer. Guests who want to extend into a Basilica visit beforehand should allow an extra hour or ninety minutes at St Peter's.
Typically 7:00 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. entry, depending on the specific evening. You'll receive a confirmed time at booking. The Museums close their regular ticket office at 6:00 p.m.; the after-hours entrance uses a dedicated evening gate.
Pricing is quoted per booking based on group size and configuration (semi-private vs fully private). Send us your preferred date, group size and any specific interests via the enquiry form and we'll come back with a price and availability.
Two options. Fully private: only your party and the guide inside, up to twelve guests. Semi-private: your party plus a very small number of other guests (max ten total) — still substantially quieter than any daytime tour. You choose at booking.
Yes. The itinerary is guide-led but adjustable. If Egyptian antiquities aren't your interest, we walk you through the Pio Clementino faster and spend the saved time in Raphael or the Sistine. Standard scheduled tours can't do this because of route timing constraints; after-hours can.
Yes for everywhere except the Sistine Chapel, where photography is prohibited at all times. No flash and no tripod anywhere in the Museums.
Not by default — the Basilica is a separate site and closes at 8:00 p.m. per its own schedule. If you'd like a Basilica walk-through before the after-hours Museums visit, tell us at booking; we can arrange a licensed guide for the earlier slot at additional cost.
Reschedule requests received at least 72 hours before the tour date are honoured free of charge, subject to Vatican after-hours slot availability on the alternative date. Inside 72 hours, rescheduling depends on whether we can move the Vatican reservation.
No. The Vatican concentrates after-hours availability in the high tourist season (roughly April to October). Winter dates are possible but rarer. Check availability with a specific date request.
Identical to daytime: shoulders and knees covered for everyone, no hats inside the Museums. Bring a scarf or light layer if you're in summer clothing; the Sistine Chapel is enforced strictly.
Yes. The Vatican Museums are broadly wheelchair-accessible via a barrier-free itinerary. Please tell us at booking so we can arrange the accessible route with the Vatican and pair you with a guide familiar with it.
Send an enquiry with your preferred date, group size and interests — we'll reply with an availability and confirmed price within one business day. For a broader Vatican itinerary, see our full range of Vatican tours, the Museums opening hours guide for 2026, or the dress code page.
This Super VIP tour is only available on request. The tour starts at 17:00/18:00 subject to availability. When visiting the Vatican you are kindly asked to dress for your comfort while respecting the rules about covering your knees and shoulders.