From 27 December 2025, an adult tapping a card pays from $1.28 for a short trip up to 3.2km, rising to $2.57 for a journey over 40.2km. Bus and MRT fares share the same distance bands, so a 10km trip costs the same whether you ride one or the other, and transfers between them stay free within the rules. Fares went up an average of 5.0% this round, with adults absorbing 9 to 10 cents per journey and concession groups paying 0 to 4 cents more. Pay cash and you lose: an adult cash bus fare starts at $2.10, around 82 cents more than the card fare for the same distance.
Singapore uses a distance-fares system. You are charged for the total distance of one continuous journey, not per ride. Bus and train (MRT and LRT) fares sit on the same distance bands, so the system does not care which mode you take or how many times you switch, as long as you stay inside the transfer rules.
This is why tapping in and out matters. The card reader needs both taps to measure your distance. Forget to tap out and you get charged the maximum fare for that leg, which on a long line can mean paying $2.57 for a two-stop hop.
There are two fare types: card fare and cash fare. Card fare is what you pay with a contactless bank card, SimplyGo, EZ-Link or NETS FlashPay. Cash fare applies only on buses (trains have no cash option) and carries a heavy surcharge. The gap is deliberate, meant to push everyone onto cards.
These are the basic bus and train fares for an adult tapping a card. The same table covers MRT, LRT and regular buses. Express bus services cost more, shown in the second row.
The cheapest adult trip is $1.28 for up to 3.2km. Each additional distance band adds a few cents, and the increase per band shrinks as you go further, so a cross-island trip is not proportionally more expensive than a medium one.
| Distance (km) | Basic services ($) | Express services ($) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 - 3.2 | 1.28 | 2.28 |
| 3.3 - 4.2 | 1.38 | 2.38 |
| 4.3 - 5.2 | 1.49 | 2.49 |
| 5.3 - 6.2 | 1.59 | 2.59 |
| 6.3 - 7.2 | 1.68 | 2.68 |
| 7.3 - 8.2 | 1.75 | 2.75 |
| 8.3 - 9.2 | 1.82 | 2.82 |
| 9.3 - 10.2 | 1.86 | 2.86 |
| 10.3 - 11.2 | 1.90 | 2.90 |
| 11.3 - 12.2 | 1.94 | 2.94 |
| 13.3 - 14.2 | 2.02 | 3.02 |
| 15.3 - 16.2 | 2.11 | 3.11 |
| 17.3 - 18.2 | 2.20 | 3.20 |
| 20.3 - 21.2 | 2.30 | 3.30 |
| 25.3 - 26.2 | 2.42 | 3.42 |
| 30.3 - 31.2 | 2.50 | 3.50 |
| 35.3 - 36.2 | 2.54 | 3.54 |
| Over 40.2 | 2.57 | 3.57 |
If you hold a concession card, you pay a lot less, and short trips stayed flat this round. There was no increase for journeys up to 3.2km for the roughly 2 million concession card holders. Beyond that, students, seniors, persons with disabilities (PWDs) and Workfare Transport Concession holders saw only 3 to 4 cents added per journey.
Senior citizen and PWD cards share one table. The Workfare Transport Concession Scheme is for lower-wage workers and sits between concession and adult rates.
| Distance (km) | Student ($) | Senior / PWD ($) | Workfare ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 - 3.2 | 0.52 | 0.69 | 0.78 |
| 3.3 - 4.2 | 0.60 | 0.79 | 0.89 |
| 4.3 - 5.2 | 0.66 | 0.87 | 0.98 |
| 5.3 - 6.2 | 0.71 | 0.94 | 1.06 |
| 6.3 - 7.2 | 0.74 | 1.00 | 1.13 |
| Over 7.2 | 0.78 | 1.07 | from 1.20 |
Cash exists only on buses, and you pay a premium of roughly 80 to 90 cents over the card fare. An adult cash bus fare starts at $2.10 for up to 3.2km and tops out at $3.20 for the longest bands. Compare that to $1.28 to $2.57 on a card.
Cash fares also use much wider distance bands, so you often land in a higher bracket than your actual distance. There is no transfer benefit with cash either: every cash ride is charged in full, which destroys the whole point of the distance-fares system. If you take two buses to get somewhere, cash means paying both fares with no discount.
| Distance (km) | Cash fare ($) |
|---|---|
| 0 - 3.2 | 2.10 |
| 3.3 - 6.2 | 2.30 |
| 6.3 - 9.2 | 2.50 |
| 9.3 - 11.2 | 2.70 |
| 11.3 - 15.2 | 2.90 |
| 15.3 - 19.2 | 3.00 |
| 19.3 - 23.2 | 3.10 |
| Over 23.2 | 3.20 |
The reason your wallet survives multi-leg commutes is the transfer rule. Within one journey you can make up to five transfers, which is six rides in total, and you are charged once for the combined distance instead of per ride. Stay inside the rules and a bus-to-MRT-to-bus trip costs the same as a single ride of that total distance.
The Public Transport Council ran its 2025 fare review and granted an overall increase of 5.0%, effective 27 December 2025. That sounds steep until you see the ceiling: the maximum allowable adjustment this year was 14.4%. The fare formula itself only produced 1.5%, but there was a large backlog of deferred increases from previous years that operators were entitled to recover.
PTC chose to grant 5.0% and roll the remaining 9.4% deferred quantum forward to future reviews rather than pass it all on at once. The Government also added more than $200 million in subsidies for 2026 to soften the blow.
In plain terms: adults pay 9 cents more per journey up to 17.2km and 10 cents more beyond that. Students, seniors, PWDs and Workfare holders pay nothing extra for trips up to 3.2km and 3 to 4 cents more for longer trips. Cash fares rose more, by 20 cents for adults and 5 to 10 cents for concession groups, widening the card-versus-cash gap further.
If you ride often, a monthly pass can cap your spending. The Adult Monthly Travel Pass dropped to $122 from $128 this round and covers unlimited basic bus and train rides. Concession passes also got cheaper.
A pass only pays off above a break-even number of rides. The adult pass at $122 makes sense if you spend more than about $122 a month on transport, which for a typical $1.86 to $2.20 daily commute each way works out to roughly 28 to 32 weekday rides plus weekend use. Do the sum against your real tapping history before committing.
| Pass holder | Bus ($) | Train ($) | Hybrid (bus + train) ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult (single hybrid pass) | - | - | 122.00 |
| University / NSF | 55.50 | 48.00 | 81.00 |
| Polytechnic / Secondary | 29.00 | 26.50 | 49.00 |
| Primary | 24.00 | 21.00 | 39.00 |
| Senior / PWD | - | - | 55.00 |
| Workfare | - | - | 92.00 |
Transport is a fixed monthly line in most budgets, so trimming it compounds. A few moves that work in Singapore:
You have three practical ways to pay card fare. A contactless Visa, Mastercard or NETS bank card taps straight onto the reader and bills your account, which is the simplest if you want no extra cards in your wallet. SimplyGo EZ-Link and SimplyGo concession cards are stored-value or account-based cards you top up. Older EZ-Link and NETS FlashPay cards still work for stored value on the network.
Children below 0.9m in height travel free when accompanied by a fare-paying commuter. A child between 0.9m and 1.2m tall who is under 7 and not yet in Primary 1 still rides free, but should carry a Child Concession Card to prove it. The card is free and you collect it at a SimplyGo ticket office. Once a child enters Primary 1, they move to the student concession rate even if still under 1.2m.
Singapore stopped selling the old paper single-trip standard ticket back in 2022, so there is no buy-a-ticket-at-the-gate option for trains anymore. You tap something, and the only question is what. The cheapest path for residents is a contactless bank card you already own, because there is no card to buy and the fare bills straight to your account. If you would rather keep transport money separate, a SimplyGo EZ-Link card costs $10, of which $5 is a non-refundable card fee and $5 is starting travel value. A subsidised SimplyGo EZ-Link card is $6 with $3 of that as travel value. Either card lasts five years from encoding and holds up to $500 in stored value.
Visitors who do not want to top up a stored-value card can buy the Singapore Tourist Pass for unlimited basic bus and train rides: $17 for one day, $24 for two days and $29 for three days. It excludes premium and express services such as the Sentosa Express. For a short trip it rarely beats simply tapping a bank card, so do the sum against the number of rides you actually plan.
| Payment method | Cost to start | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Contactless bank card (Visa / Mastercard / NETS) | $0 (use your own card) | Residents who want nothing extra in their wallet |
| SimplyGo EZ-Link card | $10 ($5 fee + $5 value) | Keeping transport spending separate |
| Subsidised SimplyGo EZ-Link card | $6 ($3 fee + $3 value) | A cheaper entry stored-value card |
| SimplyGo concession card | Varies by scheme | Students, seniors, PWDs, Workfare holders |
| Singapore Tourist Pass (1 / 2 / 3 days) | $17 / $24 / $29 | Short-stay visitors riding a lot each day |
Tapping in and out is not optional. Under the penalty fee system that the Public Transport Council runs to deter fare evasion, a $50 penalty fee applies to each offence, and not tapping your card when you board a bus or enter or exit an MRT or LRT gate counts as one. The same $50 covers non-payment of fare, using a concession card that is not yours, and travelling on an invalid ticket. The amount is set in the PTC (Bus or Train Fare Evasion) Regulations 2016.
Trained public transport officials, who carry an authority card you can ask to see, can inspect your card and issue the penalty on the spot. If you are issued a notice you have 14 days to pay. This sits on top of the everyday cost of forgetting to tap out, which is being charged the maximum fare for that leg, so the habit matters for both your account balance and your wallet.
An adult MRT card fare starts at $1.28 for a trip up to 3.2km and rises in small bands to a maximum of $2.57 for journeys over 40.2km, effective 27 December 2025. MRT and bus fares use the same distance bands, so the same distance costs the same on either.
Card is much cheaper. An adult cash bus fare starts at $2.10 versus $1.28 by card for the same short distance, a gap of around 82 cents. Cash also gives no transfer discount, so multi-leg trips cost far more. Always tap a card.
Up to 5 transfers, which is 6 rides total, charged as one combined distance. You have 45 minutes to transfer between buses or between bus and train, but only 15 minutes between two MRT stations. You cannot reboard the same bus service number.
The Public Transport Council granted a 5.0% overall increase from 27 December 2025, well below the 14.4% maximum allowed. There was a backlog of deferred increases; PTC passed on part of it and rolled 9.4% forward, with over $200 million in extra Government subsidy for 2026.
At $122 a month for unlimited basic bus and train, it pays off only if you spend more than about $122 monthly on transport, roughly 28 to 32 weekday rides plus weekend use. If your commute is short or irregular, pay-per-trip is cheaper.
Student card fares start at $0.52 for up to 3.2km, seniors and persons with disabilities start at $0.69, and Workfare holders at $0.78. Short trips up to 3.2km saw no increase this round; longer trips rose only 3 to 4 cents.
Children below 0.9m tall travel free with a fare-paying adult. Children aged 7 and below, above 0.9m and not yet in primary school, can get a free Child Concession Card. From Primary 1, they pay the student concession rate.
You get charged the maximum fare for that leg instead of your real distance. Separately, not tapping in or out is a fare evasion offence under the penalty fee system, carrying a $50 penalty fee per offence if a public transport official catches it. Always tap both ends.
A SimplyGo EZ-Link card is $10, made up of a $5 non-refundable card fee plus $5 of starting travel value. A subsidised version costs $6 with $3 of travel value. The card lasts five years from encoding and holds up to $500. Residents can skip the card entirely and tap a contactless bank card instead.
No. Singapore phased out the paper single-trip standard ticket in 2022, so there is no buy-at-the-gate option anymore. You tap a contactless bank card, a SimplyGo or EZ-Link card, or a Singapore Tourist Pass. Visitors who want unlimited rides can buy the Tourist Pass from $17 for one day.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.