Validating Train Tickets in Italy

Your ticket is validated by checking into the Trenitalia app.

If you are a registered passenger, you can check-in in the “My journeys” area on this website or on the Trenitalia App.

If you are not registered, you can check-in using the function available in the e-mail or text message you received when you bought your ticket or on the Trenitalia App if you added and saved your Digital Regional Ticket in the “My Journeys-Saved Tickets” area.

Check-in is available starting at midnight on the day before your journey until the scheduled departure time of the train you selected upon purchase: the following message is displayed on the key: “Check-in and travel”.

Once you have checked in, the message “validated” appears with a dynamic green bar to confirm that your ticket is validated.

The Digital Regional Ticket is only valid for the train(s) for which you have completed check-in.

For travel on Regionale trains, I prefer to buy paper tickets from the self-serve kiosks in the station or from a ticket office. They still have to be validated prior to boarding the train on the day of travel, using the trackside machines, but that's easily done.

With the express trains such as the high speed Freccia or Intercity, I sometimes buy tickets online if I can save money with an Economy or Super Economy ticket. Note that those tickets come with compulsory seat reservations that are specific to train, date and departure time and can only be used on the train listed on the ticket.

With fast trains, you can also use Italo Treno which is a competing service (they don't offer Regionale service though).

Yes, it is true: from 21 September checking is no longer necessary for all the tickets purchased online.
It means that your ticket is already validated when you buy it online. You can still change date and time before the departure time.
They finally realized how silly the check in system was.

Electronic tickets are validated on purchase and have assigned seats and do not need to be validated on the platform. In France you use the ticket to access the platform but in several train rides this past week in Italy that has not been the case -- in Milan, Florence or Bologna. In each case our tickets were checked on the train by a conductor.

If you have paper tickets you need to stick them in the stamping machines on the platforms before boarding trains at least if they are for local trains without seat assignments.

Some of these replies are slightly misleading. Jean is correct - for Regional trains, you must do an online check-in prior to departure for electronic tickets or stamp paper tickets in the machines on the platforms. High-speed trains do not required validation, but if you don't check in or stamp a regional ticket, you will be fined when checked. There are signs and frequent announcements, as this is a fairly new process.

Also, the paper ticket and stamping machines are going to meet the dinosaurs in extinction. There are fewer and fewer working validation machines. They are not being maintained as consistently and even being removed in some cases. So bring your smartphone!

I've just returned from six weeks in northern Italy. It appears Trenitalia is removing the little validating machines from train stations. Some stations had them and some did not seem to. You are apparently now expected (per a sign I saw in one of the stations) to validate paper tickets manually by writing (I assume) the date and time in the validation block on the back of the ticket. This could be a bit tricky for Americans since we're accustomed to writing dates in MM-DD-YY rather than DD-MM-YY format. I also wonder whether all tourists have pens with them in these days of heavy dependence on smartphones for practically everything.

I should have been clearer - I don't want to hassle with a smart phone if I don't have to. I have all the tickets I need for everything. I rely on the hotel WiFi for any information I need and then wander freely unhindered by electronics. Having lived in Europe for several years, I know they are way ahead of us in reliance on smart phones. And, I do have an older smart phone I intend to bring in case I really do need to get a SIM card to travel efficiently.

All I know is last month I was in the Milan area and did several day trips on Trenord regional trains. You purchase a card and then need to validate your ride on a machine at the station/platform. Your card can have more $$ on it than a single fare so you then reload $$ when your $$ runs out. It didn't seem that enforcement was very strict in that conductors were scarce.

for Regional trains, you must do an online check-in prior to departure for electronic tickets or stamp paper tickets in the machines on the platforms.

Not true; no longer required, at least on Trenitalia. Your ticket is valid for the single trip for which the ticket has been issued, immediately upon purchase. And you can change the scheduled departure up until your single purchased trip is scheduled to depart. This change was finalized on September 21. I've listened to the message announcing this change repeatedly on several regional trains on Trenitalia over the past two weeks, throughout Italy. :o) I haven't ridden any Trenord trains, so I can't speak to their procedures.

As for paper tickets vs. e-tickets, I understand many people are more comfortable using paper tickets. I don't understand why. Then again, I don't need to understand why. It's none of my business.

Final note: the order of desirability for Italian trains IMO generally is Frecciarossa > Frecciargento > Regionale (including Regionale Veloce and Regionale TPER) >> InterCity (designated IC). You need to buy seat reservations on the ICs, but they're generally old and tired carriages, with no charging outlets, no wifi and no cafe car. Worst by a wide margin. Most of the Regionale trains are pretty new stock with good charging outlets and pretty comfy seats. Even with 1st class passes we've learned to be quite happy on Regionales, so long as they're not jam packed.

If you already have all the tickets you need, that implies you've printed them out?

https://www.trenitalia.com/en/purchase/regional_online_ticketandpasses.html

Under the old scheme, the e-mail that conveyed your tickets would have had a validate link or button - if you don't see it, you should be OK.

Wow, this thread makes it as clear as Mudd...

The Sept. 21 date mentioned above is significant. The “ validation” requirement changed as of that date. I bought tix online for the Malpensa Express on 27/Sept., in the morning for an afternoon train. This is a regional train operated by Trenord. A notice stated that the tix were only valid for that train and they would automatically be validated at the time of departure. That surprised me but it did work out that way.

I hope that clarifies things.

As it turned out, our incoming train to Milano Centrale was 25 minutes late and we missed our train by a minute or two. As the tix were “automatically validated” at the moment of scheduled departure (13:55), they were not valid after that and we had to buy new ones for the next train.

Lesson learned—-30 minutes is not enough time between trains in Italy on an unprotected connection.,

At the risk of rotten tomatoes flying my direction, I'll go after this one more time. Perhaps Trenord does it differently, but for the regional Trenitalia train ticket I bought last week, the email with the ticket barcode included several paragraphs about mandatory check-in via the email or the app, and penalties in case of failure to check in. Here's the Italian text, followed by translation:

"Per viaggiare ricorda di effettuare il check-in prima della partenza programmata del treno selezionato al momento dell'acquisto. Il biglietto digitale regionale è valido solo per il treno per il quale hai effettuato il check-in. Se non sei riuscito ad effettuare il check-in, puoi richiedere - all'atto della salita - al Personale di Bordo di effettuarlo per tuo conto; il mancato avviso all'atto della salita comporta l'applicazione di una sanzione di euro 5 dovuta al Personale di Bordo; laddove non sia corrisposto a bordo treno, si applica la penalità prevista per la mancata convalida."

"To travel, remember to check in before the scheduled departure of the train selected at the time of purchase. The regional digital ticket is valid only for the train for which you have checked in. If you are unable to check in, you can ask the On-Board Staff to do it for you when boarding; failure to notify the On-Board Staff will result in a fine of €5 being applied; if this is not paid on board the train, the penalty for failure to validate will apply."

There is a big red check-in button at the bottom of the email, which I used. After I had clicked it, the online ticket no longer had a check-in function, indicating I had done it correctly.

So, at least on Trenitalia Regional trains, you do have to personally check in. It is not automatic.

Nelly’s description is what I experienced. Either way, just check your app the day of your train ride. If it is “red” under the “Manage” section, then select the “Validate” to turn it green.

You mentioned that you plan to buy your train tickets ahead of time. For others reading this post, the paper tickets purchases at the smaller stations are sometimes harder to find. I was watching a line of people growing frustrated at one of the small stations in Puglia - possibly at Polignano a Mare. There were three machines but only one was delivering any tickets. Just use the app to buy a ticket and avoid missing the train that you wanted.

Sounds like it is a difference between Trenitalia Regionale trains and Trenord. We have been in Italy for 2 weeks, and I carefully avoided buying Regionale tix for our short trips Milano to Desenzano and Verona to Milano Centrale. I bought Frecce or Italo tix for those trains. But then we needed to get to Malpensa airport to meet our HF Holidays tour group for a week of hiking at Lago Maggiore, and the only option was Malpensa Express, a Trenord train. And that was very clear when I bought the tickets online with my Trenitalia account, (not with the app). No “checkin”, no red button, etc. it just said it was automatically validated at the departure time of the train you bought your ticket for.

So pay attention—if it is a Trenitalia Regionale train, follow Nellie’s instructions.

That's my experience:
Regional train from Venice to Padova: the ticket purchased online was already validated, no need to click on the "check in" button (which no longer exists). This is consistent with the announcement made by trenitalia which stated that check-in is no longer required from 09/21

We are here now, taking Regionale trains in Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria.
All our Regionale tickets were bought at the stations just before departing and you do have to validate them in the little green machines on each platform and in the station halls.
They are then good for 4 hours.
There is no evidence that these machines are being removed from stations …there seem to be more machines ever than before!
There are recorded announcements while on board the trains, that you no longer have to validate online-purchased tickets on an app, that’s gone away.
Tickets bought online for Regionale trains on specific dates are automatically validated , say the announcements.
Very easy.
Love Italian trains…..so efficient.

I agree with SJ; Italian trains are generally quite good. We ran into delays and cancelations today in the Cinque Terre, but I blame that on the CT and its generally inadequate tourism infrastructure rather than on Trenitalia. BTW, the opinion about poor tourist infrastructure was first voiced to me by a Sicilian who now lives in La Spezia and works in Monterosso al Mare. CT has advertised itself as a tourist hotspot before investing in the support facilities that would make visiting there a predictable, reliably enjoyable experience. Frankly it's not my favorite place. La Spezia, conversely, we find delightful.

I must also mention that experiences, good, bad and indifferent, in Puglia should not be regarded as representative in any way of the remainder of Italy. It's just different. And deliciously so.

My experience on October 2 regional trains from Milan to Bolzano was that the digital ticket on the trenitalia app clearly stated that the ticket is activated when the train departs the station. I had no problem when the conductor checked my ticket on my phone.
However several passengers had something they showed in their phones that was not accepted. After long discussions in Italian that I couldn’t understand, these people reluctantly paid something on the train.

ok now I'm very curious. Going to dig into this a bit more - even in Italy, there shouldn't be so many different processes!

However several passengers had something they showed in their phones that was not accepted. After long discussions in Italian that I couldn’t understand, these people reluctantly paid something on the train.

I'm betting these passengers held tickets for an earlier train that they thought could still be used.

Our train from Lecce to Caserta was 9 minutes late, and we missed our connection to Naples.
We had prebooked tickets and just got on the next train.
We did check with a staff member who said to do just that.
The other curious thing is that our Regionale tickets were never checked at all on board any of 7 journeys..
Only tickets for InterCity and Frecciargento services were checked.

Report from on the ground in Italy.

Trenitalia has done away with the validation step when purchasing electronic tickets in the app. The English version (at least) of the Trenitalia website still instructs you to "check in" etc and is out of date. (This will probably not surprise anyone who has used Trenitalia.)
Under "Manage" you can Change Date/Time, Change of Ticket, Refund, Compensation, Add Services but no "Validate" or "Check In" anymore.

Yesterday the second leg of our regionale trip was cancelled when we arrived at the change station. I checked in the ticket office and Trenitalia was organizing a bus or I could wait an hour for the next train on the same route. I confirmed with her that I didn't need a new ticket and the app-ticket I had was good for the next train.

Because the documentation is out of date I can't say for sure whether the e-ticket was good for the next train only because of the cancellation so I won't speculate.

The rules for printed online e-tickets (not the app) remains the same as paper tickets - Your online ticket is already validated and allows you to travel on your pre-chosen train or on others - along the same route - in the four hours after the time originally selected at the time of purchase
https://www.trenitalia.com/en/purchase/regional_online_ticketandpasses.html

The Compensation link is supposed to be there if you are late enough that you are entitled to a partial refund. I checked for my cancelled train ticket and it says that I do not qualify. Probably because it was short/cheap ticket. Here are the rules:
https://www.trenitalia.com/en/info_contacts/compensation_for_delays_and_refund.html

Hope that helps,
=Tod