Visiting the Trevi Fountain now will cost more than just a coin toss with a 2-euro tourist fee

ROME (AP) — Tourists visiting the Trevi Fountain are now going to pay more than just the legendary coin toss over their shoulder to get the Instagrammable selfie in front of one of the world’s most celebrated waterworks.

Starting Feb. 1, the city of Rome is imposing a 2-euro ($2.35) fee for tourists to get close to the fountain made famous by Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” during prime-time daylight hours. The view for those admiring the late Baroque masterpiece from the piazza above remains free.

The tourist fee announced Friday is part of the Eternal City’s efforts to manage tourist flows in a particularly congested part of town, improve the experience and offset the maintenance costs of preserving all of Rome’s cultural heritage. Officials estimate it could net the city 6.5 million euros ($7.6 million) extra a year.

The fee, which has been discussed and debated for more than a year, follows a similar ticketing system at Rome’s Pantheon monument and the more complicated tourist day-tripper tax that the lagoon city of Venice imposed last year in a bid to ease overtourism and make the city more liveable for residents.

In such cases, city residents have been exempt from the fees. The same holds true at Trevi, while the tourist tax and new 5-euro (nearly $6) tourist ticket fee for some city museums is being rolled out in conjunction with a plan to broaden the number of museums that are free for registered Roman residents.

“We believe that culture is a fundamental right of citizenship,” Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told a news conference. “We think it’s correct and positive that the citizens of Rome can enjoy our museums free of charge.”

At the same time, he said, the 2-euro ($2.35) Trevi tourist fee is a minimal amount that shouldn't discourage visitors, but rather allow for a more organized visit. The city decided to impose it after seeing positive results already from a yearlong experiment to stagger and limit the number of visitors who can reach the front basin edge of the fountain by imposing lines and an entrance and exit pathway.

So far this year, around 9 million people have waited in line to get that close-up visit, with some days as many as 70,000 passing through, Gualtieri said. That system now becomes permanent from 9 a.m.-9 p.m., with the fee to be paid by nonresidents. Visitors can either pay in advance online, while waiting in line or by buying tickets at tourist locations around town.

After nightfall, access is open and free.

Pope Urban VIII initially commissioned the fountain in 1640. In 1730, Pope Clement XII revived the project and the current fountain corresponds to the original designs of Roman architect Nicola Salvi.

The towering fountain features at the Titan god flanked by falls cascading down the travertine rocks into a shallow turquoise pool, where Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg famously took their nighttime dip in “La Dolce Vita.”

While bathing is prohibited nowadays, legend has it that visitors who toss a coin over their shoulders and make a wish will return to Rome.

A view of Rome's Trevi Fountain, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, as the city municipality announced that, starting on Feb. 1, it will impose a 2 euro fee for tourists to get close to the fountain. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Rome's Mayor Roberto Gualtieri, second from left, announces at a press conference that starting on Feb. 1, it will impose a 2 euro fee for tourists to get close to the Trevi Fountain, in Rome, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, . (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Staff controls the flow of visitors at Rome's Trevi Fountain, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, as the city municipality announced that, starting on Feb. 1, it will impose a 2 euro fee for tourists to get close to the fountain. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

A visitor takes a photo of Rome's Trevi Fountain, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, as the city municipality announced that, starting on Feb. 1, it will impose a 2 euro fee for tourists to visit the recessed fountain edge. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Visitors admire Rome's Trevi Fountain, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, as the city municipality announced that, starting on Feb. 1, it will impose a 2 euro fee for tourists to visit the recessed fountain edge. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

MIAMI (AP) — A U.S. Army Reserve lawyer detailed as a federal immigration judge has been fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum at a high rate out of step with the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals, The Associated Press has learned.

Christopher Day began hearing cases in late October as a temporary judge at the immigration court in Annandale, Virginia. He was fired around Dec. 2, the National Association of Immigration Judges confirmed.

It’s unclear why Day was fired. Day and the Pentagon did not comment when contacted by the AP, and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to discuss personnel matters.

But federal data from November shows he ruled on asylum cases in ways at odds with the Trump administration’s stated goals.

Of the 11 cases he concluded in November, he granted asylum or some other type of relief allowing the migrant to remain in the United States a total of six times, according to federal data analyzed by Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco-based non profit.

Such favorable outcomes for migrants have become increasingly rare as the Trump administration seeks to slash a massive backlog of 3.8 million asylum cases by radically overhauling the nation’s 75 immigration courts.

As part of that drive, the Trump administration has fired almost 100 judges viewed as too liberal and over the summer eased rules allowing any attorney, regardless of their legal background, to apply to become what recent recruitment ads refer to as a “Deportation Judge.”

In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in September approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to hear asylum cases. The goal, migrant advocacy groups say, is to redefine a judge’s traditional duties as a fair, independent arbiter of asylum claims into something akin to a rubber stamp in a robe for the White House’s mass deportation goals.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has decried the influx of military officers lacking expertise in immigration law, likening them to cardiologists attempting to do a hip replacement. But Pentagon and White House officials have defended the move, saying that a campaign to rule on pending asylum claims was something that all federal workers — as well as migrants sometimes in limbo for years — should rally behind.

So far, only 30 members of the military have been detailed to the immigration courts and for the most part appear to have lived up to the administration’s expectations. Nine out of every 10 migrants whose asylum cases were heard by such judges in November were either ordered removed or requested to self-deport, according to federal data. Overall, the military judges ordered removal 78% of the time compared to 63% for all other judges.

But those like Day, whose rulings countered that trend, are especially vulnerable if it is determined they violated their military duties, said Dana Leigh Marks, a retired immigration judge.

“It is hard to imagine someone being fired so quickly, after five weeks on the bench, unless it was for ideological reasons,” said Marks, the former head of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “It’s especially unfair to military judges because they don’t have the same civil service protections and could face severe consequences for failing in their assignment.”

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs service members, forbids senior military leaders from interfering or retaliating against military attorneys for their actions in a military tribunal. Army regulations also require JAG attorneys to proceed with candor and honesty much like all licensed lawyers are expected to do in civil courts.

But whether those standards apply to military lawyers working outside of the normal confines of a military tribunal is untested.

Brenner Fissell, a Villanova University law professor, said that there are a number of personnel actions that can be taken — letters of counseling or reprimand — that, even if found to be baseless later, would affect one’s potential for promotion and impact their discharge. Appealing such decisions, he said, is a byzantine process that can take years and require hiring a costly lawyer.

“The process can be the punishment,” said Fissell, who helps run the Orders Project, which helps provide counsel to military personnel who believe they are being asked to carry out illegal orders.

A graduate of American University law school, Day has held multiple jobs in the federal government over the past two decades while simultaneously serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. His last job was as an attorney for the Federal Communications Commission during the Biden administration.

Unlike federal judges, who have lifetime tenure, immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department, which runs immigration courts, and can be fired by the attorney general with fewer restraints.

That message was driven home during a two-week training course in October held for new judges, including those assigned by the Pentagon, according to someone who attended the training on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private sessions.

The Pentagon has offered extra incentives to military officers signing up for temporary detail on immigration courts. Those volunteering were promised their choice of assignments, according to an email sent by the JAG Corps leadership in the fall, a copy of which was shared with the AP. But if enough officers didn't come forward, officers might be required to relocate up to six months away from home to fulfill the mandate, according to the email.

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Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - A man holds his immigration paperwork while handcuffed after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside an immigration courtroom, June 17, 2025, at the Jacob K. Javits federal building in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)