How daily capping actually works
Pay-as-you-go on a contactless bank card, phone, or watch tracks every journey you make on a given card and stops charging once you reach that day's price cap for the zones you have travelled through. Transport for London's guidance confirms the cap covers Zones 1-9 and applies Monday-to-Sunday for a weekly cap too, meaning you never need to calculate fares in advance — you simply tap and the system charges the cheapest combination for what you actually did that day.
For the 2026 adult pay-as-you-go rate, the daily cap for Zone 1 or Zones 1-2 is GBP 8.90, rising to GBP 10.50 for Zones 1-3 and GBP 12.80 for Zones 1-4. Peak and off-peak caps are the same for the central zone combinations most visitors use, so arriving during the morning rush does not cost you more if you stay within Zones 1-4. The Zones 1-2 Monday-to-Sunday cap is GBP 44.70.
Confirm the exact cap for your zone combination on TfL's adult fares table before you travel, since fares are reviewed periodically and outer-zone combinations have different peak and off-peak figures than the central ones listed here.
Touching in and out: the rule that actually differs by mode
The single most common way visitors overpay is misunderstanding that the touch rule is different for rail-type services and for buses. On the Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line, National Rail, river bus, and cable car, you must touch in at the start of the journey and touch out at the end — the system needs both points to calculate the correct fare, as TfL explains directly.
On buses and trams, you touch in only. TfL's own wording is blunt about the buses: "you don't need to touch out at the end of your journey. If you do, you may pay more than you need to." Touching a card reader again on a bus can register as starting a new journey rather than ending one.
The Hopper fare for buses and trams
The Hopper fare gives you unlimited bus and tram journeys for a single GBP 1.75 fare, provided each new journey starts within one hour of your first touch-in, confirmed on TfL's bus and tram fares page. A single bus or tram journey alone also costs GBP 1.75, and the bus/tram-only daily cap is GBP 5.25 — the cost of three Hopper journeys — after which further bus and tram travel that day is free.
This matters for a specific, common London move: catching one bus partway, changing to a second bus to finish a journey, without paying twice, as long as the second bus starts within the hour. It does not extend to the Tube or rail — mixing a bus and a Tube journey is priced under the normal zone-based system, not the Hopper fare.
The table below compares the three most common ways visitors pay for transport in London.
| Payment method | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Contactless bank card / mobile wallet | Most visitors, short stays, no setup wanted | Foreign transaction fee depends on your bank, not TfL |
| Oyster card | Visitors who prefer a dedicated transport card or want to avoid tapping a bank card | GBP deposit and top-up required; same capping rules as contactless |
| 7-Day Travelcard | Longer stays where you know your zones in advance and want a fixed, prepaid cost | Must match your actual zones or you pay extra at the gate; less flexible if plans change |
When Oyster or a Travelcard still beats contactless
A contactless bank card and an Oyster card are capped identically — same daily and weekly limits, same zone-based fares — so there is no fare advantage to Oyster for most travellers. Oyster still makes sense if you would rather not expose your everyday bank card to a foreign transit system, if your card does not have contactless enabled, or if a whole travelling party wants one shared, easily top-portioned budget on separate cards bought at the same machine.
A 7-Day Travelcard, bought for specific zones, can be worth it only if you already know you will travel every day of a full week within those exact zones — since it is prepaid at a fixed price rather than capped dynamically, using it for fewer zones than you paid for wastes money, and TfL's own comparison shows pay-as-you-go is generally cheaper unless usage is both heavy and consistent.
Before you tap in for the first day
Register your contactless card for free on TfL's website if you want to view journey history and dispute any incomplete-journey charge, though registration is not required to travel. Check the current fares and caps on TfL's official fares page before a longer stay, since these figures are reviewed periodically and this guide reflects the confirmed 2026 adult rate.