Sagrada Família tickets Web page

Yep, it’s legit.

Sagrada Família uses personalised tickets, so they often ask for your passport or ID number when you buy online. The ticket is tied to your name, and they can ask to see a matching ID at the entrance.

Main reason: too many people were reselling tickets, using fake QR codes, or buying them in bulk. Asking for ID helps stop scalpers and keeps things a bit more civilised in the “world’s most famous unfinished church” 😂

The Spanish are also pretty ID-heavy in general for tourism stuff (hotels, trains, some attractions), so it’s not unusual here. Part of it is security laws and tourism control, part of it is bureaucracy surviving from another darker era, and part of it is Spain trying to manage millions of tourists without the whole country turning into one giant queue with fake tickets and angry Germans.

Just make sure you’re buying from the official site or a trusted seller, there are tons of fake-looking ticket websites floating around. If it’s the official Sagrada Família website, then asking for passport details is totally normal.

That all adds up thank you now just got to get my group on the same page. With the world changing so fast we all just want to watch out for what my Uncle would call Nare do Wells.

I was surprised, too when I saw the requirement but understood why it's there. My family in the US gave me their passport numbers, and I bought all the Sagrada Familia tickets this week. July went on sale Thursday.
Renfe trains require the passport numbers, too, at least for our trains.

Hi Elizabeth, honestly, to me it feels less about real necessity and more about an administrative control mentality, something that can linger in countries shaped by long periods of centralized authoritarian rule, where documenting every aspect of people's lives became normal practice.

For long-distance trains they justify it with security, fraud prevention, and passenger records, but in practice many countries manage perfectly well without collecting passport numbers for ordinary rail travel. So while there is some official logic behind it, it often seems more like institutions wanting data simply because they can ask for it, rather than because it is truly essential.

But this doesn’t really apply to regional or commuter trains, which are described as “short distance” journeys—more accurately, "short trips" where it would be impractical to collect personal data from every passenger. But with the current chaotic situation and ongoing operational issues with RENFE in Catalonia, it’s not uncommon for a cross-country trip (like Tarragona to Girona, barely 200km) to take longer or be more unpredictable than an international train to Perpignan or Madrid. So “short distance” is often more a technical label than a reflection of reality.

Merci, Enric. Your point is well understood.

As for timing, I'm relieved to read that our train coming from France is slightly more likely to be on time. I made lunch reservations for 13:45 after a 12:30 arrival.