Rome 🇮🇹

Yes, on ATAC's metro, buses and trams, and not on the airport coaches. ATAC calls it tap&go, and it takes your own contactless card, phone or watch — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, V Pay, Maestro or UnionPay. On the metro you tap the reader on the turnstile at any station on lines A, B/B1 and C and the gate opens. On a bus, a tram or a trolleybus you tap the reader on board and wait for the green light. There is no tap out anywhere in Rome: the first tap buys a €1.50 BIT that lasts 100 minutes and the price is fixed at that moment.

What the 100 minutes buys differs by mode, and this is the part that catches people. On the surface it is unlimited changes — bus to tram to trolleybus, day or night lines — but you must tap again on every vehicle you board. A re-tap inside the window is a validation, not a second charge, and skipping it is what turns an inspection into a fine of between €100 and €500, reduced to €50 if you pay within 5 days of the notice. On the metro the same ticket is one entry only: you may change between A, B/B1 and C without leaving the turnstiles, but once you go back out you tap and pay again.

A busy day stops getting more expensive on its own. Tap the same card or device a sixth time within 24 hours of your first tap and that sixth tap, and every one after it, is charged at €8.50 — the price of the Roma 24-hour ticket — instead of another BIT. It has to be the same physical card each time, so do not start the day with the card and finish it with the phone.

Two extensions come with conditions worth reading before you rely on them. Cotral's regional buses and ATAC's Roma–Lido and Roma–Viterbo urban rail are covered, but only if you have ATAC's free Tap&Go app installed to show staff when they check on board: there is no Cotral reader to tap, and the app runs on Android with NFC and nowhere else. On Trenitalia's FL regional lines inside the Metrebus Roma zone, second class, you do not tap either — you show the conductor the card you paid with, or read out its PAN troncato, the first six and last four digits.

The airport is separate from all of it. Trenitalia's Leonardo Express to Fiumicino has its own readers beside the departure platforms and a flat €14 fare, and Metrebus tickets are not valid on it at all. The airport coaches — Terravision, SIT Bus Shuttle, Rome Airport Bus and TAM — take a bank card at their own checkout to sell you a ticket, but none of them has a reader to tap. So pick one card, tap it at the turnstile and on board every vehicle you get on, and buy the airport leg separately.

Yes, at every station on all three lines. ATAC's tap&go readers are fitted to the turnstiles across lines A, B/B1 and C: hold your contactless card, phone or watch against one, wait for the green light, and the turnstile releases. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, V Pay, Maestro and UnionPay all work, and there is nothing to buy or register first. The tap charges a €1.50 BIT and there is no tap out, so the fare is settled the moment you go in.

On the metro that ticket is worth one entry, not 100 minutes of metro. You can change between A, B/B1 and C — and at San Giovanni you cross the turnstiles to change between A and C — without paying again, but the moment you leave the gateline your next entry is another tap and another fare. Travelling without a valid tap risks an administrative fine of €100 to €500, reduced to €50 if you pay within 5 days of the notice.

Use the same card or device all day and the sixth tap within 24 hours of the first is charged €8.50, the price of the Roma 24-hour ticket, and so is every tap after it. So tap in with one card, keep it in the same pocket, and change lines inside the barriers rather than walking out and back in.

Yes, on every ATAC bus, day or night. Each vehicle carries a tap&go reader: tap your contactless card, phone or watch on it as you board and wait for the green light. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, V Pay, Maestro and UnionPay are accepted, there is nothing to buy first, and there is no tap out. The tap charges a €1.50 BIT good for 100 minutes, and inside that window you can change onto any other bus, tram or trolleybus as often as you like — but you must tap again on each one. That re-tap costs nothing; not doing it is what turns an inspection into a fine of €100 to €500, reduced to €50 if you pay within 5 days of the notice. Tap the same card a sixth time inside 24 hours of your first tap and that tap, and every one after it, is charged €8.50, the price of the Roma 24-hour ticket.

Cotral's regional buses are the exception, and not because they refuse your card. Cotral is covered by tap&go only through ATAC's free Tap&Go app, shown to staff when they check on board — there is no reader on a Cotral coach to tap at all, and the app runs on Android phones with NFC and nothing else. The airport coaches are outside the system entirely: Terravision, SIT Bus Shuttle, Rome Airport Bus and TAM each sell you a ticket at their own checkout, where a bank card pays but never validates.

So tap as you get on any ATAC bus, tap again every time you change, and if your route is a Cotral one, install the app before you travel or buy a ticket the ordinary way.

The Metrebus Card is the plastic card that carries Rome's own tickets and season passes instead of a bank card, and for a visitor the honest answer to whether you need one is usually no. No version of it caps: it charges you in full for every ride, while tapping a contactless bank card on ATAC's readers stops charging at €8.50 in a rolling day. Nothing on the card is cheaper for arriving, riding for three days and leaving.

There are four versions and they are genuinely different products. The Metrebus Card itself is free the first time and €7.00 to replace, and it is the only one that can hold a monthly or annual season pass — but you have to ask for it in person at an authorised ATAC ticket office, with photo ID. èRoma costs €3.00, is sold only at authorised retailers, holds a monthly pass but never an annual one, has your name written on it in indelible ink by you, and cannot be replaced if you lose it. +Roma costs €1.00 and holds single tickets and bundles only, one ticket at a time. The Nuova +Roma is the same card sold only by the new red touchscreen machines, free if you load €4.50 or more onto it at once and €0.50 if you do not.

Where it takes you: ATAC's metro, buses and trams, Cotral's regional buses, Cotral's Metromare and the urban stretch of the Roma–Viterbo line, and Trenitalia's FL1. It does not pay for the Leonardo Express to Fiumicino, and no airport coach accepts it. Reload it online through MyAtac, at an ATAC ticket office, at the new machines, or at a newsstand or tobacconist. If you are here for a few days, tap your own bank card and leave the ticket-office queue to the people who need a season pass.

Yes, and only if you pay by tapping a contactless bank card or phone. ATAC calls it "miglior tariffa" — best fare: tap the same card or device a sixth time within 24 hours of your first tap and that sixth tap, and every one after it, is charged €8.50 — the price of the Roma 24-hour ticket — instead of another 100-minute BIT fare. The five taps before it are charged in full, one BIT fare each, so this is a ceiling on what a sixth and later tap costs you, not a ceiling on the day. The window rolls forward from your first tap rather than resetting at midnight.

It builds on the card, not on the person. Two travellers tapping two cards are counted separately, and switching to a different card or phone part-way through the day starts the count again. It asks for no registration, no residency and no Italian bank account, so a visitor earns it from the first tap. It covers ATAC's buses, trams and metro. ATAC describes it reaching further than that: a Cotral regional bus on its city routes and the Roma–Lido and urban Roma–Viterbo lines, if you use ATAC's free Tap&Go app for those legs, and a second-class urban journey on a Trenitalia FL commuter train, shown with the card you tapped or its card number. What ATAC does not spell out is whether one of those non-ATAC taps counts towards the same run of five as an ATAC tap, so treat the ceiling as something ATAC's own network earns you.

Nothing else in Rome caps. A Metrebus Card, a paper ticket and a ticket bought in an app charge you in full every time, however much you ride. If you expect a busy day, pick one card or one phone in the morning and tap that same one all day.

The list of cards accepted here is broad, and where yours was issued is not part of it. ATAC, the company that runs Rome's metro, buses and trams, names Visa, Mastercard, American Express, V Pay, Maestro, UnionPay and JCB for its tap&go readers, and publishes that as a closed list, so a scheme outside it is refused. What no page settles is the country of issue: the question is answered for the brand on the front of your card and left open for the bank behind it, in either direction. The scheme is therefore the test you can actually apply - and a card your own bank blocks abroad fails for that reason rather than for anything Rome decided.

Where to tap is the easy part: every metro turnstile on lines A, B/B1 and C, and the reader on any ATAC surface vehicle, buses and trams included.

Taking that tap beyond ATAC is where it gets awkward, and both routes turn on being able to prove what you paid with. On the urban bus routes of Cotral, the regional operator for the area around Rome, the same tap works only if you have installed ATAC's free tap&go app, which runs on Android with NFC and on nothing else. On the FL regional lines of Trenitalia, the national railway, inside the Rome fare area there is no app involved: you show the inspector the card you paid with, or read out its first six and last four digits. The Leonardo Express has a tap of its own, at readers beside the departure platforms.

So pick one card or one device and use only that. Carrying the card you tapped with is what turns the tap into a ticket when an inspector reaches you.

Rome charges you for the ticket, not for a missed tap-out. Nothing here is worked out on exit, so there is no incomplete-journey charge to fall foul of; what an inspector wants to see is a valid ticket that has been validated. On ATAC — metro lines A, B/B1 and C, the buses and the trams — travelling without one is an administrative fine of €100–500, on top of the price of the ticket and any procedural and postal costs. A ticket you are carrying but never validated counts as travelling without one, and so does a ticket used past its validity.

The €50 is not a discount an inspector can hand you. ATAC reduces the fine to €50 only if it is paid within 5 days of the notice being served or formally contested — a settlement window that opens after you have been stopped, not a cheaper price on the spot.

The city's other operators set their own fines. Cotral's regional buses charge a fine from €100 plus the full fare for the whole route, first terminus to last; you can pay a reduced amount within 5 days of the notice, but Cotral does not publish what it is. On Cotral's own rail services — Metromare and the urban stretch of the Roma–Viterbo line — the fine is €100, and you also pay the fare for the whole route, first terminus to last; no reduced figure or deadline is published. Atral's coaches, like Cotral's buses, charge a fine from €100 upwards on top of the ticket price. The Leonardo Express to Fiumicino is Trenitalia's, and a Metrebus ticket is not valid on it: buy its own ticket before you board.

All of it is avoided by validating. On the metro your tap or your ticket opens the turnstile and that is the validation; on a bus or a tram you must validate as soon as you get on; on Trenitalia's FL1 and the Leonardo Express you validate before you board. Do it first, not when you see someone checking.

Two trains leave Fiumicino's own station and they are not the same product. The Leonardo Express runs non-stop to Roma Termini in about 32 minutes and costs €14 a single; it sits outside Rome's integrated Metrebus fares altogether, so no zone fare or city ticket applies to it, a Metrebus Card will not pay for it, and it stays outside the daily contactless ceiling. It takes a contactless tap, a paper ticket or a ticket in the app. The FL1 regional line leaves the same station for Roma Tiburtina in about 48 minutes, is inside the Metrebus fare, and takes a Metrebus Card, a paper ticket, an app ticket or a contactless tap — though Trenitalia does not publish either the full list of Rome stations FL1 calls at or a fare figure for the airport, so check both before you buy.

The coaches to Termini each run their own ticketing and none of them accepts a Metrebus ticket. Terravision is the cheapest at from €4.00 one way, about 45 minutes, and takes cards only — Visa, Mastercard, PostePay or Revolut, no cash. SIT Bus Shuttle is €7 one way and €13 return; RomeAirportBus is €8.00–9.00 one way and takes about 50 minutes; T.A.M. is €9 one way, and at its Roma Ostiense stop it will only take you if you already bought online. Cotral's bus is the cheap outlier that is not really a way into the centre: it runs to Roma EUR Magliana, and you finish the trip on Metro B.

A taxi from the rank outside arrivals runs on a fixed flat fare to anywhere inside the Aurelian Walls, takes roughly 40 to 50 minutes, and takes cash or a card. Decide in the terminal rather than at the platform: if you are going to Termini and want it done with, the Leonardo Express; if you are counting euros, an ordinary ticket for FL1, validated on the platform before you board.

Yes in the city, and the limit falls sharply the moment you board a train. On the vehicles of ATAC, the company that runs Rome's metro, buses and trams, and on the buses of Cotral, the regional operator for the area around Rome, a child up to the age of 10 travels free anywhere inside the territory of Roma Capitale.

On the regional and urban trains of Trenitalia, the national railway, the free ride ends far earlier: only a child who has not yet turned 4 travels free, and from the fourth birthday a ticket is needed.

So take the under-10s onto the metro, a bus or a tram without buying anything for them, and buy a child a ticket the moment the journey is on a Trenitalia train unless that child is under 4.

Cash works in Rome, but not in the place you will first reach for it. The new red touchscreen machines that stand in every metro station take no coins and no notes at all: they sell paper tickets and Metrebus cards to a card only. ATAC's older machines and its staffed ticket offices do take coins and notes, but only some of them do, so a machine refusing your money is ordinary rather than broken.

Drivers sell tickets on board with Cotral and with Autoservizi Troiani, which runs some of Rome's outer bus routes in the east of the city. On a Troiani bus the driver sells a ticket valid for 100 minutes; ask whether cash is taken before you count on it. On Cotral it is a last resort rather than a normal way to pay: the ticket the driver hands you on a Cotral regional bus or coach is a €7.00 emergency fare, cash only, no card, and no change is given, so you need €7.00 counted out in your hand before you board. ATAC works differently: you buy from a machine, a ticket office, an authorised retailer or ATAC's own app, or you skip the ticket and tap a bank card on a Tap&Go reader. None of those is a driver, the app takes no cash at all, and cash is not accepted on board an ATAC bus. Newsstands, tobacconists and partner bars sell ATAC paper tickets and Metrebus cards across the whole network, and whether a particular shop takes your notes is worth asking before you join the queue.

Terravision and SIT Bus Shuttle take no cash at their ticket offices and counters, so carry a card if you are taking either coach. In the city, take your cash to an ATAC ticket office or one of ATAC's older machines.

It depends whose bus you are on. On Cotral's regional buses and coaches, yes: the driver takes coins and notes, gives no change, and expects the exact fare. On ATAC's city buses and trams, no — cash is not accepted on board and no driver sells tickets.

So buy before you board an ATAC bus: a paper ticket from a machine, an ATAC ticket office, a newsstand or a tobacconist, or simply tap a contactless bank card or phone on the reader as you get on, which is the only way that needs nothing bought in advance. Whichever you carry, validate it on board the moment you step on.

Yes. The official app is App ATAC Roma, free to download, and it sells the 100-minute BIT, the Roma 24, 48 and 72-hour tickets, and a personal monthly pass. The CIS weekly card is not one of them, so if that is the ticket you want, buy it at a machine, a ticket office or a tobacconist instead. The same ticketing is resold under the name Bpiù inside eight other apps — MooneyGo, Wetaxi, Urbi, Trenitalia, Tabnet, TicketAppy, DropTicket and Telepass — so a ticket bought in any of those is the same ticket.

Buying it is not the same as being covered by it. You activate the ticket in the app at the moment you travel, and how you do that depends on where you are standing: tap Bus for a bus or a tram, tap Metro to generate a QR code and hold it to the reader on the turnstile, tap Bus again on Metromare and the urban Roma–Viterbo line, and tap Treno on a Trenitalia urban train, choosing your departure station first. A monthly pass behaves differently again: it is issued already active with fixed start and end dates, so buy it on the day you want it to begin.

An app ticket never caps. The €8.50 figure belongs to tapping a contactless bank card, and it is not a ceiling on a day's travel either: it is what a sixth tap, and every later one, costs after five 100-minute BIT fares have already been charged in full inside a rolling 24 hours from the first tap. Buying in an app puts you outside it altogether. Nor does an app ticket buy anything on the airport coaches — Terravision, SIT Bus Shuttle, RomeAirportBus and T.A.M. each sell their own ticket their own way. Download App ATAC Roma before you fly, so you are not installing it on airport wifi with a bus pulling in.

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.