Flag of Vatican City

How to read it

Article 24 of the Fundamental Law of the Vatican City State, promulgated by Pope Leo XIV on 31 July 2026, says the flag consists of two fields divided vertically, a yellow one next to the staff and a white one, with the tiara and keys on the white, all following the model in annex A of the law. The Fundamental Laws of 26 November 2000 and 13 May 2023, which the 2026 law replaces, set out the flag the same way. The flag is square, with the yellow and white halves of equal width, Store norske leksikon says. The Vatican City State exists, in the law’s words, to secure the absolute and visible independence of the Holy See, and the United Nations seats the Holy See as a non-member observer state; the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library notes that it became a Permanent Observer State on 6 April 1964.

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The keys and the tiara

The keys have been the official insignia of the Holy See since the 14th century, the Holy See says. They cross like the cross of St Andrew, one gold and one silver: the gold one, on the right, alludes to the power in the kingdom of heaven, the silver one, on the left, to the spiritual authority of the papacy on earth. Their bits point up to heaven and their grips down, into the hands of the Vicar of Christ, and the cord joining the grips is the bond between the two powers.

The tiara, or triregnum, is a silver headdress with three crowns, topped by a small globe and a gold cross. The Holy See gives more than one reading of the crowns: the triple power of the pope as father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ; the Church militant, suffering and triumphant; or the three powers of orders, jurisdiction and teaching. Popes stopped wearing it at ceremonies under Paul VI, and Benedict XVI put a mitre in its place on his personal arms, but the state’s flag and arms keep it.

Yellow and white, since 1808

The flag of the Papal States was once yellow and red, the colours of the Senate and People of Rome, the Holy See’s history of the flag says. In 1808 Pius VII had his Noble Guard and the other papal troops who stayed loyal take a new white and yellow cockade, to tell them apart from the troops taken into the French army. The oldest white and yellow papal flag dates from 1824, with the colours set diagonally; Pius IX set them in two upright bands. The flag took its present form after the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929 and was first raised on 8 June 1929, the Holy See says; Store norske leksikon dates its adoption to 7 June 1929.

Not the banner of the Holy Roman Church

The Holy See warns against confusing the state flag with the banner of the Holy Roman Church (Vessillo di Santa Romana Chiesa), the sign of the Church’s spiritual sovereignty. That was a red cloth, from the time of Boniface VIII scattered with gold six-pointed stars, with the crossed keys in the centre under a canopy, and it ended in two points.