What OMNY accepts from a visitor's wallet

OMNY accepts ordinary bank cards rather than a special transit product, and the MTA publishes the exact list of card networks it reads. Credit cards issued on the Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, UnionPay and JCB networks are accepted, as are debit cards on all of those except UnionPay, and reloadable prepaid cards on the same networks as credit. Two categories are explicitly excluded: PIN-restricted debit cards, and non-reloadable prepaid cards and gift cards.

Where the card is issued is not itself the question; the network and the card type are. A contactless Visa from Seoul, São Paulo or Stockholm is read the same way as a New York one, and the fare is charged to your account in US dollars. If your card has a chip but no contactless symbol, the MTA's own suggestion is to add it to a digital wallet on a phone or watch, which makes it tappable even though the plastic is not.

The base fare is USD 3.00 for most riders on subways and local, limited, rush and Select Bus Service buses, with express buses at USD 7.25.

One person, one payment method

Each traveller needs their own card or device for a normal journey, and this is where visitors used to paper family tickets get caught out. The MTA's instruction is to tap your own contactless card, device or OMNY card at the reader, and it is specific that on your first tap you cannot pay for several riders at once because your bank must approve the transaction before any other fares are paid.

After that first successful tap, one payment method can cover a small group: the reader shows "Ride Limit Exceeded" only once you go past yourself plus three additional riders on a single trip. The catch is that group taps do not help anyone build up their own fare cap, so a couple travelling for a week is better off tapping two separate cards than paying for both on one.

Free transfers work in the background rather than on the screen. The MTA gives one free transfer within two hours of paying, between subway and bus or bus and bus, and notes that unlike MetroCard the free transfer is not confirmed on the reader. You simply are not charged.

The weekly cap does the work of a pass

The weekly fare cap replaces buying a seven-day pass, and it does so without any decision on your part. Once you have paid USD 35 in fares within a seven-day period using the same card or device, the rest of the rides in that period are free. The seven days start on your first tap, not on a calendar Monday, and the cap resets with your next tap after the period ends.

The practical consequence for a visitor is that you never have to guess how much travel you will do. If you ride twelve times in a week you reach the cap and the rest is free; if you ride five times you pay for five rides and nothing more. There is no upfront purchase to regret. Two conditions matter: you must tap consistently with the same card or the same device, and express buses, group trips and transfers do not count toward the USD 35 cap.

Buses use the same tap, front door first

Buses in New York take exactly the same tap as the subway, which is not true of every city that has added contactless payment. There is an OMNY reader at the front of the bus, and the fare, the transfer rule and the weekly cap are identical to the subway. On Select Bus Service routes the readers may be at the kerb or at all doors, and an inspector can ask you to tap their handheld device to prove payment; the reader screen shows "Inspection Mode Active" during those checks.

Two screens are worth recognising on a bus. "Enter Front Door" means the readers at the other doors are not active on that vehicle. "Shuttle Service" means the bus is running as a replacement service and is not collecting fares, so you board without paying.

When a physical OMNY card still matters

An OMNY card is the answer for travellers whose bank card OMNY will not read, and for anyone who wants to pay cash. You buy and reload one at OMNY vending machines in subway stations and at participating retailers including Walgreens, CVS, 7-Eleven and CFSC Checks Cashed stores, and you can load it with cash, credit or debit. It then behaves like any other tap: same fare, same transfers, same weekly cap.

Check the price at the machine rather than assuming it, because the MTA's own pages are not consistent on this point. The OMNY card terms published on omny.info state the card costs USD 5 and must be loaded with a minimum of USD 1 or a fare product at purchase, while the MTA's OMNY page refers to introductory pricing of USD 1 for reloadable cards.

MetroCard is no longer the fallback it used to be. The MTA states that as of 1 January 2026 you can no longer buy or refill a MetroCard, that existing cards remain usable for now, and that the exact date when MetroCard will no longer be accepted is to be announced later in the year. If someone hands you a MetroCard with value on it, a Customer Service Center can transfer the balance to an OMNY card.

If the reader will not take your card

Read the screen before you try a different card, because OMNY reader messages distinguish between problems you can fix and problems you cannot. "Tap Again" means the read failed and a second attempt is likely to work. "Tap One Card" means the reader detected more than one card or device, which usually means your card is sitting in a wallet next to another contactless card; take it out and tap it alone. "Card Expired" and "Card Not Accepted" both mean that payment method will not work, the latter covering cancelled, blocked or suspended cards.

If a card that should work keeps failing, the MTA's own route is OMNY customer service rather than a station agent. The MTA lists 877-789-6669, available 24/7, and an online contact form for questions about tap and ride payments and transactions, and the same number appears on the Port Authority's AirTrain pages for OMNY problems at the airport.

Before your first ride

Test your card at the first reader you meet, while you still have time and options, rather than at a barrier with a train pulling in. If it works, decide there and then that this is the card you will use all week, because the fare cap only accumulates on one payment method. If it does not work, buy an OMNY card at a station vending machine and move on.

This guide covers paying for New York City Transit subways and local buses. It does not cover Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North or PATH fares, which use separate ticketing, nor AirTrain fares at JFK and Newark, which are charged separately from the transit fare even though the same tap can pay for them.