Terms of use of tickets

Children under four are exempt from having a transport ticket. All other passengers need to have a valid, correct and paid ticket.

Make sure that the ticket is correct for your personal details and that it is valid for the zones where you wish to travel.

You should also validate the ticket before starting the journey and in all transfers you make, unless they are direct changes between metro lines. To help you identify whether the ticket has been correctly validated, the bus validating machines display a green light and emit a soft sound. On the other hand, when the ticket has not been validated, they display a red light and emit a loud sound. On the metro, the validating machines will not let you through the barrier if there is an error in validation. If your pass does not work as a result of a fault of the validating machines, contact a member of bus or metro staff, who will change it. Damaged cards for other causes will not give you the right to compensation nor to change it.

Finally, make sure that you keep the correctly validated ticket in good condition until the end of your journey. You should not throw it away until leaving the station, as you may be asked to show it by a member of staff.

If you need more detailed information on transport tickets or passes, go to the section “Metro and bus fares”.

With an integrated pass (not a single ticket), you can transfer up to 3 times to other integrated means of transport, over a certain period of time, set by the number of zones of the card. For single-zone passes, the time limit is 75 minutes from the first validation. This time limit increases by 15 minutes for each additional zone.

Please bear in mind that a return journey or resuming your journey after interrupting it is considered as two journeys. Therefore, fare integration does not allow you to validate your ticket twice within the same journey on the Barcelona metro (or the FGC line), nor two consecutive bus validations on the same route.

Apart from travel on which the metropolitan fare is applied, you can calculate the number of zones of the pass you need with the information about how the integrated tariff system works at the ATM website.

6-zone passes allow you to travel between all municipalities of the metropolitan transport area of Barcelona. You can see which they are on the map of zones.

What is the metropolitan fare?

The metropolitan fare is the use of transport tickets of 1 zone, for travel in public transport over 35 municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB). The metropolitan fare is applied to all integrated passes except the T-16. It is also applied to single tickets for journeys starting and finishing within the 36 municipalities forming the AMB.

How does this change affect journeys from the rest of the municipalities that fall under the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM)?

The metropolitan fare only applies to journeys on public transport that start and finish within the 36 metropolitan municipalities. Public transport journeys between any of the 36 metropolitan municipalities and any other municipalities that fall under Barcelona’s Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) require a travel pass valid for the same number of zones as before. In other words, there is no change to the fare zones of the metropolitan municipalities. Thus, no journeys taken within the area covered by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) will be adversely affected by the measure.

To which travel passes does the metropolitan fare apply?

For the metropolitan fare to apply (using a single zone ticket) for public transport journeys taken between two metropolitan municipalities, specific tickets and travel passes must be used.

The metropolitan fare applies to ATM integrated travel passes except for the T-16 card. Specifically, the metropolitan fare applies to the T-casual, T-casual for airport workers, T-grup, T-usual, T-usual for the unemployed, T-familiar (from 1 March 2020), T-jove, subsidized tickets for single-parent and large families, T-dia, T-aire and T-esdeveniment.

This metropolitan fare also applies to non-integrated single tickets issued by transport operators (FGC, Rodalies de Catalunya and metropolitan and interurban buses) when they cover the route between two municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB).

The T-16 continues to be valid exclusively for the fare zone in which the named child or adolescent resides.

To which municipalities will the metropolitan fare be applied?

The metropolitan fare will apply to journeys between municipalities (with a start and finish point) that can be checked on the Zone Map.

In the metro, your validated ticket or pass is valid for the following two hours.

On the bus, the validation gives the right to travel to the end of the route in the chosen direction (except on the Bus del Barri neighborhood routes and other circular lines, in which case you can complete the entire circuit).

Multi-person passes can be used with your companions, as long as you travel together. To correctly share a multi-person pass (such as the T-grup or, from 1 March 2020, the T-familiar), the number of validations must match the number of people traveling together. On the metro, you should stay together for the whole journey , from the entry point station until leaving the metro premises. On buses, you may separate once on board, but the person carrying the pass must be the last one to get off the bus.

Single-person passes (such as the T-casual) cannot be used simultaneously by more than one person, but it can be used by different people at different times. For example you can use the pass in the morning and anyone you give it to can use it in the afternoon.

Personalised passes can only be used by the named holder of the card. On the front of these passes, your ID number or an equivalent document number should be indicated. You should identify yourself with the documents required whenever you are asked to show the pass. Otherwise, it is deemed that you do not have a valid transport ticket and it may be withdrawn. The most common personalised passes are the T-16, the T-jove and the T-usual.

Personalised passes of single-parent or large families (FM/FN), are special cases, because apart from the ID or equivalent of the holder, these passes should also be accompanied by the original, valid single-parent or large family card (which should be shown when a staff member requests it).

Single metro tickets, airport tickets and integrated transport tickets can be used up to 31 December of the year of purchase. Tickets and passes are generally valid until the last day of February of the year following the date of purchase and issue. Quarterly tickets are valid until 31 March of the year following the date of purchase and issue.

Hola Barcelona Travel Card is a 2, 3, 4 or 5 day pass that works by numbers of hours. You can validate your transport ticket at any time of day and travel for 48 hours (2 days), 72 hours (3 days), 96 hours (4 days) or 120 hours (5 days) from the first validation.

Daily, monthly and quarterly passes (the T-dia, the T-usual, the T-grup, etc.), have their own validity, calculated from the day of service of the first validation, meaning the first time they are used to travel.

In this respect, in order to calculate the validity of these tickets, you should remember that for the TMB bus and metro networks, the FCG urban lines and the Tram, the date of service does not coincide with the calendar day, but starts at 4.00 h and ends at 3.59 h the following day. Therefore, the days in which the service is extended after midnight, validations made between midnight and : are calculated as having been done the previous day. However, on Rodalies de Catalunya routes, the day of service coincides with the calendar day.

Daily validity

Passes with daily validity allow you to travel for one day from the first validation until the service closes. If the metro service closes after midnight, it will be valid until 3.59 h the following day.

Monthly validity

Passes with monthly validity allow you to travel for 30 days from the first validation.

The 30 days are calculated taking into consideration the entire day of the first validation, plus the following 29 days. The pass is therefore valid until the service closes on the last day. If the metro service closes after midnight on the last day, it will be valid until 3.59 h of the following day.

Quarterly validity

Passes with quarterly validity allow you to travel for 90 days from the first validation.

The 90 days are calculated taking into consideration the entire day of the first validation, plus the following 89 days. The pass is therefore valid until the service closes on the last day. If the metro service closes after midnight on the last day, it will be valid until 3.59 h of the following day.