How much a public transport ticket costs: 40 European cities compared

The transport ticket is the first price you meet in a city and one of the few you can know before leaving. But it changes from year to year, it changes if you buy on board or in the app, and in many cities the single ticket is a trap: the rechargeable card or the day pass pays off from the third ride.

Here are the 40 cities in our dossiers where the single ticket price was verified on the operator's website between 2 and 11 September 2026. In price order. Missing, for now, are Rome, Milan, Madrid, Lisbon, Berlin, Prague and Budapest: the dossiers describe the network without the figure, and the figure will be added at the next verification round.

The table: from cheapest to dearest

Non-euro currencies are left as they were at the time of verification, with the euro equivalent only where the dossier gives it. The "Dossier" column takes you to the page with all the notes on getting around that city.

Three things the table teaches

First: buying on board almost always costs more. Catania goes from €1.40 to €2, Bruges from €2.50 to €3.50, Split from €1 in the app to €3 from the driver. In many cities the paper ticket bought from the driver does not even allow a transfer.

Second: the rechargeable card pays off even for a few days. Granada drops from €1.60 to €0.54 with the Credibus, Dublin from €2.60 to €2 with the Leap, Ljubljana and Istanbul only work with the card. And where contactless has a daily cap, as in Brussels and Edinburgh, your bank card acts as a day pass on its own.

Third: the numbers that look high must be read with the duration. Bologna's €2.30 lasts 75 minutes with transfers, Genoa's €2 lasts 110 minutes and the metro is free, Venice's €9.50 is a vaporetto, and with more than one ride a day the 24-hour pass is the only sensible choice.