Berlin Transport Tickets in 2026: What Changed and What to Actually Buy

Three things shifted on January 1, 2026. Two were small — average fares went up about six per cent, the Kurzstrecke short-hop ticket rose by twenty cents. One was much bigger: the 7-day travel card was discontinued. Every guide still recommending it — and there are many — has been wrong since the moment the year turned.

This article exists to fix that. It's the current price list, with the logic underneath it, so you can decide what to buy without trusting a number you read on someone else's blog.

What actually changed on 1 January 2026

The Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB), the regional authority that sets fares for BVG, S-Bahn, and the regional trains, made three changes at once.

Fares went up on average by six per cent. The Einzelfahrausweis AB — the standard single ticket for inner-city Berlin — rose from €3.80 to €4.00. The Kurzstrecke from €2.60 to €2.80. The ABC single (which you need for the airport) climbed thirty cents to €5.00. The pattern repeats across the system: small, broad, designed to keep ÖPNV running while costs for electricity, fuel, and staff have risen sharply.

The 7-day card was retired for every passenger group. So were the 10 a.m. card, the annual cards (with one obscure exception), and the senior 65Plus subscription. The reasoning was simple: the €63-a-month Deutschlandticket undercuts most of them and works nationwide, so demand had collapsed.

The BC tariff zone disappeared entirely. Until December 2025 you could buy a ticket valid only for the outer zones B and C, useful if you lived in the suburbs. As of 2026 the options are AB (all of Berlin inside the city limits) or ABC (Berlin plus the surrounding area, BER airport, and Potsdam). It's a cleaner structure and most visitors will never notice the change.

A note on old tickets: anything you bought in 2025 stays valid. Stampable paper tickets at old prices can be used until 30 June 2026 or refunded at the issuing operator.

The 2026 Berlin AB prices, in one table

These are the tickets a visitor inside the city limits actually buys. Regeltarif is the standard fare; Ermäßigung is the reduced fare (children 6–14, certain disability cards, etc.).

Ticket	Regeltarif	Ermäßigung
Single (Einzelfahrausweis), 2 hours, one direction	€4.00	€2.50
Short trip (Kurzstrecke), 3 stops on U/S-Bahn or 6 on bus/tram	€2.80	€2.10
4-trip card (4-Fahrten-Karte) — €3.10 a ride	€12.40	€7.40
24-hour ticket	€11.20	€7.40
24-hour group ticket (up to 5 people)	€35.30	—

Single tickets allow transfers in one general direction within two hours. They don't allow round trips. The 24-hour ticket includes up to three children aged 6–14 travelling free with one adult, which is the easiest family option of the lot.

Zones: AB or ABC

Zone A is the inner city, ring-shaped, defined by the S-Bahn Ringbahn. Zone B is the rest of Berlin out to the city border. Zone C is everything beyond — including BER airport and Potsdam.

If you're staying inside Berlin and not flying or visiting Potsdam, you only ever need an AB ticket. If you're flying into BER or out to Potsdam for the day, you need ABC. There's no AC ticket for those exact journeys: ABC includes A through C. The extra euro is the cost of the airport line.

The mistake to avoid is buying an AB ticket and boarding the airport train with it. Inspectors know exactly which platform that ticket is being used on, and the fine — €60 — has not changed. Pay the extra euro at the machine before you board.

The Einzelfahrausweis ABC now costs €5.00. The 24-hour ABC ticket is €12.90. If you're making more than two airport-zone trips on your arrival day, the 24-hour ticket wins; if you're making one trip into the city and not using transport again until the next morning, the single is fine.

We've written about getting from BER to the city in more detail in our airport transfer guide — that's the place to go for the comparison between train, bus, and taxi.

The 7-day pass is gone

This is the change that breaks most older advice. Until December 2025, a 7-day BVG ticket cost €36 for zone AB and was the obvious choice for any visitor staying a week. It was cheap, simple, and quietly the best deal in the system. As of 1 January 2026, it is no longer sold.

If you find a blog or guide telling you to "just buy the 7-day pass," that guide hasn't been updated. Some of them are still on the first page of Google. Several are still on this site — we are fixing them. None of them are a basis for a 2026 decision.

The replacement isn't a single product. It's a small tree of options that depends on how long you're staying and how often you'll actually ride.

Deutschlandticket: the long-stay wildcard

The Deutschlandticket is a national monthly subscription, €63 in 2026 (up from €58). It covers every local and regional train, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, bus, tram, and ferry across the whole of Germany. In Berlin terms, that means everything BVG runs, the entire S-Bahn ring and outer lines, the regional trains out to the lakes at Wannsee and Strausberg, and the trains all the way to Potsdam.

The catch is the structure. It's a monthly subscription that auto-renews and has to be cancelled before the 10th of the month to stop the next billing cycle. For visitors, that means the price is effectively €63 for one calendar month, regardless of how many days you actually use it. Buy it on the 28th of one month and it covers you for two or three days before rolling into the next month's charge.

It's worth doing the maths. A week of fairly active sightseeing in Berlin involves something like ten to twelve rides — let's call it a 24-hour ticket on a heavy day, a couple of singles on a light one, plus a trip to the airport. That's around €40 to €50 in pay-as-you-go. The Deutschlandticket only beats that if you're staying long enough to use most of a month, or if a single day-trip out to Saxony or Brandenburg would otherwise cost you €25 in regional rail tickets.

Our rule of thumb: under a week, ignore it. Eight days or more, run the comparison. A month or longer, just get it and set a reminder to cancel.

How to actually decide

Here's the practical version, by length of stay, assuming you'll do a normal amount of sightseeing.

One day: a 24-hour ticket, €11.20, if you'll ride three or more times. Two rides or fewer, buy singles or the 4-trip card. The 4-trip card has no expiry and can be shared between two people if you're travelling as a pair, which makes it the underrated option for a slow-paced day.

Two to three days: a 4-trip card (€12.40) plus a 24-hour ticket on your most active day. For most weekenders this comes out cheaper than stacking three 24-hour tickets.

Four to seven days: the awkward bracket where the old 7-day card used to live. The cleanest answer now is two or three 24-hour tickets paired with a 4-trip card for the lighter days. Total cost: roughly €30 to €40, depending on how much you ride.

Eight or more days: run the Deutschlandticket comparison. It almost always wins from day eight onward, and if you're staying ten days or more it's no contest.

Family with children: the 24-hour ticket includes up to three children aged 6–14 free with one adult. For a family of four with two kids in that age range, the 24-hour ticket is essentially €5.60 per adult and is by far the best value in the system.

What the WelcomeCard looks like after the change

The Berlin WelcomeCard still exists, still bundles transport with discounts at attractions, and is still worth running the maths on. The change is that it's no longer being benchmarked against a €36 7-day pass — it's being benchmarked against the new prices above.

For most short-stay visitors who'll hit two or three paid attractions (Reichstag dome is free, Brandenburg Gate is free, memorials are free, parks are free), the WelcomeCard is a wash with buying transport separately. For first-timers who'll do the TV Tower, a boat tour, and Madame Tussauds, the discounts can tip it positive. We've written a longer breakdown of the WelcomeCard math — the headline numbers in that article are being updated to match this one.

The one thing the WelcomeCard does not do is cover the airport on the AB version. If you're flying in, buy the ABC version or pay the extra euro at the machine.

The fine print that catches people out

Paper tickets must be validated before you board. The yellow or red boxes on the platform are validators, not just decoration. A ticket bought from a machine is not automatically valid — you have to stamp it. The €60 fine for an unvalidated or wrong-zone ticket is enforced by plainclothes inspectors, and "I'm a tourist" doesn't work. We've watched it not work.

Tickets bought through the BVG app or the DB Navigator app are validated automatically. That's the easiest way for visitors who don't want to think about it. Both apps work in English. Both accept foreign cards.

Children under six ride free. Dogs ride free (no ticket needed, no muzzle required on most journeys). Bicycles need their own ticket — €2.70 for an AB single, €5.90 for a 24-hour bike pass — which is worth knowing if you're planning to take a rental out to one of the lakes.

Berlin Reality Check

The new structure is genuinely simpler than what it replaced. One zone choice, a small handful of ticket types, no more juggling 7-day cards against 10 a.m. cards. The trade-off is that a week-long stay no longer has an obvious cheap answer. The system has nudged short-stay visitors toward day tickets and long-stay residents toward the Deutschlandticket, and left a soft middle where you have to do the maths yourself. That's the actual reason most older guides feel wrong now: not just that the prices have moved, but that the shape of the decision has.

Practical details

Where to buy: Machines in every U-Bahn and S-Bahn station (English available, cards accepted), the BVG ticket app, the DB Navigator app, BVG service centres at major stations, or from the driver on a bus (cash only, slightly more expensive). Validate paper tickets in the yellow or red boxes on the platform before boarding.

Operating hours: U-Bahn and S-Bahn run from roughly 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays. From Friday night to Sunday morning, both run 24 hours. Night buses (marked with N) cover the gaps when the trains stop.

Authoritative source: bvg.de for current prices and service updates, vbb.de for the regional system. We've cross-checked every figure in this article against both as of June 2026.

One insider shortcut: if you're staying four nights and going out to a lake or to Potsdam at some point, buy one ABC 24-hour ticket for that trip (€12.90) and AB tickets for everything else. Don't buy a full week of ABC coverage just because of one day-trip.

When you're ready to spend a day out of the city centre, our summer guide covers the swimming lakes, the regional train rides, and the beer gardens that the ABC ticket actually unlocks. The transport system isn't the trip — but getting it right is what makes the rest of the trip work.