The card is not a deposit and it is not refundable. The Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM), the authority that sets every fare in the region, states that no refund or reissue is made if a Tarjeta Multi is lost or stolen (CRTM, Tarjeta de transporte Público Multi, checked 15 September 2026). If you buy the card, load ten trips onto it and then leave it in a taxi, that money is gone. Everything below assumes you understand that the plastic, not the paper, is the ticket.
Why the card comes first
Madrid stores metro fares on a chip rather than printing them, which is why there is no ticket to drop into a slot. CRTM spells out the mechanism: for Metro de Madrid and the Metros Ligeros, tickets "must be loaded onto a Tarjeta Transporte Público using the sales machines located in the stations, and once loaded, validated as you pass through the entry gates" (CRTM, Billetes y Tarifas, checked 15 September 2026). The machine will not hand you anything you can travel on by itself.
Visitors want the anonymous version, the Tarjeta Transporte Público Multi. It costs EUR 2.50, holds up to three non-personal tickets at once, lasts ten years, and carries a three-year warranty covering replacement of defective cards where the damage is not the user's fault. The two other formats are not for you: the TTP Personal carries your photo and is for residents, and the anonymous virtual card is managed through the "Mi Tarjeta Transporte" app, which CRTM lists as available for Android.
Buy the card at a Metro or Metro Ligero ticket machine, at an estanco (a licensed tobacconist) or at another authorised retailer. CRTM notes explicitly that its own customer management offices do not sell cards, which matters if you walk into the office at Terminal 4 expecting to start there.
What a single journey costs
A Madrid metro single is metered by the number of stations you pass, not by a flat city fare. The table below shows the Zone A ladder as published in the official 2026 tariff table.
| Stations travelled | Metro Zone A single (EUR) |
|---|---|
| Up to 5 | 1.50 |
| 6 | 1.60 |
| 7 | 1.70 |
| 8 | 1.80 |
| 9 | 1.90 |
| 10 or more | 2.00 |
These figures come from the tariff resolution approved by CRTM's board on 29 December 2025 and published in the regional gazette (B.O.C.M. Núm. 311, 31 December 2025, checked 15 September 2026), and they match CRTM's public ticket finder, which summarises the rule as EUR 1.50 up to 5 stations, EUR 0.10 more per station from 6 to 9, and EUR 2.00 from 10 stations upward (CRTM, Sencillos y 10 viajes, checked 15 September 2026). You do not have to count stations yourself: the machine asks for your destination and prices the shortest route.
Two fares outside Zone A catch people out. MetroNorte, MetroEste and MetroSur singles are EUR 1.50; TFM (the line 9 branch to Arganda del Rey) and Metro Ligero Oeste are EUR 2.00; and the Combinado ticket covering the whole metro network plus all the light rail lines is EUR 3.00 (same CRTM page and gazette, checked 15 September 2026).
The 10-trip Metrobús explained
The Metrobús is the ticket most short-stay visitors should actually load, because it covers metro and city bus on one title. CRTM's ticket finder lists it at EUR 7.30 for ten journeys across Metro Zone A, EMT city buses and Metro Ligero line 1, and the Madrid tourism board repeats that figure and describes the fares as valid until 31 December 2026 (esMadrid, Getting around Madrid by Metro, checked 15 September 2026). Like all 10-trip titles it is multipersonal: validate it once per traveller, and everyone must stay with the cardholder.
Here the two official sources do not reconcile exactly, and it is worth knowing why. The 2026 gazette sets the official tariff for a 10-trip Metro Zone A, EMT and ML1 ticket at EUR 12.50, while CRTM separately confirms that from 1 January to 31 December 2026 an extraordinary 40 per cent reduction applies to 10-trip tickets, funded by the Ministry of Transport, the Comunidad de Madrid and the other member administrations, with single tickets and tourist tickets excluded from the measure (CRTM, Billetes y Tarifas, checked 15 September 2026). Forty per cent off EUR 12.50 is EUR 7.50, not the EUR 7.30 the ticket finder advertises, so check the price the machine actually charges rather than budgeting to the cent.
That discount is also the reason the arithmetic favours the Metrobús so strongly right now. Ten singles at the EUR 2.00 top rate would be EUR 20.00; the same ten journeys on a Metrobús are listed at EUR 7.30, and the card to carry it costs EUR 2.50 once.
The EUR 3.00 airport supplement
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas sits inside Zone A but charges its own supplement on top of most tickets. CRTM sets it at EUR 3.00, valid for one use and only until the end of service on the day you buy it, and requires it if you are travelling on a Metro single, a Combinado single, a 10-trip Metrobús or a 10-trip Combinado (CRTM, Sencillos y 10 viajes, checked 15 September 2026). A single metro journey to or from the terminals therefore lands at EUR 4.50 to EUR 5.00 in total.
Two categories of traveller skip it entirely: holders of a 30-day travel pass that includes Zone A, and holders of the Abono Turístico. CRTM's tourist ticket page states for both Zone A and Zone T that the airport supplement does not have to be paid (CRTM, Billete turístico, checked 15 September 2026).
When the tourist pass wins
The Abono Turístico beats the Multi-plus-Metrobús combination in a narrower set of cases than most people assume. It is worth comparing the two on the only three things that change the answer: cost, what happens at the airport, and who may use it.
| Option | Cost (EUR) | Airport supplement |
|---|---|---|
| Metro single, Zone A | 1.50-2.00 per journey | 3.00 extra each way |
| 10-trip Metrobús | 7.30 for 10 journeys, shareable | 3.00 extra each way |
| Tourist pass, Zone A, 1 day | 10.30 | Included |
| Tourist pass, Zone A, 3 days | 23.10 | Included |
| Tourist pass, Zone A, 7 days | 43.20 | Included |
Tourist pass prices are the Zone A figures published by CRTM and confirmed in the 2026 gazette; Zone T, which reaches El Escorial, Aranjuez and Alcalá de Henares, runs from EUR 15.40 for one day to EUR 62.80 for seven, with a 50 per cent discount for children under 11 (CRTM tourist ticket page and B.O.C.M. Núm. 311, both checked 15 September 2026). The card itself is free when the first thing you load is a tourist ticket.
The honest break-even: one adult arriving by metro, doing a normal amount of sightseeing and leaving by metro rarely beats a 2-day or 3-day Zone A pass on pure arithmetic, because the two airport supplements alone are EUR 6.00. A couple who arrive by taxi and make six or seven metro journeys between them are usually better off with one shared Multi and one Metrobús, at EUR 9.80 in total, than with two separate day passes at EUR 20.60.
Buses, trams and the same card
EMT city buses accept the same Metrobús ticket but not the same single ticket, which is the one asymmetry in the system. EMT states the Metrobús is valid across its whole network except the Exprés Aeropuerto line, plus Metro Zone A and Metro Ligero line 1, and that it must be carried on a Tarjeta Transporte Público or a Tarjeta Multi (EMT Madrid, Títulos y tarifas, checked 15 September 2026).
A single bus fare works the other way round. EMT sells it on board at EUR 1.50, with a maximum change of EUR 5 accepted, or from totems outside the Atocha interchange and at the exits of terminals T1, T2 and T4; it cannot be loaded onto a Tarjeta Multi at all. The Exprés Aeropuerto bus is a separate product at EUR 5.00, again bought on board or at those totems, with a maximum change of EUR 20, and it is excluded from both the Metrobús and the Zone A tourist pass.
Contactless bank cards at the gates
Madrid metro gates do not accept a contactless bank card or phone wallet as a ticket. Every fare in CRTM's catalogue for the metro and light rail is defined as a title loaded onto a Tarjeta Transporte Público, and CRTM's ticket finder lists only three supports for singles and 10-trip tickets: the TTP Personal, the TTP Multi and the virtual card. The Madrid tourism board puts it in one line for visitors: "All pay-per-ride tickets must be loaded onto the Tarjeta Multi" (esMadrid, Getting around Madrid by Metro, checked 15 September 2026). Neither body describes open-loop bank card entry anywhere in its fares material.
Buses are a partial exception worth checking on the day. EMT links a dedicated "pago con tarjeta" FAQ directly beside the on-board single and Exprés Aeropuerto fares, and the Madrid tourism board states the Airport Express shuttle accepts card payment (esMadrid, Getting around Madrid, checked 15 September 2026). The detail of that EMT FAQ did not load for us, so ask the driver rather than assuming.
Before you leave the terminal
Buy the card and the fare in the same transaction at a station machine, and decide on the spot which traveller you are, Metrobús or tourist pass, because the airport supplement is charged the moment you go through the gate. Machines in the Metro network sell the card, the singles, the 10-trip tickets and the supplement; tourist tickets are also sold at CRTM's management offices in T2 and T4, open daily 08:00 to 20:00, and at the Sol and Atocha offices.
Two things this guide does not cover. It does not price Renfe Cercanías tickets, which have their own conditions and their own sales channels. And it does not cover residents' products such as the 30-day Abono Transporte or the youth pass, which require the personal card, proof of registered address and a visit to a management office. Fares were verified against CRTM on 15 September 2026; Metro de Madrid's own site could not be read for this article, so confirm any figure on CRTM's ticket finder before you travel.