Pantheon will continue to be free for Rome residents.

Visiting the Pantheon in Rome will no longer be free to tourists who will be required to pay a €5 entry fee, following an agreement reached between Italy's culture ministry and church authorities.

Access to the landmark, which attracted a record 9.3 million visitors in 2019, will remain free to residents of Rome, people attending religious services and the under-18s, while visitors under 25 will pay an entry fee of €2.

Under the agreement, announced on Thursday, proceeds from the ticket sales will be divided between the culture ministry, which will take 70 per cent, with the remaining 30 per cent going to the diocese of Rome.

Il #MiC e il Capitolo della Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martyres-Pantheon hanno siglato il nuovo regolamento d’uso del #Pantheon che prevede l'introduzione di un biglietto d’ingresso di importo non superiore a 5 euro.https://t.co/k4hZg3q2su@museitaliani @g_sangiuliano pic.twitter.com/6TKJmucsPj

— Ministero della Cultura (@MiC_Italia) March 16, 2023

The culture ministry will bear the costs of "ordinary and extraordinary maintenance and cleaning" at the Pantheon, while the diocese of Rome will use the resources for "charitable and cultural activities and for the maintenance, conservation and restoration of state-owned churches" in the city.

The move comes after Italy’s new right-wing culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano revived a contentious plan by his centre-left predecessor Dario Franceschini to start charging people to visit the Pantheon.

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The proposal had been at an advanced stage five years ago before being shelved in 2018, with a planned admission fee of €2.

The entry fee system was due to come into effect in May 2018 but was scrapped by the then culture minister Alberto Bonisoli of the populist Movimento 5 Stelle.

Until now the Pantheon has been free to visit, as a place of worship, in line with the custom of the Rome vicariate which does not charge entry fees for churches.

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In a statement on the culture ministry website, Sangiuliano hailed the development as being "based on common sense", with a "modest ticket charge for the most visited cultural site in Italy."

Sangiuliano recently cited admission prices at other European cultural landmarks including the Musèe de l’Armèe in Paris where visitors are charged €14 to visit the tomb of Napoleon, or Westminster Abbey in London which has an entry fee of €25.