Contactless payments ready to be rolled out on all Budapest metro lines

The Budapest Transport Centre (BKK) will begin installing new ticket validators on the Budapest metro network on Wednesday, 11 March, as part of a pilot expansion for its Pay&GO contactless bank card payment system. This will make the service available on every line by mid-April, the BKK announced to MTI on Tuesday.

Pay&GO soon to appear on all Budapest metro lines

As they explained, the essence of the Budapest Pay&GO system is that purchasing and validation occur in a single step—simply by tapping a bank card (or other smart device) on the validator. No prior registration, app download, or paper ticket is required, allowing passengers to begin their journey immediately. The card itself serves as proof of travel entitlement, which inspectors can verify via their devices based on the Pay&GO purchase record.

The BKK added that Pay&GO, soon to appear on all metro lines, is now an international standard, employed by hundreds of major cities worldwide.

Installation begins tomorrow

Installation of the new validators begins on Wednesday and is expected to take four weeks, the BKK said. They will first appear at M2 line stations, followed by M4 and then M3 stations. The devices will remain inactive until mid-April, meaning no purchases or validations can be made on them during this period. Typically, 2-5 new machines will be installed per station, while some existing validators will stay operational, allowing passengers to continue validating paper tickets as usual.