Last updated: July 2026

Short answer: yes, usually — but not through the official booking site. Here's how it works, and what I did when my dates were sold out.

It took me about five visits to Milan before I finally went to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. I wanted to take my parents to see it and I knew vaguely that you needed to book in advance but (and this is embarrassing to admit now) I thought three weeks seemed enough in advance. Spoiler alert: I was very wrong. Here is the thing you find out too late about the Last Supper: tickets are released roughly three months in advance and sell out within hours, and to make matters worse, the official booking site is notoriously clunky.

If you're reading this and your trip to Milan is more than three months away, stop here, set a calendar reminder, and book directly through the Cenacolo Vinciano official site the moment tickets drop for your dates. That's the cheapest and most straightforward way to see the masterpiece.

If you're reading this and your trip is less than three months away, the official tickets are almost certainly gone. But don't worry, this post is for you — as you can probably still get tickets.

Why the Last Supper is so hard to see

To protect the fragile 15th-century mural from humidity and breath, only 40 people are allowed in the refectory (dining hall) which houses the Last Supper painting at any one time — and each group can only stay for 15 minutes. Tens of thousands of people would like to see it every day, and only a fraction can. The scarcity is real and it's not going to change.

The official booking system releases tickets in three-month tranches. They go fast. If you're like me and they're sold out by the time you try to book, you have two options: chance a last-minute cancellation slot (rare, and you have to be in Milan to try), or do what I did and book a guided tour that includes entry as part of the package.

The guided tour option

Tour operators get an allocation of tickets that sit outside the public booking system. You pay a pretty high premium over the €15 official ticket price, but you get guaranteed entry, a guide who can actually explain the history behind what you're looking at, and often a walking tour of central Milan thrown in. The extra price might make you wince, but having done it, I can say it's worth it. Seeing the Last Supper is a once in a lifetime experience, and the guided tour told us lots of fascinating facts about the painting that I would never have known otherwise.

I took the Milan: Last Supper Guided Visit tour after the official tickets sold out for my dates, and I managed to snag 4 tickets just three weeks before our visit. The Last Supper visit itself is the same 15-minute slot everyone gets, but having a guide meant we understood what we were seeing — the perspective tricks, the table arrangement, why Judas is leaning away, the process of how it was painted and much more — instead of standing in front of it for a quarter of an hour reading a pamphlet.

The tour we did was Last Supper only, but many operators bundle in a walking tour of central Milan (Sforza Castle, La Scala, the Galleria, the Duomo) for a similar price, which is worth considering if it's your first time in the city. Your main constraint will be finding a tour with tickets available for your dates — browse the full list of Last Supper tours on GetYourGuide to see what's available. Most run around £85 per person, which is what I paid.

When to book the tour

The same logic as the official tickets, just with a bit more breathing room. Tour slots also fill up, particularly in peak season (May to September). A few weeks ahead is usually enough; a few days ahead in July or August is cutting it fine. Book as soon as you can.

A note on combining with Cinque Terre

If you're heading to or from Cinque Terre, Milan is an obvious stopover. The train from Milano Centrale to La Spezia takes around three hours, and La Spezia is the gateway station for the Cinque Terre villages. One night in Milan on either side of a few days in the Cinque Terre is a tidy itinerary, and it gives you a built-in window to see the Last Supper without rearranging your whole trip around the booking system. If you're still working out the Cinque Terre side, I have a full guide to where to stay across the five villages.