Florence Train Stations: Which One Your Train Actually Uses
Updated 24 September 2026 · Service counts, times and fares from Trenitalia’s own booking system
Search Google for Florence train stations and, alongside the results, it shows you what people are saying about it. This month that panel included a post titled don’t look for the Florence train station because it literally doesn’t exist, a traveller asking which station you use to go from Florence to Rome, and a reel listing all three. The first of those is the right instinct and a useless answer. There is no station called Florence. There are three that matter, your ticket will name one of them in Italian, and which one you get changes what you pay and how long it takes.
Every guide to this subject is a brochure about Santa Maria Novella: how many platforms, when it opened, where the left luggage is. Not one of the eight results on the first page of Google tells you which of the three stations your train actually uses. So we put every one of them through Trenitalia’s own booking system and counted.
The three stations, and what reaches each
Six origins, every departure across the whole operating day, counted one by one. The numbers are direct services, meaning no change, out of everything the engine returned for that pair.
| From | Santa Maria Novella | Campo di Marte | Rifredi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rome Termini | 46 direct, best 1h 35 | 7 direct, best 1h 27 | 2 direct, best 3h 15 |
| Milan Centrale | 17 direct, best 1h 54 | None | 2 direct, best 3h 39 |
| Venice S. Lucia | 14 direct, best 2h 13 | None | None |
| Naples Centrale | 23 direct, best 2h 56 | None | 2 direct, best 4h 59 |
| Pisa Centrale | 52 direct, best 52 min | 3 direct, best 49 min | 48 direct, best 51 min |
| Siena | 19 direct, best 1h 11 | None | 19 direct, best 1h 01 |
Three things fall straight out of that table. Santa Maria Novella wins everywhere on volume, and it is not close. Rifredi is a Tuscan station, not a long-distance one: forty-eight direct trains from Pisa and nineteen from Siena, against two from Rome and none at all from Venice. And Campo di Marte barely exists as a destination: seven services from Rome, three from Pisa, nothing from anywhere else we tried.
But the number that costs money is not in that table at all.
The search box that costs 1.70 euros
Trenitalia lets you search for a specific station or for a city’s stations together. The all-stations option is called Firenze ( Tutte Le Stazioni ), in Italian, with the spacing exactly as they print it. Almost nobody arriving from abroad picks it, because almost nobody knows it is there.
We ran the Rome to Florence route both ways on the same day. Searching all stations returned 36 direct services out of 40 and a cheapest fare of 16.00 euros. Searching Santa Maria Novella specifically returned 32 of 40 and a cheapest fare of 17.70.
And it is the same train. Here is the 15:55 departure from Rome, found both ways.
| All stations | Santa Maria Novella only | |
|---|---|---|
| What you search for | Firenze (Tutte le stazioni) | Firenze S. M. Novella |
| Departs Rome | 15:55 | 15:55 |
| Journey | 3h 43 | 3h 57 |
| Legs | Regionale Veloce + Intercity | Regionale Veloce + Intercity + Regionale |
| Fare | 16.00 € | 17.70 € |
| Direct services in the sample | 36 of 40 | 32 of 40 |
Forcing Santa Maria Novella bolts a third leg onto the end of the journey and charges you for it. The difference is exactly 1.70 euros, which is exactly the local fare we measured separately between the outer stations and Santa Maria Novella. Sixteen euros plus one seventy is seventeen seventy, to the cent.
This is the same shape of check that told us the through ticket from Pisa airport costs precisely the shuttle plus the train and not a euro more, which is in our guide to getting from Pisa airport to Florence. When two independent measurements add up to the cent, you know neither of them is an artefact.
The practical version: search for all Florence stations, look at what comes back, and then decide. You will see services the narrower search hides, and if the cheap one lands you at Rifredi you now know what that costs to fix.
Search in English, see two. Search in Italian, see fourteen
Type Florence into Trenitalia’s station search and it offers you two entries: the all-stations option and Santa Maria Novella. Type Firenze and it offers you fourteen.
The fourteen are not all railway stations. Some sit in the part of the index Trenitalia uses for bus and tram stops, including one called Firenze Aeroporto, one called Firenze P.le Montelungo and, our favourite, one called Firenze The Mall, which is the designer outlet in the Chianti hills. The rest are real stations: Santa Maria Novella, Campo di Marte, Rifredi, Castello, Porta a Prato, Rovezzano, San Marco Vecchio and Statuto.
So the English spelling does not merely fail to translate. It hides twelve of the fourteen options, including the all-stations entry that saves you the 1.70 euros above. If you are booking direct with Trenitalia, type the Italian name.
Rifredi is the Tuscan station, not a long-distance one
Read the guides and Rifredi is a footnote: the station where a few long-distance trains stop when Santa Maria Novella is full. The measurement says something else entirely.
From Pisa, Rifredi has 48 direct services against Santa Maria Novella’s 52, at the same 9.80 euro fare. And the quickest train into Rifredi was 51 minutes, on an ordinary Regionale, against 52 minutes into Santa Maria Novella on a Regionale Veloce. The slow train to the outer station beat the fast train to the central one by a minute, for the same money.
From Siena the gap is bigger and goes the same way: 1 hour 1 minute to Rifredi against 1 hour 11 to Santa Maria Novella, identical 10.80 euro fare, and exactly the same nineteen direct services out of thirty-one. Ten minutes, for nothing.
Go the other way and it collapses. From Rome, Rifredi gets two Intercity a day and the quickest takes 3 hours 15 against 1 hour 35 into Santa Maria Novella. From Milan, two, at 3 hours 39. From Naples, two, at 4 hours 59. From Venice, none. Booking Rifredi from a major Italian city is not a shortcut, it is a mistake with a two-hour penalty.
We are not going to tell you why the central station takes longer from Pisa and Siena. The numbers are ours and we stand behind them; the explanation would require reading a track layout we have not verified and are not going to invent.
Campo di Marte, and the night train
Campo di Marte is the one most visitors never see and the one most likely to catch them out, because of what stops there rather than how much.
From Rome it had seven direct services in the day, and the mix is the interesting part: two Frecciargento, one Frecciarossa, three Regionale Veloce and one InterCityNotte, the overnight train. From Pisa it had three, two of them Frecciargento, and the quickest was 49 minutes, the fastest service into any Florence station we measured on that route. From Milan, Venice, Naples and Siena, nothing direct at all.
The one to think about is the night train. Arriving on a sleeper means stepping off at Campo di Marte at an hour when you are least equipped to work out where you are, in a residential district rather than the centre. The fix is the same 1.70 euros as everything else on this page, but it is better known about in advance than discovered with a suitcase at dawn.
You got off at the wrong one. It costs 1.70 euros
This is the part the brochures leave out, and it is the reassuring part. Landing at an outer station is a minor inconvenience, not a problem.
- Rifredi to Santa Maria Novella: 1.70 euros, and 6 to 8 minutes. In a three-window sample we found thirty services and every single one of them was direct.
- Campo di Marte to Santa Maria Novella: also 1.70 euros, and 6 to 16 minutes depending on which you catch. Twenty-five of the thirty we found were direct.
Both are ordinary regional tickets, so the usual regional rules apply, including validating a paper ticket before you board. If you would rather not deal with a machine, Trenitalia’s contactless TAP&TAP system covers exactly this kind of hop, and we set out its limits in our guide to day trips from Florence.
What to do when you book
Four things, in order, and none of them takes more than a few seconds.
- Type Firenze, not Florence. The English spelling hides twelve of the fourteen entries, including the one you want next.
- Pick “Firenze ( Tutte Le Stazioni )” to search. It shows you more direct services and, on the Rome route, a cheaper fare. You can still choose Santa Maria Novella once you can see what the alternatives cost.
- Then read the station name on the result, not just the price. Firenze S.M.N. is the centre. Firenze Rifredi and Firenze C. di Marte are not, and if you are arriving late or on a sleeper that matters more than the fare.
- Coming from Siena or Pisa, look at Rifredi deliberately. It was quicker on both routes for the same money, and if you are staying in the north of the city it may also be closer.
Where these trains actually go once you have sorted out the station, and what each town costs to reach, is in our guides to day trips from Florence and to things to do in Tuscany. The long-distance routes have their own pages: Rome to Florence, Milan to Florence and Florence to Venice.
One last thing, since this page sells you nothing. We earn a commission on tours booked through this site and there is no tour on this page, because the answer here is a checkbox in a search form rather than something you can buy. Anyone charging you for a transfer between Rifredi and the centre is charging you for a 1.70 euro train.
Questions
How many train stations are there in Florence?
Trenitalia’s own station index returns fourteen entries for “Firenze”, but most of them are bus and tram stops rather than railway stations, including one called Firenze The Mall for the designer outlet. Three matter to a visitor arriving by train: Santa Maria Novella, Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Santa Maria Novella handles the overwhelming majority of services from everywhere.
Which train station is best for Florence?
Santa Maria Novella, in almost every case. It is the one in the centre and it had the most direct services from all six origins we tested. The two exceptions we measured are worth knowing: from Siena, Rifredi was ten minutes quicker for the same 10.80 euro fare, and from Pisa the quickest service into Rifredi was 51 minutes against 52 into Santa Maria Novella, on the same fare.
How do I get from Florence Santa Maria Novella train station to the city center?
You are already in it. Santa Maria Novella sits inside the historic centre, which is what makes it different from Siena station, sitting in a valley below its old town. If you arrive at Rifredi or Campo di Marte instead, a local train into Santa Maria Novella costs 1.70 euros and takes between six and eight minutes from Rifredi, six to sixteen from Campo di Marte.
Is Firenze Santa Maria Novella the same as Florence train station?
Yes, and this is the single most common confusion. There is no station called “Florence”. Santa Maria Novella is abbreviated to Firenze SMN on boards and tickets, and Firenze is simply Florence in Italian. If your ticket says Firenze S.M.N. you are going to the main station in the centre.
Does it matter which Florence station my ticket says?
Yes, in two ways. Arriving at Rifredi or Campo di Marte rather than Santa Maria Novella adds a local train, which is trivial in daylight and less so at five in the morning off a night train. And on the Rome route we found that searching specifically for Santa Maria Novella rather than for all Florence stations hid four direct services and pushed the cheapest fare up by 1.70 euros.