Edinburgh 🇬🇧

Yes on every bus and on the tram, no on the train. What changes between them is how many times you tap.

On the tram, twice. Tap your card or device on the reader on the platform before you board, and tap it again on a platform reader when you get off. Miss the second tap and the journey is billed as a single Airport Zone fare, £7.90, whatever short hop you actually made — and that charge counts towards no cap.

On a bus, once. Tap the reader as you board and that is the whole transaction; there is no tap-off on any bus here. On Lothian Buses' own city services the fare is flat, so you simply tap. On Lothian Country and East Coast Buses, tell the driver where you are going before you tap, because those fares are charged by zone. Do the same on the Airlink 100 airport bus, though its fare is not zonal at all: the Airlink single is one fixed price from end to end of the airport run. On McGill's Midland Bluebird and on Stagecoach East Scotland's Fife-to-Edinburgh express coaches the tap is a purchase rather than a journey: one tap buys a discrete single, return or all-day ticket. Stagecoach charges £30 if you cannot show a valid ticket when asked.

Taps on the Lothian brands and the tram feed TapTapCap, Transport for Edinburgh's automatic capping scheme — the city day tier stops at £5.70 for zones A and B, and among the same-day tiers the £14.00 NETWORK tier is the only one that takes in Airlink and the Airport Zone. TapTapCap also caps by the week, Monday to Sunday, and there the airport is treated the other way round: the £26.50 city week for zones A and B counts journeys to and from Edinburgh Airport, and so does the £38.50 week that spans every zone from A to H. McGill's and Stagecoach sit outside all of it, so what you spend with them never counts. Use one card or device for everything: a second card starts its own count.

On ScotRail there is no tapping at all, on ordinary services or on the combined airport tram-and-train ticket. Buy a train ticket the usual way.

The accepted list is Visa, Mastercard and Maestro, and Apple Pay or Google Pay on a phone or watch. American Express is refused at the tram readers, though the tram ticket machines take it, and a card issued outside the UK may pick up an overseas fee from your own bank.

Yes, on every bus brand here, and on all of them it is one tap and nothing else. Hold your card, phone or watch against the reader as you board. There is no tap-off on a bus in Edinburgh — that step belongs to the tram — so do not go looking for a reader when you get off.

What differs is what you do before the tap. On Lothian Buses' own city services, nothing: the fare is flat, so you just tap. On Lothian Country and East Coast Buses, state your destination to the driver first and then tap, because those fares are charged by the number of zones you cross. Say what you want on the Airlink 100 airport bus too, but not for that reason: the Airlink single is one fixed price for the airport journey, whatever part of it you ride. On McGill's Midland Bluebird and on Stagecoach East Scotland's Fife-to-Edinburgh express routes the tap works differently again: it buys you a discrete ticket outright — a single, a return or an all-day — rather than adding a journey to a running total.

That distinction decides whether the day caps. Taps on Lothian Buses, Lothian Country and East Coast Buses feed TapTapCap, Transport for Edinburgh's automatic capping scheme, and the zone A-and-B day tier stops charging at £5.70. Airlink is where that gets confusing: among the same-day tiers only the £14.00 NETWORK tier counts an Airlink journey, but the weekly caps, which run Monday to Sunday, count it as a matter of course — the £26.50 city week for zones A and B includes journeys to and from Edinburgh Airport, and so does the £38.50 week covering every zone from A to H. Nothing you spend on McGill's or Stagecoach counts towards any of it, and Stagecoach charges £30 if you cannot show a valid ticket when asked.

Visa, Mastercard and Maestro all work, as do Apple Pay and Google Pay. So pick one card or device on your first morning and tap that same one onto every bus you board — swapping between them splits the day in two and neither half reaches the cap.

The Ridacard is Transport for Edinburgh's own season ticket on a smartcard, not a card you load with credit. You buy a block of travel - a week, four weeks, a monthly direct debit or a year paid in advance - and then ride as much as you like. It covers Lothian Buses, the NightBus, the Airlink 100 and Edinburgh Trams in all zones, and East Coast Buses and Lothian Country in zones A and B only, so it stops short of their outer network. It is not valid on McGill's Midland Bluebird, and not on ScotRail trains at all.

For most visitors it is the wrong product, and for a practical reason before a financial one: you cannot buy a first one online. New Ridacards and direct debits have to be arranged in person at a TravelHub, with the application form filled in beforehand. A replacement card costs £3.00, and setting up a direct debit adds a £25 administration fee on top of the first month's travel.

It is also strictly personal. The card carries your photograph and is not transferable, and if anyone else travels on it the card is withdrawn without refund; £10 is the administration fee to get it back. On a tram you tap it on the reader on the platform before boarding, and a red cross on that reader means buy a ticket or pay the £10 on-board fare.

For a few days in Edinburgh, tap a contactless card instead and let TapTapCap do it: the ceiling is £5.70 a day in the city and £26.50 for a Monday-to-Sunday week including the airport, with nothing to buy and no counter to visit.

Yes, at the adult rate — every figure below is the adult cap, and no child or concessionary ceiling is published for it. The scheme is called TapTapCap and it works by itself, as long as you tap the same contactless card or device for everything. Stay in the city, zones A and B, across Lothian Buses, Lothian Country, East Coast Buses and Edinburgh Trams, and the day stops charging at £5.70; travel only in the 6pm-to-4:30am window and the LATE tier caps at £5.50 instead. Go further out and the ceiling rises: £6.20 for zones B to H on East Coast Buses and Lothian Country alone, and £9.30 for all zones A to H across the group.

None of those covers the airport. Airlink 100 and Airport Zone tram journeys sit outside every DAY and LATE tier, and the only same-day cap that takes them in is NETWORK, at £14.00. Over a full week it changes: City WEEK at £26.50 and City&Country WEEK at £38.50 both include journeys to and from Edinburgh Airport, while Country WEEK at £25.00 never reaches the airport at all, because those two brands do not serve it.

Two ways to lose the cap you have been earning. Swap between cards or devices during the day and the halves never meet - two cards on the same bank account still count separately - so pick one and use it for every tap. And on the tram, tap off as well as on: a journey with no tap-off is charged a single Airport Zone fare, and that charge counts towards no cap at all.

Weekly caps run Monday to Sunday rather than from your first tap, so a Thursday arrival will not fill one. Pick one card, tap it on everything, and let the arithmetic happen.

Yes, if it is a Visa or a Mastercard. The list is a closed one — Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, and those same cards in Apple Pay or Google Pay — and American Express is outside it, on the bus as well as on the tram. Lothian Buses puts it in its own words, that American Express contactless payment cards are not accepted, and Edinburgh Trams says the same of its platform readers. An Amex does still work at the Trams Ticket Vending Machines, so it will buy you a tram ticket; it simply cannot be the ticket. If it is the only card you carry, buy at a tram machine before you travel and do not count on a reader taking it anywhere.

Where the card was issued does not decide whether a reader accepts it. What it can change is what the payment costs you: Edinburgh Trams flags that a card issued outside the UK may pick up overseas transaction fees charged by your own bank or issuer, which is not something the tram or the bus company sets. A card your bank blocks abroad fails for that reason, not for anything an operator here decided.

A tap pays on Lothian Buses, Lothian Country, East Coast Buses, the Airlink 100 airport bus, McGill's Midland Bluebird, Stagecoach East Scotland and Edinburgh Trams. ScotRail is the exception: no contactless bank card is a ticket on its trains, so a rail journey has to be bought before you board.

The tram also asks more of you than a bus does. Tap on at the reader on the platform and tap off again at the far end — miss the tap off and the journey is charged as a single Airport fare, which never counts towards a daily or weekly cap. On the buses there is no tap off at all. So bring a Visa or a Mastercard, use the same one for every tap, and on the tram remember the second touch.

The tram is where this actually costs you. Edinburgh Trams is ungated: you tap on at a reader on the platform before boarding and tap off at another when you get off, and both taps are required. Board with nothing valid and a Ticketing Services Assistant charges you the £10 on-board fare. Tap on but forget to tap off and something different happens - the journey registers as incomplete and your card is charged a single Airport Zone fare of £7.90 whatever you actually rode, and that charge is excluded from daily and weekly capping, so nothing else you spend will absorb it.

On the buses there is no tap off to miss, and mostly no published fine. Lothian Buses, Lothian Country and East Coast Buses take a single tap as you board; for what a missed tap costs on those three, check locally. What their contactless terms do describe is the card being refused for further travel until any unpaid fare is settled. Stagecoach East Scotland does publish a figure: it may issue a £30 penalty charge if you cannot show a valid ticket or pass when asked. McGill's Midland Bluebird publishes no penalty figure, but it requires you to keep your ticket for inspection, and it will refuse travel to and prosecute anyone caught with an altered, fake or out-of-date ticket.

ScotRail runs a different rule from the English penalty-fare system people expect. Board a train without a valid ticket when you had the chance to buy one and you pay the higher of a £10 minimum fare or the undiscounted single or return for the journey - so on a long trip the £10 is a floor, not the bill.

And one £10 in Edinburgh is not a fine at all. A Ridacard is not transferable, and if it is presented by anyone other than the person in the photograph it is withdrawn without refund; £10 is the administration fee to get it back afterwards, unless the card had been reported lost or stolen.

So on the tram, tap on at the platform reader before you board and tap off at another before you leave the stop; on the buses, tap or buy as you board and keep any ticket you are given; and for ScotRail, buy your ticket before you get on the train.

The Airlink 100 bus and the tram both leave from beside the plaza outside the terminal, and they are priced very differently. The Airlink 100 is the cheaper of the two: board at Stop A next to the plaza and it runs to Waverley Bridge, beside Princes Street and the main rail and bus stations, in about 30 minutes, day and night. An adult single is £6.00, a child £3.00, an open return £8.50, and a family return covering up to two adults and three children £22.00. Lothian's ordinary services 17 and 18 cost much less than either, on an ordinary city single. The tram normally takes about 30 minutes to Princes Street and St Andrew Square, but Edinburgh Trams has closed the stops from Princes Street to Newhaven until further notice, with no reopening date at its last update on 21 July 2026, so check its disruption page before you count on it reaching the centre. The airport is also its own Airport Zone, so an adult airport single is £7.90 and an open return £9.50, against £2.40 for a single anywhere else on the line.

The part that catches visitors is the capping. Lothian's ordinary DAY and LATE caps and day tickets are not valid on the Airlink at all, and a tram journey to or from the Airport Zone is not covered by the cheaper City DAY cap either. The only same-day cap that includes them is NETWORK, at £14.00. Over a week it is different: the City WEEK cap at £26.50 does include journeys to and from the airport.

On the tram there is one more thing to get right. Tap on at the reader on the platform and tap off again when you get off. Miss the tap off and you are charged the £7.90 airport single whatever journey you actually made, and that charge sits outside every cap.

There is no railway station at the airport. To reach a ScotRail train you ride the tram to Edinburgh Gateway, Edinburgh Park or Haymarket (the airport also names Waverley, via St Andrew Square, but that stop is on the closed stretch); if you want it on a single ticket there is a combined tram-and-train Airlink ticket, sold at staffed stations, at ticket machines, online or by phone, though no price for it is published.

By road it is about a 20-minute drive. The airport's official rank partner is Capital Cars, in the East Terminus a short walk from arrivals, booked online in advance or at the rank and paid in cash on the day or by card in advance. FreeNow picks up in the multi-storey car park. For Uber and Bolt the airport names no app-specific spot: its pick-up zones are a charged one on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park and a free one about a 10-minute walk from the terminal.

For the centre with no change of vehicle, walk to Stop A and take the Airlink 100 to Waverley Bridge.

Only the youngest ones. Up to three children under 5 travel free with a fare-paying passenger who is responsible for them; a fourth under-5 in the same group pays the child fare. From 5 to 15 inclusive a child pays a child fare, roughly half the adult rate, rather than travelling free.

That child fare applies across Lothian Buses, East Coast Buses and Lothian Country, and there are three ways to pay it: cash with the exact fare, a paper ticket asked for from the driver, or contactless. Nothing has to be produced for it — no formal ID check is set out for the ordinary child single.

Travelling as a group, ask the driver for the Family rate instead of buying tickets one at a time. It is a rate tier built into the City DAY, Country DAY and City&Country DAY tickets, covering up to two adults and three children together on one ticket, and it comes out cheaper than the same people buying individual adult and child DAY tickets. You can pay for it with a contactless card, but a Family fare paid that way earns no capping, so the ticket has to be worth it on its own.

One thing worth knowing before you arrive: you will read that everyone aged 5 to 21 travels free on the bus in Scotland. That is a national entitlement for people living in Scotland, carried on a National Entitlement Card you apply for with proof of address, so a visiting child cannot use it. Plan on the child fare, and ask for the Family ticket as you board.

Yes, on the buses and at the tram machines - but bring the right money, because Edinburgh's bus drivers give no change.

Lothian Buses, Lothian Country, East Coast Buses and the Airlink 100 all sell a ticket as you board, for cash or contactless, and every one of them is exact-fare: hand over more than the fare and the difference is not coming back. On Lothian Country, East Coast Buses and Airlink you state your destination before you pay, because the fare is worked out from it. McGill's Midland Bluebird also sells on board and also gives no change. Stagecoach East Scotland handles a shortfall differently from everyone else: its drivers cannot take the largest banknotes, and where they cannot make change they issue a Change Voucher in place of the cash, redeemable at one of its local offices rather than on the bus.

Trams take no cash on board at all - there is no on-board sale on a tram. The platform ticket vending machines take coins or a card, and a tram ticket has to be bought, validated or activated before you board and used within 30 minutes of purchase.

For the train, ScotRail ticket offices take cash; where a station has no open office and its machine is card-only, take a Promise to Pay ticket from the machine and settle it on board or at your destination. And the TravelHubs, where a Ridacard has to be bought in person, take cash and card alike.

Carry coins for the buses if you must, but a contactless tap is the better instrument here: it caps, and cash does not.

Yes - every bus operator in Edinburgh sells you a ticket at the door. Lothian Buses, Lothian Country, East Coast Buses and the Airlink 100 airport bus all take cash or contactless as you board, and so do Stagecoach East Scotland and McGill's Midland Bluebird.

The catch is change, because there is none. Lothian's drivers take the exact fare only and cannot give change, on the city buses and on the Airlink alike; East Coast Buses and Lothian Country run the identical rule, and so does McGill's. Stagecoach East Scotland is the one exception, and only partly: its drivers cannot accept the largest banknotes, and where they cannot make change they hand over a Change Voucher instead, which is redeemed at one of the company's local offices and not on the bus.

On Lothian Country, East Coast Buses and the Airlink you also have to say where you are going before you pay, because those fares depend on how far you travel rather than being flat.

So carry small coins - or tap a contactless card instead, which costs less over a day because a tap counts towards the daily cap and a cash fare does not count towards it at all.

Two different things, and only one of them caps. Your phone can be the payment card itself - Apple Pay or Google Pay held against the reader as you board a bus, or against the tram's reader on the platform - and used that way it earns TapTapCap exactly as a piece of plastic does. Or it can carry a ticket bought inside an app, which is a fixed-price product with no capping attached to it at all.

For app tickets the one to have is Bus & Tram, run jointly by Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams, which sells across the whole Lothian and tram network and lets you gift a ticket to someone else; it also sells discounted M-Ticket bundles, five or twenty DAY tickets at a time. Edinburgh Trams has its own et app as well, and McGill's Midland Bluebird sells m-tickets in its own.

The trap is activation. An app ticket is not a ticket until you press activate. On a Lothian bus you do that as you board and show the screen to the driver; on the tram, activate it before you board and show it to the Ticketing Services Assistant when asked; on McGill's, activate it when you want to use it and scan it as you board. Board a tram with a ticket you never activated and the inspector charges the £10 on-board fare.

ScotRail sits outside all of this. Its own app sells mTickets and eTickets that you activate and scan to travel. Its separate Tap&Pay trial is a different product again, and a journey not properly started or ended inside that app can attract a £25 incomplete journey fee.

On Lothian Buses, Lothian Country, East Coast Buses, Airlink 100 and the tram, the simplest version is not to buy a ticket at all: put a Visa or Mastercard in Apple Pay or Google Pay and tap that same phone all day, because swapping cards or devices stops the capping. On the tram, tap off at the platform as well as on.

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.