Rome Golf Cart Law: 7 Things the Region Must Hear Before It Votes

The Rome golf cart law faces its first real test on Tuesday 6 October 2026: at 11am the Lazio Regional Council’s Sixth Committee hears the trade on bill no. 302, “Provisions for tourist shuttle transport in historic centres”. The list of invited parties has thirteen entries between taxis, private-hire drivers and tour buses, a handful of golf cart companies and one tour guide association. Tour leaders: none.

TourLeaderPro is a network of licensed tour leaders and guides who invested time and money in their training. We are not against enforcement and we are not against a Rome golf cart law: we are waiting for one. We are against improvised operators, and against a rule that fails to tell those who work properly from those who do not. We asked to be heard, and the chair of the Sixth Committee has authorised us to take part in the hearing. We will bring concrete proposals, designed to protect the city, the tour operators and the drivers themselves: we will set them out here straight afterwards. Below are the real figures, what the draft says, and seven things the Region should hear before it votes.

1. The numbers behind the Rome golf cart law: 500, 400, 41

Three figures are circulating, and none comes with a public document that explains it.

Then there is the only measured data, from the Carabinieri checks of 28 September, released by the force and reported by the press: 131 golf carts stopped, 10 impounded, 43 fines totalling €38,000, 13 driving licences withdrawn. Of the 10 impounded, 6 were being used as private hire without a licence and 4 had drivers without a valid driving licence. The other fines were for seatbelts, parking, red lights and mobile phones.

RomaToday (in Italian) did the sum others skipped: fewer than 5% of the carts stopped were doing a private-hire driver’s job without the licence. The problem is real. The “jungle”, in the numbers, is smaller than the headlines. And these are the numbers the Rome golf cart law should be written on.

2. Where “41” comes from, and why it does not mean what it seems

Nobody has explained what kind of permit those 41 authorisations are. And Rome has no municipal or regional regulation on tourist golf carts: that is exactly why a Rome golf cart law is being written. A count of “authorised” vehicles with no rule that authorises them should be handled with care.

Here is what emerges. According to RomaToday, a simple notice of commencement (SCIA) is enough to start the business today. And the Court of Cassation has ruled that a travel agency carrying its own clients during an excursion is not operating hire with driver: it does not need that licence. “Not authorised by the City” does not mean “illegal”. Among the vehicles outside the count of 41 there are, from what we see every day in the field, companies that have done this work for more than ten years, with licensed tour leaders and often with official guides.

3. What makes the service legal today, before any Rome golf cart law

The basis is an order of the Court of Cassation: Second Civil Division, no. 27218, filed on 21 October 2024. The case: a travel agency fined in Siena for carrying tourists, during an excursion included in an all-inclusive package, in a car it owned. The Court annulled the fines. This is not unlicensed hire with driver, it wrote, but the provision of a tourist service, the carriage of persons, “collateral and instrumental to the excursion organised” by the agency. The vehicle is in “own use”, and for cars with up to nine seats own use “is liberalised and not subject to any particular authorisation regime” (our translation).

The word that matters is “instrumental”. Transport is lawful because it serves the excursion organised by the agency. Sold on its own, as a ride to the hotel or to a customer picked up in the street, that basis falls away: it is what 6 carts out of 131 were charged with. The real line is not between golf carts and taxis: it is between selling a package and selling a ride. A caution, though: the order concerns a car and a travel agency. It does not settle every case, and it says nothing about who accompanies the clients or who explains the monuments. We covered it in full in Golf cart tours in Rome with tour operator and tour leader: what the law says.

4. What bill 302 provides

We have read the text filed with the Regional Council (in Italian) in full. The Lazio draft of the Rome golf cart law currently has six articles, signed by Marco Bertucci with councillors Rotondi, Grasselli, Mari, Berni and Mitrano. It is assigned to the Sixth Committee and, for an opinion, to the Fourth, First and Fifth (Culture and Tourism). This is what it says:

• Article 2, paragraph 1. The “tourist shuttle” is an electric vehicle for transport in tourist areas, with no more than eight seated passengers, excluding the driver.
• Article 2, paragraph 2. Transport takes place on pre-set itineraries authorised by the body that owns the road.
• Article 3. The municipalities with the highest tourist density, identified by the regional government, may regulate shuttle transport in their historic centres through their own regulations, in agreement with the Region and after hearing the heritage superintendent. The regulations define the operating permit; who may carry out the activity and who must be present inside the shuttle; the areas of value where access is limited, starting with UNESCO sites; hours; areas for parking, stopping, boarding and alighting; minimum quality standards.
• Article 4. A Regional Register is created, “purely for record”, with the operators’ details, the vehicles’ requirements and the details of the permit, including itineraries and the number of people who can be carried.
• Articles 5 and 6. No cost to the regional budget; entry into force the day after publication.

The text contains no cap on the number of vehicles, no penalties and no professional requirement. But there is a door: article 3, paragraph 3, letter b) leaves it to municipalities to decide who “must be present” on board. That is where the tour leader should be written in.

Taxi unions have already rejected it as an “amnesty”: fifteen organisations want a cap on vehicles and rules for travel agencies’ services too. The City wants compulsory itineraries and a return to the depot after every service. The operators’ association Metur, interviewed by Lumsanews (in Italian), says yes to a cap, parking areas and stricter requirements for companies and drivers, but no to compulsory routes.

5. Why pre-set itineraries would make traffic worse

This is where the draft Rome golf cart law goes most wrong. It looks like order and produces the opposite. The operators say so too: for Metur’s president, with the same itineraries for everyone “you get the jam you wanted to avoid”.

• It concentrates instead of spreading. Today the vehicles spread over dozens of streets. On a compulsory itinerary they all pass the same junctions and stop at the same points at the same time. That is the definition of a jam. And there is no way to synchronise hundreds of vehicles, each with its own clients and timetable: traffic and stopping bays seize up.
• A tour is not a bus line. The route is built on what guests have already seen. Someone who visited the Colosseum in the morning does not go back in the afternoon: they go to the Aventine, the Janiculum, the Ghetto. It is a tailor-made service, and that is why clients choose it.
• The route changes on the move. Roadworks, demonstrations, marches, state visits, a street closed without notice: those who do this job rewrite the route every day, precisely to stay out of traffic. We describe it in Golf cart tours in Rome: behind the scenes.
• The fixed loop already exists. It is called a city tour bus: same loop, same stops, everyone together. It is fine for what it is. Turning golf carts into a miniature copy helps nobody.
• Rome is not a ten-stop city. Sending everyone to the same ten places means loading Trevi, the Pantheon and Navona even more and leaving the rest empty. It is the opposite of what the city says it wants against overtourism.

For a Rome golf cart law that works, the right tool is not the line: it is the perimeter. Forbidden streets and squares, time bands, stopping bays. And satellite monitoring, which the operators themselves proposed, used to check that nobody enters where they may not. Regulate where carts cannot go, not where they must go.

6. Who is missing from the table: tour leaders

The list of parties invited to the hearing (in Italian) is long: Region, City, Ministry of Transport, heritage authority, the national tourist board, hoteliers, tour operators, taxis, private hire, golf cart companies, one guide association. Not a single association of tour leaders. Yet that is the professional who, in a properly run service, accompanies the clients.

Thirteen entries for non-scheduled transport, between taxis, private hire and buses; eight for tourist and electric mobility; just one for guides. For tour leaders, zero. The list alone shows how the Rome golf cart law has been conceived so far: as a transport matter, not a professional one.

Rome’s tourism councillor Alessandro Onorato put it this way: it is not acceptable that someone buys a golf cart and becomes “something between a taxi, a private-hire driver and a tour guide”. We agree. But the answer cannot be only to count vehicles. You have to look at who is on board.

In Lazio, even before any Rome golf cart law, a rule already exists. Regional Law 50/1985, article 3, defines the tour leader (accompagnatore turistico) as the person who accompanies individuals or groups “in implementation of the travel programme, providing the necessary assistance”. Article 5 makes the profession subject to a licence. Article 27 forbids “anyone” to use the services of unlicensed tour leaders, and penalises those who do. Supervision, says article 28, lies with the municipality. The rule is in force: in the debate on the new law nobody mentions it.

Why a tour leader is needed on board

It is not about defending a category. It is about what happens on that vehicle for two or three hours.

• They carry out the travel programme. That is their function by law: timing, stops, order of the route, the unexpected. The client bought a constructed itinerary, and someone has to run it.
• They tell the city while it moves. Regional Law 50/1985 entrusts them with “significant elements and information of tourist and cultural interest on the areas of transit”, respecting the work of guides. This is context: where we are, what we are passing through, how it connects to the rest. The in-depth explanation, standing still in front of a monument or inside a site, is the job of the licensed tour guide (Law 190/2023). They are two different, complementary jobs, and a trained tour leader knows where theirs ends.
• They answer for safety. They carry people through city-centre traffic, often the elderly and children. They decide where to stop and where to get off, and know what to do in case of illness, an accident or a client who gets lost.
• They protect the client and the agency. They know the line with the guiding profession, crossing which costs €3,000 to €12,000 for the person and €5,000 to €15,000 for whoever employs them (article 12, Law 190/2023).
• They have a professional standing to defend. They can say no to a wrong instruction, because they hold a licence and a reputation worth more than a day’s work.

A driver hired at the lowest rate, with no training and no licence, cannot carry all this. They cannot be asked to take responsibility for driving people around Rome, nor for telling its story. It is not their fault: it is a business model that pushes the risk onto the weakest link, and in the end makes the tourist pay for it.

The operators themselves acknowledge it. In its ten-point charter (in Italian), Metur writes that its collaborators are licensed tour leaders. If the companies’ association can write it, the law can too.

In our network we see the other side every week: companies that put untrained, unlicensed staff at the wheel, paid as little as a quarter of a professional tour leader’s fee and an eighth of a guide’s. It is not a statistic: it is what colleagues tell us and what we see in the field. That is how packages get sold at prices a compliant company cannot match. On 30 September, according to news agencies, the Carabinieri labour inspectorate checked companies and employment relationships in central Rome: the results are not yet public, and they are the data this debate lacks.

A licensed tour leader knows the rules of the profession, safety, how to handle an emergency, and where the guide’s work begins. Someone who arrived yesterday does not. A Rome golf cart law that fails to say so rewards whoever costs least. Business cannot come before the safety and professionalism that only a trained tour leader can provide.

7. Drivers are asking for protection too

One voice is never heard in this debate: the drivers’. Golf cart drivers are the first to ask for more rights. Many tell us they are left by their bosses without instructions, without protection and without guarantees: nobody explains what they may say to clients, where they may stop, what to do when a check arrives. And in the case we documented this summer, the fine was issued to the driver, not to the company.

They have no association to defend them, because “golf cart driver” is not a professional qualification: it is a task. The contracts we see are often quasi-freelance collaboration contracts (co.co.co.), often fixed-term, almost always underpaid. The arrival of underpaid, unlicensed staff devalues the profession, creates a risk for tourists and for the city, and is unfair competition between colleagues and between agencies. It is the model a Rome golf cart law risks entrenching if it only counts vehicles.

What an untrained driver risks

We say this to protect drivers, not to attack them. When something goes wrong, the first to pay is the person on board, not the operator who sent them out. Three situations colleagues keep telling us about:

• The “guided tour” with no guide. The operator sells a guided golf cart tour and puts someone with no licence on board. If inspectors contest unlicensed guiding, the charge lands on whoever is talking to the group.
• The food tour and the allergy. The driver escorts a food tour and nobody has explained how allergies and intolerances are collected and handled. A client has a reaction, and the complaint names the driver alongside the operator.
• The family with no child seat. The driver is sent to collect a family with small children, with no booster and no child seat. If something happens, the first liability to be examined is that of the person at the wheel.

In all three cases the driver decided nothing: they followed instructions. But the tour operator does not protect them. Only knowing the rules does, well enough to say “not like this”. That is what a licensing course teaches: tourism law, liability, safety, emergencies, the limits of the role.

So we are not asking to take work away from those who drive without a licence today. We are asking that they be able to become professionals, and at the hearing we will bring a proposal on how to get there quickly, without leaving anyone out of work. A profession earns its dignity through duties and rights together: study and responsibility on one side; recognition, protection and fair pay on the other.

Our position is different. Whoever accompanies the clients and carries out the travel programme must be a trained, licensed tour leader. And the tour leader, as we understand the profession, must be able to work as a freelance professional: on written assignment, for several clients, answering for their own work and being paid for what they know. They cannot be merely a collaborator tied to one company by a fixed-term contract, with neither a freelancer’s autonomy nor an employee’s protection.

This is why TourLeaderPro asked to be heard, and will be before the Committee on 6 October: to bring the voice of those who do this work with a licence, and of the drivers who would like to be able to obtain one.

Duties and rights: what it costs to do the job properly

Much of the recent coverage stopped at the price of golf cart tours, without saying what it costs to run them properly. Two figures we know from daily work:

Those €40 gross are not a salary. The work is seasonal and packed into a few months; out of that fee the professional pays tax, social contributions, insurance, training and the months without work. That is how it should be, because this is a freelance profession: a tour leader works for several agencies and, when needed, in other cities in Italy and Europe. A collaboration contract or a part-time job demanding full availability for a single agency takes exactly that away.

Where there is no professional requirement, prices come down by cutting what is paid to the person on board. On this too we will bring a proposal to the Committee. Clear rules, set in advance, the same for everyone.

“Rome is not Disneyland”: the mood around the Rome golf cart law

In recent weeks some colleagues were attacked while working. They told us of eggs and water balloons thrown at them, to shouts of “Rome is not Disneyland”, “Rome is not a funfair”, “you are illegal, you have no permits”.

We understand the exasperation of people who live in a congested centre. But someone who works within the rules, with a licence and a VAT number, is not a criminal. Part of the recent coverage lumped regular operators together with improvised ones, and fed this mood.

We are the first to suffer the unfair competition everyone talks about: that of operators who put untrained people on board on minimal pay to widen their margins. The result is a war among the poor, licensed tour leaders against underpaid drivers, which makes no sense: neither chose these conditions. The answer is not to demonise a vehicle or a trade. It is to tell those who work well from those who do not, with written criteria that can be checked.

The people who accompany visitors spend more time with them than anyone else: their safety, and the idea of Rome they take home, depend on how that job is done. It is a profession to recognise and protect.

Three mistakes the Rome golf cart law must not make

A cap on the number of vehicles. Selecting the agencies is fine: those without the requirements stay out, and on this we agree with those calling for a crackdown. A cap on the number of golf carts in the city is a different matter. It does not tell good operators from bad ones, it holds back the growth of tourism in Rome and it ends up rewarding whoever already has the largest fleet, at the expense of independent professionals and small tailor-made agencies, who put in the effort and their own name and deliver a service that has nothing in common with the tourist train circling the city without explaining anything. Selection should be on agencies and requirements, not on the number of vehicles.

Shutting out the guides. Why should a licensed tour guide not be able to use a golf cart to move with their group from one site to the next, within a service organised by an agency? For people who walk with difficulty it is often the only way to have a real guided visit. A law made of fixed itineraries and a handful of authorised operators would make it impossible.

Tying the tour leader to a single agency. A licensed tour leader can work for several clients, throughout Italy and, with recognition of the qualification, in other European countries. A system in which only those under contract with one agency, which demands total availability, can work on a golf cart takes away exactly this freedom and reduces them to labour. The Register should record companies and vehicles, not bind people to an employer.

What we ask the Region to put in the Rome golf cart law

• Tell the package from the ride. Whoever runs a travel package as an agency or tour operator is not a private-hire driver and does not sell rides. The law should say so.
• The tour leader on board, written into the law. Article 3 leaves it to municipalities to decide who must be present on the vehicle: the law should name the licensed tour leader, or the guide, and the Register in article 4 should record their licence. Not a list “anyone can join”, as the taxi unions fear.
• Apply Regional Law 50/1985. Article 27 already forbids using unlicensed tour leaders: apply it.
• Perimeters, not routes. Amend article 2, paragraph 2: forbidden zones, hours, bays. No single itinerary.
• Select the agencies, do not cap the vehicles. Yes to a defined number of authorised agencies, chosen on requirements: licence, licensed staff, insurance, contracts and social contributions in order. No to a cap on the number of golf carts in the city.
• Protection for those who drive. Written instructions, training and fair pay. The tour leader must be able to work as a freelance professional on assignment, not as an underpaid fixed-term collaborator.
• Hear the tour leaders, afterwards too. TourLeaderPro has been admitted to the 6 October hearing. We ask that tour leaders also sit at the table that will write the regulations.

One point calls for honesty. Today no new tour leader licences are being issued: after Constitutional Court ruling 196/2025 everyone is waiting for a national law. Asking for the requirement therefore also means asking the Region to press for that law. Otherwise the door stays shut to those who want to train properly.

We will bring more to the hearing: practical proposals on training, timing and responsibilities, built to work for the city, for serious operators and for those who drive. We are not publishing them here first, out of respect for the Committee, which should read them before anyone else. We will publish them straight after the hearing.

What happens after the hearing

The hearing of 6 October is the first step, not the last. The path of the Rome golf cart law is this:

• Hearings. The Committee collects written comments and proposals. The bill’s sponsor has promised an “intense” round and a text open to changes.
• Amendments and committee vote. This is where the professional requirement, the cap on vehicles and the itineraries get in, or stay out.
• Regional Council. The final vote. In June the regional president indicated the end of 2026 as the target.
• City of Rome regulation. In agreement with the Region and after hearing the heritage superintendent: streets, hours, stops, admitted operators and who must be on board. It is the text that will decide how the work is actually done.

Until then there is no Rome golf cart law. The Highway Code, the Tourism Code, Regional Law 50/1985 and, for guides, Law 190/2023 apply. And so do the checks.

Three scenarios

• The Florence model. There the new regulation, according to FirenzeToday (in Italian), provides for 24 authorisations and defined routes. In Rome it would mean cutting most vehicles, including those of long-established tour operators.
• Bill 302, corrected. Municipal regulations and a Register, with the professional requirement in, and the single itinerary and the cap on vehicles out. This is the scenario worth working for.
• Another stalemate. A similar rule was withdrawn on 27 May after opposition from taxis and private hire. If it happens again, only enforcement remains.

If you are booking a golf cart tour in Rome

Nothing changes until a Rome golf cart law is approved. A tour run as part of a package by a licensed travel agency or tour operator rests on the Court of Cassation order described above. Ask who the organiser is, and whether the person accompanying you is a licensed tour leader or guide. How enforcement works on the ground is in Unlicensed tour guides in Rome: the real 2026 enforcement story.

Questions and answers

When will the Rome golf cart law be voted?

There is no date. Committee examination began on 29 September 2026; hearings are on 6 October. In June the regional president indicated the end of 2026 as the target. After the law, the City of Rome will have to write its own regulations.

Are golf carts in Rome illegal?

No. Under Court of Cassation order 27218/2024 a travel agency may use its own car to carry clients during an excursion included in a package. Selling rides as a taxi or private-hire driver would, without a licence, is penalised. A Rome golf cart law should draw exactly this line.

Do you need a tour leader licence to work on a golf cart?

It depends on what you do. Someone who only drives the vehicle within a service organised by others is not working as a tour leader. Someone who manages the group and carries out the travel programme performs the activity that Lazio Regional Law 50/1985 (articles 3 and 5) makes subject to a licence. Explaining monuments is reserved to licensed tour guides (Law 190/2023). The draft Rome golf cart law leaves it to municipalities to decide who must be on board (article 3): we ask that the law itself say so.

What would pre-set itineraries change?

If the rule passed as drafted, vehicles could circulate only on streets chosen by the City. For tailor-made tours it would be the end of the service; for traffic, more vehicles on the same streets.

Sources (in Italian): RomaToday, the enforcement figures, the start of the regional examination, the taxi unions’ position, the operators’ position; Lazio Regional Council calendar, 5–9 October 2026. Legislation and case law: Lazio Regional Law no. 50 of 19 April 1985, consolidated text; Court of Cassation, Second Civil Division, order no. 27218 of 21 October 2024. Consulted on 4 October 2026; article updated on 5 October 2026. Bill no. 302 of 16 September 2026: text as filed, Lazio Regional Council acts database. Metur: Lumsanews interview of 18 September 2026 and ten-point charter.

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