Italy's Capped Beaches in 2026: La Pelosa Sells 1,500 Places a Day, and Nobody Publishes What the Caps Achieve

Every cap is a local rule, and many are sold by private operators

Start with what the official pages say. The La Pelosa portal, spiaggialapelosa.it, carries the Comune di Stintino header and lists Vosma Società Cooperativa Sociale in its contacts, and L'Unione Sarda (22 June 2026) reported that Vosma runs the portal for the Comune. It sets 1,500 places per day from 15 May to 15 October 2026, at €3.50 per person. Of those, 500 can be booked at any point in the season and 1,000 open two days before the visit. Stintino's own accommodation holds a reserved share inside the 1,500, bookable between midnight and 9:00 for the second following day. One booking covers up to four people, one booking per day, and children under 12 need none. Checks run from 8:00 to 18:00. The page gives no ordinance number.

The split has moved while the total has not. In July 2024 L'Unione Sarda reported 750 places in advance and 750 within 48 hours. By July 2025 the same paper described the current 500 and 1,000. The operator has also changed. The 2025 report named Sg Oikos Servizi as manager of Stintino's access system. The 2026 portal lists Vosma. No source opened for this article explains the change.

East of the island, in the comune of Baunei, the rules come through a different company. Heart of Sardinia, run by Eager S.r.l. according to its page footer, sells the €7 ticket for Cala Goloritzé. Its page sets the cap at "250 persone contemporanee", meaning 250 people present at one time. Booking opens at midnight three days ahead, in one slot from 7:30 to 16:00, and the ticket is non-refundable. Children up to 5 and Baunei residents enter free but must still be declared. The same platform's list gives a regulated period of 24 March to 15 November 2026. idealista.it reported on 9 June 2026 that the app manages access on behalf of the Comune di Baunei. The Goloritzé page itself names no authority and no ordinance. Our planned Cala Goloritzé guide covers the trail.

Baunei also caps landings from the sea. Heart of Sardinia lists 700 sea-landing places at Cala Mariolu, 300 at Cala Biriala, 300 at Cala dei Gabbiani and 1,800 at Cala Sisine, all from 1 May to 20 October 2026. The fee is €2 for one cove and €3 for more than one. It applies to sea arrivals only. The Mariolu page says the places are "calibrated" to the limits of the cove and to quotas for the Baunei coast. It does not say who set those quotas or when.

The same platform lists 16 Sardinian beaches across nine comuni. They run from Su Sirboni in Gairo, capped at 786 a day from 15 July to 15 September, to Cala Coticcio and Cala Brigantina on Caprera, 60 a day each with a €3 environmental fee. San Teodoro's Cala Brandinchi takes 1,447 a day and Lu Impostu 3,352, both from 1 June to 30 September at €2. Tuerredda in Teulada takes 1,100 a day at €3. Rena Bianca in Santa Teresa Gallura takes 1,015 at one time at €3.50. Three entries, including Punta Molentis, showed no cap at all when the list was read on 31 October 2026, and eight entries in all carried a "being updated" label.

Outside Sardinia the pattern repeats with different hands on the gate. Lampedusa's Spiaggia dei Conigli sits in a nature reserve managed by Legambiente. Its limit of 550 people per shift, two shifts a day, dates from rules agreed on 22 July 2021 with the Sicilian Region's environment department, according to BlogSicilia's report of 2 August 2021. SiViaggia's roundup of 3 July 2026 gives the same 550 per shift, free, with a maximum of two people and one entry a week. The reserve's 2026 booking page could not be read for this article. Our Sicily travel guide covers getting to Lampedusa.

In Liguria, Sestri Levante's Baia del Silenzio ran a free, unbooked cap from 1 July to 31 August 2026, checked at three staffed gates between 8:30 and 17:30. The local site mentelocale credited it to a Comune ordinance and reported a monitoring contract of about €40,000, partly paid from the 2026 tourist tax. In Tuscany, Cala Violina in Scarlino caps entry at 700 a day with a €1 booking fee per person and 200 parking spaces. Its official site still showed the 2025 season dates on 31 October 2026. A private company, Cala Violina Scarlino, appears in its footer, with the Comune's tourism office linked for information.

Courts have started to draw the limits of this local power. In Naples, the association Coordinamento Nazionale Mare Libero challenged a 2025 Port Authority resolution and a city resolution that capped two free beaches at Posillipo, the Monache and Donn'Anna. A legal note by Francesca Capuozzo, published on apertacontrada.it on 20 July 2026, reads the twin TAR Campania judgments 869 and 870 of 2026 this way. Caps are not unlawful in themselves. They need a proper investigation and specific reasons linked to real safety needs. The court accepted the restriction at the small Donn'Anna beach and doubted it at the Monache, where access was almost always below the limit. It called an 8:30 to 17:30 time window "disproportionate and unreasonable". The judgments themselves were not opened for this article, and the note does not quote their operative part. Our Naples travel guide covers the Posillipo coast.

The one Sardinian rule that applies on every beach concerns sand. Regional Law 16 of 28 July 2017, article 40, paragraph 2, fines anyone who takes, holds or sells "even small quantities" of sand, pebbles, stones or shells from the shore or the sea without authorization. The fine is €500 to €3,000. The same law contains no provision on beach access limits. Customs enforce the sand rule at ports and airports. The Agenzia delle Dogane reported over 120 kg seized and over thirty passengers sanctioned in June and July 2024 alone.

The same number means four different things

Read Table 1 down the definition column and the problem is plain. La Pelosa counts people per day. Goloritzé counts people present at one time. Baunei's coves count sea landings and do not say whether the figure is daily or simultaneous. Lampedusa counts per shift. The four units cannot be compared, and they cannot be summed.

The Heart of Sardinia list shows the scale of it. Of its 16 Sardinian beaches, seven caps are per day, two are at one time, four are sea-landing quotas with no stated basis and three had no cap published (our count, list read 31 October 2026). The seven per-day caps add up to 8,305 places. That figure describes nothing beyond those seven beaches. A simultaneous cap of 250 at Goloritzé could admit more than 250 people across a day if visitors leave and others enter, and the platform publishes no daily count.

The same beach can be reported in two units. Heart of Sardinia's own page says Goloritzé allows 250 people "contemporanee". idealista.it wrote "massimo 250 persone al giorno" on 9 June 2026. The operator's wording is the one to follow. It is also the platform that sells the ticket.

The same number has also changed its meaning over time. Goloritzé's 250 dates from a Covid-era ordinance of May 2020 under mayor Salvatore Corrias, reported by L'Unione Sarda as "100 fewer than in previous years", with a €6 ticket. The cap is the same number six years later. The basis of the 2020 figure was distancing. The 2026 page gives no basis at all. Baunei's other coves have moved in both directions since 2020. Cala Mariolu went from 550 to 700, Cala Sisine from 1,600 to 1,800 and Cala dei Gabbiani from 350 to 300. The 2020 numbers were also distancing limits, so the comparison is only indicative.

Some caps change during the season. Punta Molentis, in Villasimius, opened summer 2026 under a mayor's order running from 6 June to 31 October. TheWom reported on 16 June a limit of 150 bathers at one time by land, 70 cars a day, €10 per person by land and online booking through pass.brav.it. The order also limited umbrellas to families with young children and people over 65. Avvenire reported on 26 July that this order was revoked after about a week of protest and replaced. The new rules allow 190 people at one time by land, a maximum of 90 vehicles and 100 more by sea through authorized operators. Entry costs €10 for the full day or €6 after 13:00. There is no online booking, and entry is first come, first served. Avvenire quoted mayor Gianluca Dessì calling the change "not a step back, but two steps forward", and saying the beach had halved in size since the 2025 fire and storms. The Heart of Sardinia list still shows different fee lines for Molentis, a pedestrian €3 and a car €15, under a "being updated" label.

Even simultaneous caps disagree. For Baia del Silenzio, mentelocale and SiViaggia's roundup gave 450 people at one time. The trade site Mondo Balneare reported on 6 July 2026 a limit of 400 bathers at one time, in an article quoting mayor Francesco Solinas. It also reported that the cap was reached by 10:00 on the first day, 1 July. The ordinance text was not found, so neither number can be confirmed. mentelocale added that the count includes the fishing club's boats and the umbrellas. A visitor count and a capacity count are not the same thing.

Press roundups flatten these differences. SiViaggia's map of 3 July 2026 listed 15 beaches, 11 of them in Sardinia, and named no ordinance or official act. Its Sardinian figures match the Heart of Sardinia list. It omitted Punta Molentis entirely. Its 2026 entry for the Gaiola in Naples, up to 200 people per slot from 1 May to 30 September, has no 2026 primary behind it. Quotidiano Nazionale wrote on 23 April 2026 that bathing is banned in the Gaiola's integral reserve and access to the rest is capped, with no mention of booking. The 200 figure matches the scheme the park reopened with in June 2021, when Italpress reported two shifts of 100.

Some figures carry an official look without the authority. A page titled "Regione Sardegna" at regionesardegna.org gives Cala Luna a maximum of 900 from 1 June, "awaiting updates". The site is an independent guide written by a consultant. Its disclaimer says it is not a news outlet, and it is not the Sardinia Region, whose domain is regione.sardegna.it. The last dated record found for Cala Luna is a proposal of up to 1,000 daily visitors from April 2024, agreed in principle by the mayors of Dorgali and Baunei (L'Unione Sarda, 16 April 2024). No 2026 rule was found.

Demand is counted in clicks, and results are not published

The only demand numbers for any capped beach come from La Pelosa's booking operator, through one newspaper. In July 2024 L'Unione Sarda reported about 9,000 contacts a day to buy tickets. In July 2025 its English edition reported a record on 22 July, with 1,000 places filled in 59 seconds, about 17 a second (our arithmetic). The same article gave about 9,000 daily ticket purchases in its body and nearly 10,000 requests in its subheadline. The managers of the booking system said they expected 12,000 requests a day from August. On 22 June 2026 the paper reported that the 500 advance places were sold out to the end of August and that released places sold out within two minutes.

Against 1,500 places, 9,000 purchases a day is a ratio of about 6 to 1 (derived). The 10,000 figure gives 6.7 to 1 and the 12,000 projection 8 to 1. These ratios measure pressure on the booking system. They do not measure people turned away. A purchase or request can be repeated by the same person, and one booking can cover four people. Mayor Rita Vallebella said in July 2024 that the beach was "potentially" wanted by 40,000 people a day. She gave no method. Nine thousand contacts times four tickets is 36,000, close to her figure, but that link is our inference.

What is missing is everything after the click. No beach page, comune release or regional source opened for this article publishes how many people entered in 2025 or 2026. None publishes fee revenue. At La Pelosa, 1,500 places at €3.50 over a 154-day season would be the arithmetic ceiling, but exemptions for children and the reserved local share make any revenue estimate unreliable, so this article does not offer one. None publishes what the operators are paid. Sestri Levante is the exception on cost. Its mayor put the system at €40,000, with no fee charged to visitors.

The case for caps rests on statements. Mayor Vallebella told L'Unione Sarda in July 2024 that the limits had brought "a clear improvement in the quality of the coastal marine ecosystem" and "a significant reduction in beach erosion". The article gave no measurement, study or period. In Lampedusa, reserve director Angelo Dimarca of Legambiente Sicilia spoke of "positive results" in August 2021, citing the island's fifth turtle nest of that season. That is an observation. It compares nothing. At the Monache, according to the Capuozzo commentary, the Naples court doubted the cap because access was almost always below the limit.

The fake-site problem is real and unmeasured. The La Pelosa portal states that it is the only site authorized to sell bookings and that no third party has permission. L'Unione Sarda reported on 22 June 2026 that mostly foreign sites were selling the €3.50 ticket for about €30, "almost ten times" the price. The exact multiple is 8.6 (derived). The English headline said tickets had "increased" to €30. A sentence in the body called €30 the correct rate on the official portal, which reverses the facts and looks like a translation error. The article named no site and gave no number of complaints or refunds. The €30 figure rests on that single report.

The systems that could produce counts are already in place. La Pelosa scans a QR code for every booked visitor between 8:00 and 18:00, according to its portal. Baia del Silenzio's three gates use a people counter and admit new visitors only as others leave, according to Mondo Balneare. Goloritzé and the Baunei coves sell every place through one platform. Each of these systems can record entries. None of the operators or comuni has published those records, and no regional body collects them. A daily entry count, a season total and a fee total for each beach would answer most of the open questions in this article without any new survey.

Enforcement data is equally thin. The only official enforcement figure found concerns sand, not caps. Customs reported over thirty sanctions and over 120 kg seized in June and July 2024. No figure was found for fines on people entering a capped beach without a booking. There is no national count to add these to. No list of capped beaches was found from Legambiente, the Ministry of Tourism, ISPRA or the Sardinia Region. The closest thing to a list is a private operator's booking page and a summer press roundup. The separate question of beach concessions and their tenders has the same gap.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers should treat every capped beach as its own system. For La Pelosa, book only on spiaggialapelosa.it, which states that no other site is authorized. Places released two days ahead have sold out within two minutes in summer 2026, according to L'Unione Sarda. For Cala Goloritzé, buy the €7 ticket through Heart of Sardinia from midnight three days ahead, and plan for a cap of 250 people at one time. For Baunei's coves by boat, ask the operator whether the €2 or €3 landing fee is included. At Punta Molentis, expect first-come entry and €10 a day under the revised order. Never take sand or shells home. Sardinia's fine is €500 to €3,000. Our Sardinia travel guide and the planned best beaches in Sardinia guide cover the beaches that need no booking.

Tourism businesses and operators work inside rules that can change mid-season and that are sold by private platforms. Molentis replaced its order within about a week, and La Pelosa changed both its booking split and its named operator between 2024 and 2026. Stintino's lodgings get a reserved share of daily places. That is the only published example of a local-business quota. Boat operators in Baunei book landings against quotas whose basis is not public. The Naples ruling, as read in the July 2026 commentary, suggests that a cap needs written reasons and proportion to survive a challenge. Publishing the reasons and the counts would give a town its best answer to a similar challenge.

Journalists and analysts can cite these figures with their scope: La Pelosa 1,500 per day at €3.50 (official portal, 2026); Goloritzé 250 at one time at €7 (Heart of Sardinia, 2026); Baunei sea-landing quotas of 700, 300, 300 and 1,800 with no stated basis (Heart of Sardinia); Sardinia's sand fine of €500 to €3,000 (Regional Law 16/2017, article 40); about 9,000 daily La Pelosa purchases in July 2025 (operator via L'Unione Sarda). Do not repeat that La Pelosa tickets rose to €30, that Goloritzé allows 250 a day, that Italy has a list of capped beaches, or that caps have been shown to improve any ecosystem. This is the latest case in a running finding of this series. Italian authorities publish rules, prices and booking systems, and do not publish measured effects.