Vienna Travel Tips: Tickets, Fares, Night Transport, City Card

The short answer. Buy a single ticket for one or two rides, a 24-hour ticket for a day of sights, and a 7-day ticket if you’re staying the week. Validate before you travel. The Vienna City Card bundles transport with museum discounts, so add up what you’d really use before you pay.

Prices below are the ones vienna.info printed for the Kernzone Wien on the day Roam Vienna checked (12 November 2026). The page doesn’t print a year, and Wiener Linien changes fares at the start of the year, so look at the ticket machine or the WienMobil app before you buy. The Wiener Linien site itself didn’t load for Roam Vienna’s reader, so every fare here comes from the tourist board.

Tickets and fares

A single covers one journey in one direction, transfers included, according to vienna.info’s U-Bahn page. The 7-day ticket runs for seven consecutive calendar days from the moment you validate it. The paper one can be passed to someone else, and the digital one can’t.

Buy at the ticket machines in U-Bahn stations (they work in several languages), at Wiener Linien sales points, in most tobacconists (Trafik) or in the WienMobil app. Buying on a tram costs more, as the table shows.

Validate before you ride

Most tickets must be validated before the trip. The blue validators are at the entrances to U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations, and trams and buses have one on board. Keep the ticket until you reach your destination, because inspections are regular.

Children under six ride free. Children and young people under 15 ride free on Sundays and public holidays, during Vienna school holidays, and on 2 and 15 November, according to the same page.

Night transport

The U-Bahn runs from about 5 am to about midnight. On Friday nights, Saturday nights and the nights before public holidays, all lines run through the night every 15 minutes, per vienna.info’s operating hours page. On other nights the Nightline buses run from about 12:30 am to 5 am in 30-minute cycles. Wiener Linien tickets and the City Card are valid on them, and the bus number starts with an N. Trams and buses generally stop earlier than the U-Bahn.

During the day the U-Bahn comes every two to five minutes, and peak hours are 7 to 9 am and 4 to 6 pm.

The airport

A trip to or from the airport needs an extra single ticket to the Kernzone Wien on top of whatever else you hold, says vienna.info. The City Airport Train and the Vienna Airport Bus need tickets from their own providers, and Roam Vienna hasn’t checked their prices.

The Vienna City Card

The tourist board sells the card as Vienna City Card for 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours or 7 days. The page prints these prices for the base card, and the file name of its brochure suggests the 2026 version.

It includes public transport in Vienna and discounts at museums and attractions during the validity period. You can add a Hop-On Hop-Off bus ticket or an airport transfer for more.

Whether it pays off depends on what you book. A 24-hour card at €19 costs €8.80 more than a 24-hour transport ticket at €10.20, so you’d need discounts that add up to more than that. Check the discount list on the page for the places you plan to visit. Entry prices in the things to do guide show what a day of big museums costs.

Small habits

Coffee houses want time. The tourist board describes them as places where you pay for the coffee and spend as long as you like, and a glass of water arrives with it. There’s more in the coffee house guide.

Café Central is closed for renovation. The tourist board says it shut on 16 March 2026 and reopens in winter 2026. A pop-up called Decentral is open meanwhile at Palais Harrach, Freyung 3. Check before you plan a visit, or see the other cafés in the food guide.

Wine taverns open on their own calendar. A Heuriger shows a pine bough and an “Ausg’steckt” sign when it’s open, and smaller ones open only in the warm season or on set dates. Look at the tavern’s own website first.

Markets keep short hours on holidays. The Saturday flea market at the Naschmarkt doesn’t run on 25 and 26 December, 1 and 6 January, and ends at noon on 24 and 31 December, as the city prints it.

Where to go next

See where to stay to pick a Bezirk by U-Bahn line, and the events page for what’s on during your dates.