Holy Door, St. Peter's Basilica: What It Is and When It Opens

The Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica opens only during Holy Years, or jubilees, and only the Pope can open and close it. It last opened on 24 December 2024, for the Jubilee of 2025, and Pope Leo XIV closed it on 6 January 2026. Today it is closed and walled up on the inside. It is the last of the five doors in the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica, on the right, and although you cannot walk through it, you can see it from the portico.

What is the Holy Door at the Vatican?

In the Catholic Church, a Holy Door is a door the Pope declares as such and that opens only in jubilee years. Pilgrims walk through it to receive the plenary indulgence tied to the jubilee. The rest of the time it stays sealed from the inside.

Rome has four, one in each papal basilica:

Basilica	Maker of the Holy Door
St. Peter’s, in the Vatican	Vico Consorti
St. Paul Outside the Walls	Antonio Maraini
St. John Lateran	Floriano Bodini
St. Mary Major	Luigi Enzo Mattei

St. Peter’s is the best known because its opening marks the start of the Holy Year. Outside Rome there are also holy doors recognized by the Holy See; in Spain, the one at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, granted by Pope Alexander III in 1178.

Where is the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica?

In the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica, between the facade and the interior. From the portico, five doors lead into the basilica. From left to right:

1. Door of Death, by Giacomo Manzù (1963), through which popes’ funeral processions leave.
2. Door of Good and Evil, by Luciano Minguzzi (1970–1977).
3. Filarete Door, the central one, in bronze, made between 1439 and 1445.
4. Door of the Sacraments, by Venanzo Crocetti, unveiled in 1965.
5. Holy Door, the one on the right.

The current Holy Door is bronze, the work of Vico Consorti in 1950. Swiss Catholics donated it to Pope Pius XII for that year’s jubilee. On either side are two plaques with the arms of Pius XII and the bull of Boniface VIII that proclaimed the first jubilee in 1300.

On the inside, the door is closed and covered with cement. According to Wikipedia, when that wall was knocked down in November 2015, in preparation for the Jubilee of Mercy, a box holding the door’s keys and other documents was taken out of it.

When does the Holy Door open?

The Holy Door opens at the start of each Holy Year and closes at its end. There are two kinds of jubilee:

• Ordinary: held at fixed intervals. The first was proclaimed by Boniface VIII in 1300, with the idea of repeating it every hundred years. The interval was shortened to 50 and then 33 years, until Paul II, with the bull Ineffabilis providentia of 1470, set it at 25 years, the interval still in force.
• Extraordinary: proclaimed by the Pope to mark something special. The last was the Jubilee of Mercy: the Holy Door opened on 8 December 2015 and the year closed on 20 November 2016.

The date of the next jubilee is set by the Pope with a bull of indiction, which states when the holy doors open and close. As long as there is no bull, there is no date. If you are planning a trip to walk through it, check the Holy See’s official sources.

What happened to the Holy Door in Jubilee 2025?

The Jubilee of 2025, called the Jubilee of Hope, with the motto “Pilgrims of Hope”, was an ordinary jubilee. Pope Francis proclaimed it with the bull Spes non confundit, published on 9 May 2024, which set the opening and closing dates of Rome’s four holy doors.

These were the dates, according to Wikipedia:

Date	What happened
24 December 2024	Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter’s and the Holy Year begins
26 December 2024	A door opens at Rome’s Rebibbia prison, the first time in a prison
29 December 2024	St. John Lateran’s opens
1 January 2025	St. Mary Major’s opens
5 January 2025	St. Paul Outside the Walls’ opens
25, 27 and 28 December 2025	St. Mary Major’s, St. John Lateran’s and St. Paul Outside the Walls’ close
6 January 2026	Leo XIV closes the Holy Door of St. Peter’s and the Holy Year ends

In the first two weeks of the jubilee more than 545,000 pilgrims walked through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, and in the first month the figure passed 1.3 million.

How do you walk through the Holy Door during a jubilee?

During a Holy Year the Holy Door stays open all year for the faithful, who enter the basilica through it. To reach it you do the same as for a visit to the basilica: go through the Italian State Police security check under the right-hand colonnade of St. Peter’s Square and climb to the portico.

Outside jubilees, as now, you can see the door from the portico and enter the basilica through the other doors. There is no entrance fee. Keep in mind:

• Hours: from 26 October 2026 to 28 March 2027, every day from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
• Wednesdays: tour operators warn that the basilica closes on Wednesday mornings for the papal audience.
• Dress code: covered shoulders and trousers or skirts below the knee, for everyone. More in the Vatican dress code.
• No cloakroom: bring as little as possible.

Once inside, to the right of the entrance, is Michelangelo’s Pietà. If you want to see the basilica with a guide, the St. Peter’s Basilica tour with the dome and grottoes costs from $33, rated 4.8 out of 5 in 6,363 reviews of this tour on GetYourGuide. The other visits are in Vatican Museums tickets.