Pay as you go with contactless on tram
What's on this page
It’s easier to pay for tram travel with contactless
- Touch in with your card or device to start a journey, touch out when you finish your journey
- We’ll automatically charge you the right adult fare for your journey, day or week, so you only pay for what you use, up to a daily or weekly cap.
Here’s how it all works.
How to pay with contactless
Have a Visa, Mastercard or Maestro card with this symbol?
Then you can use contactless right away. Just use your card, phone or even watch to pay as you go.
Touch in, touch out
When you start a journey, touch in using one of our smart readers.
Then when you get where you’re going, touch out. (If you change trams between, there’s no need to touch in or out at that tram stop).
Make sure you use:
- the same card or device for all your trips to benefit from daily or weekly caps
- a different card for each adult – family travelcards from the ticket machines on stops may offer better value for those travelling with children
- one card at a time. Take it out of your wallet so you charge the right one.
Check for the green tick
If your card has been accepted, you’ll see a green tick like this:
If it hasn’t, you’ll see a message like this:
If that keeps happening, you will need to pay another way. Try a ticket machine or the Bee Network app.
How the fares are worked out
You don’t need to keep track of where you’ve travelled or what zones you’re in. We’ll work it out from where you’ve touched in and touched out. And we’ll automatically charge you based on our most up-to-date fares.
For single journeys
If you take one trip, we’ll just charge you for that trip – between £1.40 and £4.60 depending on how many zones you travel through.
For one day
If you take several trips, we’ll cap what you pay at our daily travelcard prices for adults this will be between:
| £2.70 and £7.10 | Anytime travelcard | If you touch-in to start any journey between 7am and 9.30am on a weekday |
|---|---|---|
| £1.90 and £4.90 | Off-peak travelcard | All other times depending on the zone(s) you have travelled through. |
For a week
If you travel more than one day between Monday and Sunday, we’ll look back through your journeys and charge the best-value fare for the week.
So long as you’re touching in and touching out for each journey, you’ll never pay more than a 7-day travelcard price for the zones you’ve travelled through – up to £31 for all zones.
For travelling early: the early bird bonus - exclusive to contactless
Set that alarm: if you can avoid travelling between 7am and 9.30am, Monday-Friday, you’ll pay off-peak prices.
How the early bird bonus works – Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays)
Example one:
- touch-in at 6.50am in zone 4 and touch-out at 7.30am in zone 1
- touch-in at 5.10pm in zone 1 and touch-out at 5.50pm in zone 4
You pay £4.90 - the off-peak 1-day travelcard price for zones 1 to 4 - because you haven't started any of your journeys between 7am and 9:30am.
Example two:
- touch-in at 7am in zone 4 and touch-out at 7.30am in zone 1
- touch-in at 5.10pm in zone 1 and touch-out at 5.50pm in zone 4
You pay £7.10 - the anytime 1-day travelcard price for zones 1 to 4 - because you started a journey between 7am and 9.30am.
You must use the same card or device to touch-in and touch-out, so all journeys are completed and we can apply the daily cap.
Incomplete journeys
If you touch in, remember to touch out at the end of your journey (you have up to 2 hours to complete a single journey). If you don’t:
- Your journey will be incomplete (you have up to 2 hours to complete a single journey)
- we’ll charge you £4.60 – that’s our maximum single fare
- this journey won’t count towards your daily or weekly cap
- the next time you use contactless with a smart reader, you’ll start a new journey.
So if you’re using a phone or smart watch, check your battery before you travel. Also, do not touch in and out at the same stop. Because we won’t know where you’ve been, we’d charge £4.60 for an incomplete journey.
And if you forget to touch in – or it didn’t work but you still travelled – you will be liable to pay up to £120 for the Metrolink penalty fare.
Ticket inspections and penalty fares
During ticket checks, present the card or device you used to touch in to the inspector’s ticket reader when asked. If you haven’t touched in before starting your journey (or you used a different card), we’ll charge:
- £60 to the card you present to the inspector or
- the full £120 penalty fare.
Don’t chop and change
If you use a device like a smartphone, it’s worth knowing that we see a ‘Device Number’ – not your card number. So when you’re showing your payment method to the inspector (or touching in or out), don’t switch between card and phone. Use the same thing every time.
It’s all in our terms and conditions, but if you wish to appeal then please fill in this form.
Other ways to pay for tram journeys
There are other ways to pay for your tram journeys which may be better if you:
- buy weekend, 28-day or annual tickets (you can't get these tickets through contactless),
- qualify for a discount,
- are under 18 – check out our fares and passes for young people.