FCO Airport

I want to book the high speed train now, as they were sold out the
last time I tried to get a train upon my arrival.

There are fast trains Roma Termini to Firenze SM Novella about every 30 min. Are you saying ALL those trains were sold out?
That is hard to believe

Anyway- no way to predict if your flight arrives on time, how long passport control and luggage will take.
If you must purchase train ticket ahead of time- I'd give 3-4 hours from scheduled flight arrival til train departure from Termini. If that is too much time grab a meal at Termini.

Buy a ticket that allows cancellation/refund/chnages

There is zero chance, and I mean zero, that trains from Rome to Florence will be sold out.There is a train every 15-30 min. It has never happened to me, ever, in all the years that I’ve taken the train between the two cities. I’m looking at the next train departing Termini in minutes from now and they have availability in all classes (and it’s Sunday evening in August, a very busy time to travel)

At most you might find a train where the standard class (economy class) is sold out, in which case you wait for the very next train 15 or 30 min later, or pay 11€ more for the higher Premium Class or 22€ more for the still higher business class.

I would purchase in advance only for the purpose of getting a discounted (supereconomy or economy) fare. However that is risky, because if your flight arrives late or is cancelled, those tickets are not refundable or changeable.

Even if you pre purchase a non discounted full price BASE fare ticket, that ticket is reimbursable only up to the time the train’s departure time (although with a 20% penalty). Therefore if your flight is badly delayed and you arrive after the train’s departure time, you will be out of luck and lose your money. Unless you purchase a ticket for a train departing several hours after your scheduled flight arrival, I would bite the bullet and pay full price once I get to the airport station. I guarantee you that there will be available seats for you, if not on the first train, certainly on the one departing half hour later.

Hi Wendi,
It’s a hard question to answer because it can always vary. What time of year are you arriving? Last October, I arrived around the same time. The line to passport control was backed up to the stairs leading to the tram. Because I had my 6 yr old son, I was directed to the front. It took me longer to walk than getting my passport stamped.

In February last year, same time, there was no line getting to passport control.

The biggest time consumer is waiting for your luggage. The 4 times I’ve flown into FCO, I’ve waited longer for my bag than passport control.

My rule of thumb is to give myself 2.5 hours from landing to the train departure. The worst case is you arrive early & have to sit and drink a coffee.

Good luck!

The problem with the safe bet, something like 3 or 4 hours, is that you likely will be sitting at Termini for a couple of those hours, when you could be in Florence having a caffe Be risky and cut that back, you likely will find yourself paying for a new ticket anyway.

I arrived from China at FCO on Aug. 1st with a large group. Most of us were EU passport holders, our check was with automatic machines (E-gates); I literally took 50 seconds to clear immigration. In spite of the large group passing immigration within few minutes, we had two members with South American passports waiting in queue and they took about one hour to clear immigration, so we had to wait for them. People from USA may use the machines that are way quicker, in any case not the EU citizen machines, so it should be relatively quick.

Luggage collecting was relatively straightforward, I remember we waited ten to fifteen minutes.