Golf Carts in Rome: What Is Changing, and What It Means for Visitors
The Lazio Region is drafting rules for the tourist shuttles in the historic center, the taxi unions are asking for caps on their numbers, and Rome’s city council has voted to limit them in monumental areas. Here are the facts, current, and what they mean if you have a tour booked.
No ban is in force today. What exists is a regional bill in committee, and a very loud request to put limits on it.
What has happened, in order
The Lazio Region is examining a bill on transport by tourist shuttle in historic centers, filed by regional councillor Marco Bertucci. The idea is a regional registry with minimum safety and roadworthiness requirements, and a framework that lets municipalities set routes, hours, parking areas and limits in the most prestigious zones.
A related article amends regional law 30/1998 to place electric tourist shuttles within the classification of road public transport services. That is the technical point that matters: it means treating them as a passenger transport service, not as just another vehicle.
The text is due in committee on 29 September 2026, with hearings to follow.
What the taxi drivers are asking for
Around fifteen unions — Filt Cgil, Fit Cisl, Ugl Taxi, Federtaxi, Uritaxi and others — call it unfair competition and argue the bill as drafted does not go far enough. They want three things it currently lacks:
A cap on the number of vehicles, which the bill does not provide. A ban on reserved lanes and pickup areas in pedestrian zones and narrow streets. Controls on the fares charged to foreign tourists.
Their legal argument is this: a taxi has a license, a regulated fare and obligations; a golf cart today is registered as an ordinary M1 category electric vehicle and needs only a light authorization to operate. The model they point to is the one adopted in Florence.
On the other side, Rome’s city assembly has approved a motion asking the Region for strict limits on shuttle circulation in monumental areas.
Where we fit in, and where we do not
This is worth saying precisely, because it is a subject where it is easy to tell yourself a convenient story.
What is being regulated is passenger transport with a driver: a vehicle, a driver, and passengers paying for the service. That is what the golf carts you see below the Colosseum do, with a guide at the wheel and up to eight people aboard. The taxi drivers’ whole complaint sits there: carrying paying passengers should mean the taxi regime or the chauffeur-hire licence, with a licence, a regulated fare and obligations — whereas today those vehicles need only to be registered as ordinary M1 electric vehicles and hold a light authorization.
We do something else, and the difference is not a nuance: rental without a driver. We carry nobody, there is no driver, you are not buying a seat. You rent a car and you drive it yourself, on your own licence. It is a separate regime, long regulated, and it does not require a chauffeur-hire licence because there is no transport service to authorize. The vehicle is in a different category too: a heavy electric quadricycle, type approval L7e, not an M1.
Put another way: the bill under discussion is putting rules where there were few. Rental without a driver already has its rules, and has never worked in the grey area now being closed.
One qualification all the same: the text is in committee and can change before approval. We are not going to write that we are safe from anything at all, because nobody can know that before the law exists. If it changes, we change this page.
If you have a tour booked, or are about to book one
Nothing changes today: no ban is in force and the golf carts are running normally. If and when caps arrive, the likely effect is not that the service disappears but that there are fewer vehicles in the most prestigious areas — so less availability in busy periods, and prices that climb.
For anyone planning a trip a few months out, the practical consequence is one thing: book earlier, whichever format you choose.
Were you about to book a golf cart tour?
If you landed here looking for news because you had one in mind, the short answer is that you can still book it: there is no ban today. It is worth knowing what else exists, since these formats are not interchangeable.
A guided golf cart tour is still the easiest option if you want somebody to tell you the story and none of you feels like driving. You pay per person and you book it on Viator or GetYourGuide.
The hop-on hop-off bus costs 25–35 euros each for 24 hours and is the cheapest option, with the limit of a fixed route and the same stops for everyone.
Driving it yourself is what we do: an open car for the whole drive, up to four people, and you choose the stops. There is no guide on board, you need a category B license, and here is how it works.
The cars are on the road from 13 March 2027 and dates can be booked now.
Questions
Are golf carts banned in Rome?
No. They operate normally today. There is a regional bill that would regulate them and a request from the taxi unions to cap their numbers, but no ban in force.
Could my golf cart tour be canceled?
Not for this reason, and not now. The rules under discussion concern the future of the service, not tours already booked.
Does your Méhari fall under these rules?
As things stand, no. What is being regulated is passenger transport with a driver; rental without a driver is a different activity, and it needs no chauffeur-hire licence precisely because there is no transport service. The text is still in committee: if it changes, we change this page.
Does anything change for the ZTL?
The bill concerns authorization to run the service, not the rules for entering the restricted traffic zone, which remain those set by the City of Rome.
Sources: Lazio Regional Council, RomaToday, Abitare a Roma. Page updated 25 September 2026.