Madrid public transport card
You do not buy a paper ticket to ride the Madrid Metro: you load it onto a card. There are two, the Tarjeta Transporte Público Personal and the Tarjeta Multi, and here is what each one does, what it costs and where to get it.
What the Tarjeta Transporte Público is
The Tarjeta Transporte Público (TTP) is the contactless card of the Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid: a plastic card with a chip onto which travel tickets are loaded. It is not a purse and holds no money, but tickets and travel passes: you load a ticket, hold the card to the reader on the ticket gate and the journey is deducted from that ticket.
The same card works across the whole Consorcio network, not just the metro: Metro de Madrid and Metro Ligero, EMT buses, the region’s city and intercity buses and Renfe’s Cercanías commuter rail, each with the tickets it accepts. The only tickets that cannot go on it are bus singles, which are bought on board, and the Parla tram’s and Cercanías’ own tickets.
There are two general-use cards and it pays to choose well from the start, because travel passes only fit on one of them: the TTP Personal, with your name and photo, and the Tarjeta Multi, anonymous and shareable. What each ticket costs is in fares, and when you can use it, in timetable.
The two cards side by side
If you are going to use a 30-day pass you need the Personal card. If you are visiting for a few days or travel now and then, the Multi is enough.
| TTP Personal | Tarjeta Multi | |
|---|---|---|
| Price of the card | €4.00 | €2.50 |
| Does it carry your details? | Yes: name, card number and photo. It is personal and non-transferable | No: it is anonymous |
| Who can get it? | Residents of the Comunidad de Madrid and of the municipalities on the CRTM list in the two neighbouring Castile regions | Anyone, with no requirements |
| Can it be shared? | The travel pass cannot. Any non-personal tickets loaded on it can, by tapping once per passenger | Yes, by tapping once per passenger |
| Tickets it holds | One personal travel pass and up to two non-personal tickets, or three non-personal tickets | Up to three non-personal tickets |
| 30-day, youth, over-65 or annual travel pass | Yes | No |
| Single and 10-trip tickets | Yes | Yes |
| Tourist travel pass | No: the Tourist pass goes on the anonymous card | Yes |
| Large-family or disability discounts | Yes, recorded on the chip | No |
| Where to get it | Online or at a customer service office (Oficina de Gestión) by appointment | Metro and Metro Ligero ticket machines, tobacconists and authorised shops |
| If it is lost or stolen | It is blocked and a duplicate is issued for €6.00, keeping your tickets if you apply at an office | No refund or replacement: you have to buy another one |
Source: Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (crtm.es), consulted on 20 October 2026; prices from the BOCM (the regional official gazette) no. 311 of 31 December 2025.
How to get the TTP Personal
You can apply for the TTP Personal in two ways, and both cost €4.00 for the card:
- Online, on the Consorcio’s card website (webttp.comunidad.madrid). The CRTM allows a week for it to reach your home.
- At a customer service office (Oficina de Gestión), by appointment on 012 or on the same website. They take your photo there and you leave with the card.
You need a recent passport-size photo, an identity document (DNI, passport or residence permit) and a valid certificate of registration on the municipal register (empadronamiento), issued within the previous three months. If you are registered in the Comunidad de Madrid you can authorise it to be checked digitally instead of presenting it. Children under 14 without a DNI need the family book and authorisation from their parents or guardians. If you belong to a large family you do not have to prove residence.
To get the large-family discount or the discount for a disability of 65% or more, you must present the card or certificate, or authorise it to be checked: the information is recorded on the chip and that is what lowers the price when you load the ticket.
How to get the Tarjeta Multi
The Tarjeta Multi costs €2.50 and you do not have to apply for it or identify yourself: it is sold at the ticket machines in Metro and Metro Ligero stations and at the network of tobacconists and other authorised shops. The Consorcio’s customer service offices do not sell cards. You can buy it empty, with no ticket loaded.
If the first ticket you load on the card is a tourist pass, the card is included in the ticket price and is not charged separately.
As it is anonymous, more than one person can use it: tap once per passenger, and everyone must travel with whoever carries the card. What it does not take are 30-day passes and personal discounts, which exist only on the TTP Personal.
Where to buy and top up tickets
Tickets are loaded onto the card, and these are the Consorcio’s points of sale:
- Ticket machines in Metro and Metro Ligero 1 stations: single tickets, 10-trip tickets and travel passes. They take cash or bank cards, depending on the machine.
- Ticket machines in Metro Ligero Oeste stations (ML2 and ML3): their own tickets and passes.
- Ticket machines in Cercanías stations: travel passes.
- Information points at transport hubs: bus multi-trip tickets and travel passes.
- Tobacconists and authorised shops: travel passes and 10-trip tickets.
- Consorcio apps: «Mi Tarjeta Transporte» on Android and «Tarjeta Transporte» on iOS.
There is no minimum or maximum top-up because you do not top up money: you buy a specific ticket and it is written to the chip. The limit is the number of tickets the card can hold at once, three, and you cannot top up the ticket you have just entered with until you finish your journey.
There is no daily cap either: the Madrid system does not limit what you spend in a day or turn several single journeys into a pass. What makes travel cheaper is choosing the right ticket: the zone A 10-trip ticket costs €7.30, or €0.73 per trip, less than half the cheapest single (€1.50); and the zone A 30-day pass, at €32.70, pays off from about 45 trips a month, with the advantage that you do not have to count them.
How to use it at the ticket gate
Hold the card to the reader on the ticket gate and the screen shows how many trips are left. With three tickets loaded, the card chooses by itself: if you have a pass and a 10-trip ticket valid for the same zone, it uses the pass first; if you tap again straight away, it deducts a trip from the 10-trip ticket; and if the pass is not valid for that zone, it goes straight to the ticket that is.
With non-personal tickets (singles, 10-trip tickets, Metrobús) one card can pay for several passengers: tap as many times in a row as there are people, and everyone must make the journey with whoever carries the card. A travel pass, on the other hand, is personal and non-transferable and only works for its holder.
In Madrid you cannot pay for a journey by tapping a bank card directly on the ticket gate: the Consorcio does not publish that option. A bank card is for buying the ticket at a machine or in the app, and what you tap is always the Tarjeta Transporte Público.
The card on your phone
The Consorcio has two apps and it is worth not mixing them up:
- Mi Tarjeta Transporte (Android 9 or later, with NFC switched on): reads the balance of the physical card and loads tickets onto it; lets you buy and load an anonymous TTP Virtual, which lives on your phone and needs Google Wallet; and lets you digitise the TTP Personal so you can tap in with your phone.
- Tarjeta Transporte (iOS): loading and reading the physical card.
To pay in either of them you first have to register a bank card in the app’s personal area; the CRTM runs a €0.00 check when you register it. The old «Tarjeta Transporte Virtual» app is no longer available and its features are now in Mi Tarjeta Transporte.
The virtual version of the card is Android-only: the Consorcio does not document a virtual TTP for iPhone.
Discounts and free passes
| Who | What the Consorcio publishes |
|---|---|
| Under 4 | Travel free and need no ticket or card |
| Ages 4 to 6 | Free child pass, on the Tarjeta Transporte Público Infantil, which is also free |
| Ages 7 to 14 | Free pass during 2026 (discount under Royal Decree-law 17/2025) |
| Ages 15 to 25 | 30-day Abono Joven for all zones, €10.00 |
| Over 65 | Free +65 pass, valid for 365 days throughout the Comunidad de Madrid |
| General large family | A 20% saving on the fare, with your category recorded on the TTP Personal |
| Special large family | A discount of 50%, on the same terms |
| Disability of 65% or more | A discount of 20%, on the same terms |
| Registered residents of the city of Madrid who meet the requirements | Tarjeta Azul: for people who meet certain age or disability conditions and an income limit. You apply at Madrid City Council and it is valid on the Metro (zone A), EMT buses and Metro Ligero 1 |
Large-family and disability discounts apply to every ticket except the tourist pass, the Tarjeta Azul and tickets that are already free, and they only work if your category is up to date on the TTP Personal chip: it is updated on the spot and free of charge at a customer service office. Source: Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (crtm.es), consulted on 20 October 2026; prices from the BOCM (the regional official gazette) no. 311 of 31 December 2025.
The card and the airport supplement
Entering or leaving at Aeropuerto T1-T2-T3 or Aeropuerto T-4 costs €3.00 extra if you travel with a Metro single ticket, a Combined single, a 10-trip Metrobús or a 10-trip Combined ticket. That supplement is loaded onto the card as one more ticket.
You do not pay it with a 30-day pass that includes zone A, with an annual pass or with the tourist pass. It is the difference that most surprises new arrivals: the same card pays or does not pay, depending on the ticket on it. Full details are in metro to the airport.
If it is lost, damaged or expires
TTP Personal lost or stolen. You can have it blocked and ask for a duplicate, which costs €6.00. If you apply at a customer service office with balance recovery, the Consorcio blocks the card and issues a new one with the tickets it held, within five working days at most; if it held no tickets or you give up recovering them, you get the new card on the spot. If you do it online, with the «theft/loss without balance recovery» button, the new card arrives at your home without any tickets loaded. With an annual pass, this can only be done in person.
Tarjeta Multi lost or stolen. There is no refund or replacement, either of the card or of what was loaded on it: you have to buy another one for €2.50. That is the trade-off for it being anonymous.
Damaged card. Both have a three-year guarantee: within that period they are replaced free of charge if the damage is not due to misuse. After the guarantee, a replacement for damage costs €6.00 for the Personal and €2.50 for the Multi.
Card expiry. Both cards last ten years. The TTP Personal is renewed at a customer service office with your identity document, the card and a valid certificate of registration, for €4.00 and on the spot; you can go up to two months before the expiry date. What expires is the plastic: the pass loaded on it has its own validity period, 30 consecutive calendar days in the case of the 30-day pass.
Problems (the card will not validate, you have been overcharged) are sorted out at the customer service offices, preferably by appointment. For trips charged incorrectly the Consorcio allows 15 calendar days and, on the metro, asks you to tell a member of staff at the time.