Prague 🇨🇿

In Prague a bank card does not pay your fare. It buys a ticket. Tap a contactless card, phone or watch on one of the small card machines at a metro entrance or on board, which belong to DPP, the company that runs the city's metro, trams, buses and trolleybuses, and the machine issues you a ticket that is already time-stamped and valid from that moment. There is no tap-in at a gate, no tap-out, nothing accruing in the background and no daily ceiling: every tap is one separate purchase.

That difference is what catches visitors out, because the ticket is the thing an inspector asks for. The card you paid with is not a ticket and holding it up proves nothing. Being checked without a valid ticket costs 2,000 Kč, reduced to 1,500 Kč if you pay within 15 days. Keep what the machine gives you until you are off.

The machines stand mid-vehicle on trams, at the second doors on city buses and trolleybuses, in the metro vestibules and at the Petřín funicular stations. DPP's own list says selected city buses, so the bus in front of you may not have one; look for the contactless symbol on the door. The funicular is running again; a ride there costs 100 Kč, and a 24-hour or 72-hour ticket already covers it.

Away from those machines the tap-to-buy channel thins out. On the river ferries run by Pražské Benátky there is nothing to tap: show the ferryman any valid PID ticket as you board, or buy one from the ferryman; a paper ticket from a machine counts only once you have stamped it, so stamp it before you reach the river. A second company, the Prague Steamboat Company, runs another of the network's ferry crossings; board that one already holding a ticket. The České dráhy (Czech Railways) trains that carry Prague tickets have no card machine either, but there it is only this tap-to-buy channel that is missing - a PID ticket for the train is sold at a ČD counter or in the app, and the train staff sell one on board too. A driver sells you the ticket and takes a contactless card for it on PID's suburban buses, the routes that run out of the city beyond DPP's city network, and on the Airport Express bus, whose fare is its own outside the ordinary Prague tariff and which ordinary tickets do not cover.

So board by the door marked with the contactless symbol, buy at the machine as soon as you are aboard, and hold on to the ticket.

Yes, though not at a gate, because Prague's metro has no gates. The small card machine stands in the station vestibule — the entrance hall, beside the machines that stamp paper tickets, before the escalators down to the platform. Tap a contactless card, phone or watch on it and it prints a ticket that is already time-stamped and valid from that instant.

That printed ticket is your fare, not the card. Show an inspector the card you paid with and you are travelling without a ticket: 2,000 Kč, or 1,500 Kč if you pay within 15 days. What you pay depends on the time band you choose on the screen rather than on how far you travel, and nothing you buy counts towards a daily limit, because Prague has no capping scheme on any ticket.

There is no card machine on the platform and none on the trains, so buy upstairs before you ride down, and keep the ticket on you for the whole journey.

On some of them. DPP fits small card machines that sell tickets to selected city buses and trolleybuses, always at the second doors and nowhere else on the vehicle, so the bus pulling in may have one and the next may not. Board at the door carrying the contactless symbol and tap your card, phone or watch on the machine as soon as you are on; it issues a time-stamped ticket valid from that moment. There is no tap-out and no cap, and it is the ticket, not the card, that an inspector wants to see. Being checked without one costs 2,000 Kč, dropping to 1,500 Kč if you pay within 15 days.

Two things to expect afterwards. Bus and tram purchases are settled in a batch rather than one at a time, so a single odd-looking charge covering several rides can land on your statement well after the day you travelled. And a declined card or a dead machine does not entitle you to a free ride; you have to get a valid ticket another way immediately.

The Airport Express is the exception to all of this: the driver sells the ticket and takes a card for it, and the fare sits outside the ordinary Prague tariff, so an ordinary ticket is not valid on it.

If the bus you want has no card machine at its second doors, buy your ticket from a ticket machine at the stop before you board, and stamp it as you get on.

The Litačka is not a card you load with money. It is an identifier: you buy a coupon (kupón) separately, it is bound to one identifier at a time, and an inspector reads the identifier to see that the coupon is there. The identifier can be the plastic Litačka card, the PID Litačka app, a personal second-generation Czech Railways In Karta (not an older one, and not one held in the ČD app), or your own contactless Mastercard or Visa - the physical card, never one held in a phone or a watch wallet. Registering a bank card this way does not authorise anyone to charge it, and nothing is debited when it is read.

It is only worth it for a stay of a month or more, because the shortest coupon it carries is 30 days. For a short visit, buy a 24-hour or 72-hour ticket instead. The adult season rates are 550 Kč for 30 days, 1,480 Kč for 90 and 3,650 Kč for a year, and those rates are for a Litačka that carries your name, registered with a photograph or not. A bank card always starts out as an anonymous identifier, and until you register it with a photo it carries only the transferable coupons - a separate and dearer scale. Set any of that against 150 Kč for 24 hours or 350 Kč for 72, and for a few days in Prague the time ticket wins outright.

Two edges to know before you rely on it. No Litačka product is valid on the Airport Express, which charges its own fare, paid in cash or by card. The Petřín funicular, on the other hand, is running again, and a Prague season pass on your Litačka covers it at no extra cost.

If you do want the plastic anyway, apply online at pidlitacka.cz and collect it or have it posted, or get one on the spot at the Litačka Customer Centre in Škodův palác, Jungmannova 35/29, Praha 1, or at selected DPP infocentres; a passport is accepted as the identity document. Ticket machines do not sell the card. Buy the coupon in the PID Litačka app or at pidlitacka.cz and it loads onto the card.

No. Nothing in Prague caps. There is no scheme on any medium that watches what you have spent and stops charging, because nothing here accrues: every journey is covered by a ticket you bought up front, and tapping a bank card on the small card machine at a metro entrance or on board buys one more discrete ticket each time you do it.

What does the job a cap would do is a time ticket. Twenty-four hours costs 150 Kč on paper and 140 Kč bought in the PID Litačka app; 72 hours costs 350 Kč on paper and 340 Kč in the app. Against 39 Kč for a 30-minute single and 50 Kč for 90 minutes, a day of ordinary sightseeing pays for the 24-hour ticket somewhere around the fourth ride, and it then covers the metro, the trams, the buses, the PID ferries and the Petřín funicular without another thought.

Two things it will not cover. Those card machines sell the 30-minute, 90-minute and 24-hour tickets but not the 72-hour one, so buy that from a ticket machine, a counter or the app. And no ordinary PID ticket of any length is valid on the Airport Express, which runs on its own 200 Kč fare outside the tariff. Buy the 24-hour ticket on the morning you start moving, not the night before - it runs from the moment it is stamped, not from midnight.

Yes. Any contactless Mastercard or Visa works, and so does a phone or a watch carrying one. The small card machines at metro entrances and on board trams and selected buses take cards issued abroad on exactly the same terms as Czech ones, and nothing here restricts the tap to a domestic card. No list of accepted schemes is published, so carry a Visa or a Mastercard to be sure.

What the tap does is the part to get right, because it is not what a gate does elsewhere. Tapping your card on one of these machines, run by Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy, the city's own transport company, buys a ticket. The card is not the fare and it is not the proof. The ticket the machine prints is what you are travelling on and what an inspector asks for — showing the card you paid with instead is travelling without a ticket, and that is 2,000 Kč.

The machines sit where you board: fixed mid-vehicle on a tram, by the second doors on a city bus or trolleybus, in the metro vestibule before you go down to the platform, and at the Petřín funicular stations. Your card does not reach everything, though. Czech Railways trains and the Prague ferries have no card machine to tap, so buy a ticket at a counter or in the app before you board. The train conductor sells one on board for cash; whether the conductor takes a card, or what the ferryman takes, is not published, so carry koruna for either. The Airport Express is a separate case again — its fare sits above the ordinary Prague tariff, and an ordinary Prague ticket is not valid on it.

So tap at the machine as you get on, take what it gives you, and keep it in your hand until you are off.

Nothing happens at a gate, because Prague has none, and there is no touch out to miss. Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy (DPP), which runs the metro, the trams and the city buses, puts inspectors on the network instead, and being caught without a valid ticket costs 2,000 Kč. Pay at DPP's surcharge desk (the doplatková pokladna) or online no later than the fifteenth day after the check and it comes down to 1,500 Kč.

What counts as valid catches visitors twice. A paper ticket from a ticket machine, a DPP infocentre or a newsagent is not a ticket until you have stamped it in one of the small yellow machines that stamp your ticket (označovač): in the metro entrance hall before the escalators, or as you board a tram or bus. Tickets sold at a Czech Railways counter, by a conductor, by a bus driver or by one of DPP's contactless card machines at the metro entrance or on board are printed with the time and already valid. The second trap is the bank card. Tapping it on one of those card machines buys you a ticket, and it is that ticket you are travelling on; the card itself is not a fare, and showing an inspector the card you paid with is not showing a ticket.

One case is much lighter. If you carry a Litačka, the local travel identifier, registered to you, with a monthly or longer coupon issued against your personal details, and simply left it at home, that is 50 Kč, provable at the surcharge desk inside the same fifteen days. That rate needs the registration. A coupon on an anonymous or unregistered Litačka, or on a bank card (which counts as anonymous until you register it with a photo), cannot be proved afterwards, and neither can any forgotten identifier on a train inside the Prague integrated network, so carry the card itself every time.

DPP's scale is DPP's, so do not assume it follows you onto the ferries or the trains. On a ferry, show any PID ticket or buy one from the ferryman as you board; for a train, buy at a Czech Railways counter before you travel or from the conductor on board.

Václav Havel Airport Prague has no rail link of any kind, so the ordinary way in is a bus to the edge of the metro and then the metro, on one ticket. Trolleybus 59 leaves from in front of both arrival halls for Nádraží Veleslavín, where you change onto metro line A; PID puts the whole trip at about 35 minutes to the centre. Bus 100 does the same thing to Zličín and line B in about 45 minutes, and bus 191 runs to Na Knížecí by Anděl. None of them charges an airport premium: the 90-minute ticket at 50 Kč covers bus and metro together.

The Airport Express is the one with no change of vehicle, but going into the city it boards at Terminal 1 only: in that direction it does not call at Terminal 2 at all, so a Terminal 2 arrival walks over to Terminal 1 first. From there it is about 40 minutes to Praha hlavní nádraží, the main railway station - and on its own 200 Kč fare, outside the PID tariff, with no ordinary PID ticket valid on board. You buy from the driver, in cash or by card; a child of six to fifteen pays 100 Kč, and so does a dog.

Overnight, buses 907 and 910 run from the Terminal 2 stop into the city on exactly the same fares as by day: the 907 via Hradčanská, Hlavní nádraží, Karlovo náměstí and Anděl in about 50 minutes, the 910 via Švandovo divadlo and I. P. Pavlova in about 45. A licensed taxi is held to maxima of 60 Kč to start, 36 Kč a kilometre and 7 Kč a minute of waiting, but those maxima do not apply to a total price agreed in advance through an app or website. Uber Airport, the airport's own official concession, is the exception: it quotes the price before you confirm and may not exceed those maxima; it picks up in front of the arrivals halls of both terminals.

For the 59, 100 or 191, buy the 90-minute ticket at the ticket machine at the stop or the DPP infocentre in your arrivals hall before you walk out, because the small card machine on board the bus takes a card or a phone and no cash whatever. Stamp a machine or infocentre ticket in the small yellow machine on the stop platform before you get on.

Yes, until they turn fifteen. Inside Prague — zones P, 0 and B — a child travels free right up to their fifteenth birthday. Under 6, no proof of age is asked for at all, though the child has to be accompanied by someone older than 10. From 6 to 10 it is still free and still nothing has to be shown. From 10 to 15 it is free but it has to be provable: photo ID with the child's name and date of birth — a passport or a school card will do — a PID child card, or a registered Litačka with the child's age loaded.

Beyond the city boundary the free ride becomes a discount. In the wider region a child aged 6 to 15 pays half the fare rather than nothing. Only the under-6s keep free travel outside the Prague zones as well as inside them.

There is one for the adult, too. Anyone travelling with a child under 3 rides free themselves inside zones P, 0 and B. What has to be proved is the child's age rather than yours, with the child's own ID card or passport, or with the "Průkaz dítě do 3 let" — a child-under-3 pass issued by the city transport company.

At 15 the free travel stops. A 15-to-18-year-old pays the full adult price for a single or any other short-term ticket, and the only thing discounted at that age is a season coupon of 30 days or longer. So if the children with you have turned 10, carry their photo ID from the moment you leave the hotel: for them, that document is the ticket.

Yes, but hardly ever on board and hardly ever in banknotes. Cash buys a ticket before you travel, and it is the ticket that carries you.

Coins go furthest. The button ticket machines at stops and stations take coins and nothing else, no notes and no cards of any kind; the touch-screen machines take coins or a contactless card. Neither will accept a banknote. For notes you need a person: DPP's infocentres and its sales kiosks in metro stations take coins and notes, and there are infocentres in Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at the airport, at Hlavní nádraží, at Anděl, Můstek, Hradčanská, Nádraží Veleslavín and the Magistrát. Counters run by České dráhy, the national railway, take cash for a PID ticket, and on a train the conductor sells for cash from a portable till.

Some places take none at all. The small card machines - mid-vehicle in trams, in metro vestibules, at the second doors of city buses - are contactless card and phone only. The app and the two online shops take no cash. The SMS ticket is billed to a Czech mobile number and cannot be bought on a foreign SIM at all. On the suburban buses of PID, the routes that run out beyond the city, the driver does take coins and notes, but takes no banknote larger than 200 Kč - and that rule covers those suburban buses only, not city trams and buses.

So keep coins for the machines, pay with banknotes at an infocentre or a metro-station kiosk, and stamp a machine or kiosk ticket in the small yellow machine as you board a tram or bus, or in the metro entrance hall.

Not on a city bus. On a Prague city bus or trolleybus the only thing to pay at on board is the small card machine by the second doors, fitted on selected vehicles, and it takes a contactless card or a phone and nothing else - no coins, no notes. Board through the door marked with the contactless symbol and buy the moment you are on.

Two kinds of bus do take cash, and neither is a city route. On PID's suburban buses, the ones that run out beyond the city, the driver sells you a ticket. You can pay the driver in coins, in notes up to 200 Kč, or by contactless card. That covers those suburban buses only, not city trams and buses. The Airport Express is the other: its driver sells its own ticket, for cash or by card, and ordinary PID tickets do not cover it.

If coins are what you are holding, buy before you board. Button machines at stops and stations take coins, touch-screen machines take coins or a contactless card, and DPP's infocentres and metro-station kiosks take banknotes as well. Then stamp the ticket in the small yellow machine as you board, because a paper ticket bought that way is not valid until you do.

Yes, in PID Litačka, the network's own app, and it is cheaper than paper or SMS: 36 Kč for 30 minutes and 46 Kč for 90, against 39 Kč and 50 Kč on paper, with 24 hours at 140 Kč and 72 hours at 340 Kč. Buying a single or a short-term ticket needs no account at all - download, pay, travel. Only a season coupon asks you to register the app as your identifier, which means putting a photograph on the profile. DPP also lists DoKapsy od ČSOB as an alternative front end for the same tickets.

At an inspection you show the ticket in the app itself, so the phone has to be awake, charged and logged in. There is no touch out; the app ticket simply has to exist and be showable when an inspector asks.

Some limits, though. A bank card sitting in a phone or watch wallet cannot be your Litačka identifier — that is refused outright, and for a card the physical plastic is what counts. The app itself is a different matter: registered as your identifier, it carries a season coupon in place of the plastic. The app ticket is not valid on the Airport Express, which sells its own ticket on board. And the other phone route, the SMS ticket, can only be bought from a Czech-registered mobile number, so a visitor's own SIM cannot buy one at all.

On the Petřín funicular a 30- or 90-minute ticket does not count: buy the 90 Kč funicular ride in the app, or ride on a 24- or 72-hour app ticket, which covers it. Install PID Litačka before you fly, and buy the 30- or 90-minute ticket in the app before you go down to the platform or board the tram.

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.