by InTrieste
The number of permanent residents in Venice’s historic center has dipped below 48,000, continuing a decades-long demographic decline in the lagoon city even as officials intensify efforts to regulate the flow of tourists.
According to Venessia.com, an activist group that has monitored population trends using municipal data for the past 25 years, just 47,995 people now live in the city’s centro storico, which includes the six sestieri and the island of Giudecca. Other lagoon islands and the mainland are not included in the count.
The drop represents the latest chapter in a steady exodus. Since the 1950s, the historic center has lost more than 120,000 residents. Figures from the city council’s statistics office show that in 1975 Venice counted 104,000 inhabitants, a number that fell to 71,000 in 1995 and to 55,000 by 2015. By 2020, the population stood at about 52,000 and slid further to 48,489 at the end of last year.
The trend has become a symbol of concern for groups like Venessia.com, which in 2008 placed a digital counter in a pharmacy window near the Rialto Bridge to broadcast the shrinking number of residents.
Local officials, however, caution against framing the city solely in terms of decline. “Continuing to tell the world that Venice is dying does this city no service,” Laura Besio, the city councillor for citizen services, told the Italian news outlet Il Post. She pointed to Italy’s falling birthrate as a significant contributor, alongside the thousands of non-residents—estimated between 8,000 and 15,000—who nonetheless live in the city for extended periods.
Housing costs, limited employment opportunities and the pressures of mass tourism have also driven many Venetians away from the historic center. Venessia.com has described this shift as “internal migration,” as residents move to the mainland or surrounding areas while the city’s core becomes increasingly dependent on visitors.
Even as the resident population shrinks, Venice continues to attract millions of tourists annually. In 2025, the city expanded its experimental entry fee for day-trippers, applying it to 54 peak days. More than 720,000 visitors paid the charge, generating €5.4 million in revenue—nearly double the previous year’s figure. The fee ranges from €5 for advance bookings to €10 for last-minute arrivals.
City officials say the measure is intended to balance the demands of tourism with the needs of residents, but critics argue it does little to address deeper structural issues driving the long-term depopulation of the historic center.
