Birmingham 🇬🇧

Yes on the buses, only through a conductor on the tram, and not on the trains at all.

Every bus operator here takes a contactless bank card or phone at the reader as you board: National Express West Midlands and National Express Coventry — the city bus companies, not the intercity coach firm of almost the same name — along with Diamond Bus, Stagecoach Midlands and Arriva. It is one tap, on the way in only, and none of them has a tap-out. What that tap buys differs by company. On Diamond you tell the driver which ticket you want, the driver sets it on the machine, and your tap pays for it. On Arriva a tap pays for whichever ticket you ask for. On the two National Express companies each tap is charged as a journey under Tap & Cap, and tapping again as you get off is read as boarding a second time and charged again.

Capping is where the operators part company, and it matters more than the tap. National Express caps a bank card, and only on its own buses. On National Express West Midlands the cap is £5.50 in a capping day and £21.00 in a Sunday-to-Saturday week; National Express Coventry caps too, as long as you use the same card or device for every journey. National Express states it plainly — a card capped on its buses is not capped on anyone else's — and Diamond, Stagecoach and Arriva run no bank-card capping in the West Midlands at all. Transport for West Midlands has a multi-operator contactless system planned for spring or summer 2027, and it is not running yet.

Off the bus, the picture changes. West Midlands Metro has no reader for a bank card: you buy a ticket from the conductor on board, and a card pays for that. On the trains — West Midlands Railway, CrossCountry, Avanti West Coast and Transport for Wales — a bank card is not a ticket at all, so buy before you board. And American Express is refused on Diamond and National Express West Midlands: Diamond takes any Visa or Mastercard contactless card wherever it was issued, but not Amex, Maestro or a prepaid currency card, and National Express West Midlands does not take Amex, Diners, JCB or UnionPay either.

So tap the same card every time, stay on National Express buses if you want the cap to do anything, and if your day crosses operators buy a Swift card with Swift Go on it instead — that caps across the bus companies in the nBus ticket scheme, at £5.50 a day.

Yes, on every bus in the city, and it is a single tap as you board. Hold your card or phone to the reader beside the driver and you have paid a flat single fare for that ride. There is no tap-out here: tapping again as you get off is read as a second boarding and charged as a second fare, so do not do it.

Five bus companies take it. National Express West Midlands and National Express Coventry — the local bus operators, not the intercity coach company of nearly the same name — Diamond Bus, Stagecoach Midlands and Arriva. Only National Express West Midlands caps what your bank card spends, under Tap & Cap: £5.50 in a capping day, £21.00 in a Sunday-to-Saturday week, on its own buses only. That cap does not follow your card onto a Diamond, Stagecoach or Arriva bus, and none of those three caps a bank card here at all — every tap on them is another full fare.

Being found aboard without having paid is charged differently by each of them too. National Express West Midlands and National Express Coventry issue an unpaid fare notice of £100; Stagecoach Midlands charges a penalty fare of £25; Diamond and Arriva charge a maximum fare rather than a set figure.

So tap once, on the way in, with the same card all day. If your day will cross operators, the card that caps across all of them is a Swift card with Swift Go on it, at £5.50 a day — buy it before your first trip, not after.

The Swift card is Transport for West Midlands' own travel smartcard, and it is the only thing here that caps your spending across more than one bus company. It is a family rather than a single product: a plain pay-as-you-go card, a photocard you load season tickets onto, and Swift Go, the tap-and-go version that does the capping. Swift Go needs a physical card in your hand and a holder aged 18 or over; it is not something you can add to a phone wallet.

It reaches where a bank card does not. Contactless pays on the buses and pays the conductor on a tram, but not one train operator here accepts a bank card — not Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Transport for Wales or West Midlands Railway. A Swift card does work on West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern, tapped in and tapped out at the barriers where the station is gated, but only if it is carrying a season ticket: a Swift pay-as-you-go card is not accepted on a train.

Getting one is the easy part. Order it through the tfwm.org.uk ticket finder or the TfWM app and it is posted out, or get one on the spot at a Swift kiosk at most bus stations and key interchanges, or at a Swift or Metro ticket machine. Top up online, in the app, at those machines, or with cash at a Payzone shop — the kiosks themselves take no cash. Swift Go can also be set to Auto-Pay, charging a bank card every Sunday morning instead of you topping up.

If you are here for a few days of buses and trams, the card pays for itself through the cap, so buy it before your first ride. One or two trips only, and your own bank card on a bus is simpler.

Yes, but there are two separate capping schemes here and which one you get depends on what you tap.

Tap your own contactless bank card or phone and you are capped on National Express West Midlands buses only, under that company's Tap & Cap: £5.50 in a capping day and £21.00 in a Sunday-to-Saturday week, and only against the adult West Midlands single, day and 3- or 7-day prices. National Express West Midlands says so plainly — the cap does not follow your bank card onto a Diamond, Stagecoach or Arriva bus, and anything you spend on those counts towards nothing.

The cap that crosses operators is Swift Go, and it does not run on a bank card. You need a physical Swift card from Transport for West Midlands with Swift Go on it, and you must be 18 or over. On that, bus travel across the nBus area caps at £5.50 a day and £21.00 a week; add the trams and it is £9.30 a day and £36.00 a week, or £40.00 a week if the buses are National Express West Midlands ones running out into its outer zones. Two low-fare areas cap a day's bus travel at £4.90 instead — Walsall, and Sandwell and Dudley — though TfWM's own fare pages disagree with themselves about which name belongs to which area, so check the zone before you count on it. Some companies set their own rate: Stagecoach caps at £5.20 a day and £20.00 a week, Chaserider at £7.50 and £25.00. Tram-only travel caps by zone and by time of day, the cheapest published day cap being £3.30 for one outer zone off-peak and the dearest £7.60 for all four zones at any time; a tram week runs from £12.80 for a single zone to £28.70 for all four. The capping day runs from 02:00 to 01:59 the next morning, and the capping week Sunday to Saturday.

Nothing else adds up. A ticket bought in the NX Bus mTicket app or from a driver is a fixed-price product and counts towards no cap at all. So if you are staying a few days and riding more than a couple of times, go and get a Swift card before your first trip rather than after it.

It depends which bus you board, and the two operators that spell out a policy do not spell out the same one. Diamond Bus West Midlands accepts all Visa and Mastercard contactless cards issued in other countries, and refuses American Express, Maestro and prepaid currency cards. National Express West Midlands names American Express, Diners, JCB and UnionPay as not accepted, and says nothing either way about a Visa or a Mastercard issued outside the UK — so on an NXWM bus a foreign Visa or Mastercard is untested rather than promised. Stagecoach Midlands and Arriva take a contactless tap on their Birmingham buses too, and for those two the overseas-card question is not settled either way.

What decides it is therefore the scheme printed on the front of your card, not the country that issued it — and a card your own bank blocks abroad fails for that reason rather than for anything an operator here decided. A Visa or a Mastercard is the card to carry. An American Express is named and refused by both operators that name anything, so treat it as a card that will not board a bus.

Nowhere else in Birmingham is a bank card a ticket in the first place. Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Transport for Wales and West Midlands Railway take no contactless tap on their trains, and the West Midlands Metro tram has no self-service bank-card tap either. So if your card is the one that gets turned away, keep coins: a driver on any West Midlands bus will sell you a paper ticket for cash.

Nothing is checked as you get off a bus or a tram here, but an inspector can board, and what a passenger without a valid ticket is charged depends entirely on whose vehicle it is.

On the city buses run by National Express West Midlands and National Express Coventry — the local buses, not the intercity coach company that shares the name — travelling without a valid ticket means an unpaid fare notice of £100. National Express the coach operator is a separate business with a much smaller charge: on its coaches you pay the fare the driver states for the journey plus a £20 penalty on top of it. Stagecoach Midlands issues a penalty charge of £25 if you cannot show a ticket or pass when asked. Diamond Bus and Arriva UK Bus publish no figure at all: both require the standard fare for the journey instead, and Diamond's conditions also warn of prosecution.

Trams and trains run penalty fares. West Midlands Metro's is £100, with 21 days from the day after issue to pay it or appeal. On West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern it is £100 plus the full single fare to the destination you were heading for, reduced to £50 plus that fare if you pay within 21 days; Transport for Wales charges £100 on the same 21-day terms. Avanti West Coast and CrossCountry issue an unpaid fare notice with a 21-day window and publish no fixed amount for it.

So the figure that matters to you is the one on the paper in your hand. Read the amount, the deadline and who to pay off the notice itself before you pay anything, and note that the clock starts the day after it was issued, not the day you get home.

Birmingham Airport has one terminal, and the station that serves it is not inside it. Birmingham International is joined to the terminal by the free Air-Rail Link monorail, running from 03:30 until 00:30 every day, station concourse to terminal, both on the first floor. Every rail passenger uses it, and there is nothing to book and nothing to pay for it.

The train is the quick way in. Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Railway / London Northwestern and CrossCountry all call at Birmingham International and reach the city centre in about 10 minutes; Transport for Wales calls there too. Pay with a ticket on your phone or on paper — of the four, only West Midlands Railway also takes a Swift card, and none of them takes a contactless bank card. National Express coaches pull in at the coach park right outside the terminal and take about 25 minutes. An Uber is about 25 minutes as well, and Uber warns that airport trips can carry a surcharge to cover its parking, without publishing a figure; the black cab rank is just outside the terminal building with a staffed help point and no booking needed.

The cheapest way in is a National Express West Midlands bus from the terminal forecourt: the X1 from stop K, the X12 from stop L, and the 17A and 97A from the terminal too. Those take a contactless card, a Swift card, an app ticket, a paper ticket or cash. No tram reaches the airport at all, so ignore the Metro on the map.

Decide between two things before you land. If you want the city centre fast and have luggage, follow the signs to the Air-Rail Link and take the train; if you are counting the cost, walk out of the terminal to stop K and tap onto the X1.

Yes, and in more places than most British cities. Coins are taken by every bus driver here, by the conductor on a West Midlands Metro tram, on National Express coaches, at Metro platform ticket machines and at the ticket machines for Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Transport for Wales and West Midlands Railway. Payzone shops across the West Midlands take coins and notes for Swift card top-ups. The Swift kiosks at bus stations and key interchanges are the trap: they sell Swift cards and take no cash whatsoever, so do not walk to one with a handful of change.

Cash buys the ticket rather than opening a gate. Hand it over as you board, or at a machine or a shop before you travel, and then travel on what you were given.

Coins are the safe thing to carry. Two places take banknotes: the Metro platform machines, which take everything except a £50 note and give change, and Payzone shops, where a note tops up a Swift card. A bus driver, a tram conductor or a rail ticket machine may or may not break one, so do not set out relying on it. Bus drivers on National Express West Midlands, National Express Coventry, Diamond Bus and Stagecoach Midlands give no change at all. Arriva UK Bus depends on the driver rather than the route: its drivers carry no float, so you get change only when the one in front of you happens to have it, and a driver who cannot give it can offer you a collection from the depot instead. Count out the exact fare before you put your hand out.

Yes, on all of them. Coins pay the driver on National Express West Midlands, National Express Coventry, Diamond Bus, Stagecoach Midlands and Arriva UK Bus buses, and the driver issues you a paper ticket for the journey.

Bring the exact fare. Drivers on National Express West Midlands, National Express Coventry, Diamond Bus and Stagecoach Midlands give no change; Arriva UK Bus depends on the driver rather than the route: its drivers carry no float, so change comes only when the driver happens to have it, and one who cannot give it can offer you a collection from the depot instead. Whether any driver here will take a banknote is not recorded, which makes coins the thing to have in your pocket.

If counting coins at the door does not appeal, every one of those operators also takes a contactless bank card or a phone on the reader as you board. Tap once and nothing on the way off — a second tap reads as a second journey and charges you for one.

Yes, for the buses. The app is NX Bus mTicket, which belongs to National Express West Midlands: you buy a single, a day, a week, a four-week or a bus-and-Metro ticket in it, then activate the ticket and hold its QR code to the scanner on the reader as you board. Activating it is the step people miss — an unactivated ticket sitting in the app is not a ticket you are travelling on.

Although the app belongs to one company, the nBus-branded tickets it sells are the multi-operator ones, good on every bus company in the nBus scheme within the nBus zone. No separate app is recorded here for Diamond Bus, Stagecoach Midlands or Arriva UK Bus. West Midlands Metro trams, the trains and National Express coaches will all accept a ticket shown on a phone as well, but they sell it through their own operators' apps, and which app that is for the service you are taking is not something this page settles.

To set it up before you arrive: download NX Bus mTicket from the Apple App Store or Google Play, create an account with an email address and a password, and pay in the app with Google Pay, Apple Pay or a card. The app is free and there is nothing to pay beyond the tickets themselves.

Fares yes; journey times only for airports. Fares, caps and penalties are printed where an operator publishes them, with the source beside each figure. Journey times appear only on the airport pages, as the rough time from the airport to the centre where one is published; there are no timetables here. For a live departure or a door-to-door route, use the operator's own journey planner.