Contactless in Prague
Yes: tap to buy a ticket on metro lines, trams, buses and funiculars; not on trains or ferries. The full guide is on the Prague page.
Where contactless works
Where a tap works
Tap to pay — bank card or phone
i
i
i
What a tap costs. Each tap buys one ticket: 39 Kč for 30 min, 50 Kč for 90 min or 150 Kč for 24 hours. The Airport Express has its own fare: 200 Kč.i
Other ways to pay (travel smartcard, phone ticket, paper ticket and text-message ticket) are on the Prague page.
- A contactless bank card or phone pays on metro lines, trams, buses and funiculars, but not on trains or ferries. Where it works, keep the printed ticket and show that if an inspector asks. Your bank card is not the ticket.
i
dpp.cz fetched 30 Jul 2026 - Which cards: The operator does not name specific cards. It states that any card carrying the contactless symbol works, so there is no list to check yours against.
- Nothing to buy in advance. The card machines that sell the ticket are in the middle of every tram, by the second door of a city bus or trolleybus, in the entrance hall of a metro station and at the Petřín funicular stations. Tapping buys a ticket, and the printed ticket, not the card, is what an inspector checks.
Questions about paying by card
Can I use contactless in 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.
i
Can I use contactless on the metro in Prague?
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.
Can I use contactless on the bus in Prague?
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.