Budapest Card: Free Public Transport, Spa & Museums With Delivery

⚠️ WARNING: Be careful when buying Budapest cards from BKK ticket machines at Budapest Airport! I would like to warn other tourists about a potentially misleading layout of the BKK ticket vending machines at Budapest Airport. In many YouTube tutorials showing how to buy public transport tickets in Budapest, the Budapest card options (24-hour, 72-hour, etc.) appear in the top of the screen. However, when we used a BKK ticket machine at the airport in October 2026, the layout was different! Firstly on the top, the machine displayed Budapest Card options (24, 48 and 72 hours) – the more expensive tourist cards that include attractions and other benefits. Meanwhile, the Budapest Travelcard options, intended for public transport only, were located much lower on the left side of the screen. This difference is extremely important because Budapest Card and Budapest Travelcard are two completely different products, despite their very similar names. We intended to purchase public transport passes but ended up buying three Budapest Cards for a total of 89,970 HUF (245 €). I am sharing this experience mainly to warn other visitors. ⚠️ PLEASE CHECK THE PRODUCT NAME, NOT JUST THE BUTTON POSITION! • Budapest Travelcard = public transport pass. • Budapest Card = more expensive tourist card with additional benefits. I hope this warning helps other tourists avoid an expensive mistake. Budapest is a wonderful city, but purchasing the correct transport ticket should be clearer and easier for visitors.

We purchased the 2 day card. We felt overall it was worth the ease of travel, rather than buying individual tickets. With your purchase you also get to use the chairlifts, a river cruise, a Hungarian evening (which we did not do), use of the golf cart hop on and off up to the castle and so much more including museums and exhibitions. It also includes a day at a spa (we had already booked these separately). Budapest is really easy to walk around with great safe pedestrian streets but also has great transport when you need it!!

This card should be a great convenience, getting you into everything for free. Ok, having all public transportation accessible is great. On the other hand, too many attractions are not free, but only offer discounts. So I'm not sure that I got my money's worth out of it. Also, unlike in other cities like Prague, the card is not an app but has to be physically picked up. True, they can deliver it, but if like me your tardy and you want to have it Right Now, you have to go downtown to pick it up.

Do NOT buy this - it is very expensive and does not give you what you think for the money. Just buy a pass for the public transport from public transport not this one. Plus sometimes when they scan your card, they say you haven't paid. Even thought you bought a 72 hour card and you are only 1 day in. You will save money by avoiding this.

I purchased a Budapest card for 4 days last week. I received a guide book dated 2025/2026 with the card. The prices I paid were either 20% more or the reduction was reduced from 20% to 10%. The hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus listed in the book is no longer included. Save your money and pay as you go for attractions and services.

Last Monday the 9.3.26 I bought a Budapest Card for 35`000 Forints for 4 days in the baggage claim terminal of the Budapest Airport. I was given a 2025/2026 Guide book. Soon afterwards we learned that the (discounted) prices in the book that said what we would pay with the Budapest Card were about 20% more expensive than printed- for i.e., the Synagogues and thermal baths and airport transportation. In addition, the On-Off Tour that I was looking forward to using was not free anymore . I find this false advertising and I certainly cannot recommend this card to others because of that. Hint: for unlimited public transit tickets, one can buy tickets at any ticket booth for a fraction of the Budapest Card rates. However, I can say that I very much enjoyed the Buda and Pest walking tours that were organized by the BKK, especially with Zoli, who spoke fantastic English and was very interesting and entertaining. I learned that I could have booked the same directly through another source for only 14 Euros.

Absolute waste of money. We arranged to collect our passes at the airport to discover the pick up point is actually at the ibis hotel near the airport. Unfortunately for us they wasn't able to supply us with the passes we had been charged for. The 48h pass. So they most unhelpfully gave us a list of 4 alternative addresses. Basically sending us on a wild goose chase as none of these other addresses could supply us with these passes. Basically we lost probably a day and a half of our stay in Budapest. When we finally got the passes from a 5th address we were able to do the two walking tours and the boat tour, which would have been cheaper and less stressful to do these tours independently. We have since complained to the supplier who has ignored our email which sums up our much they care

We took the 48h Budapest card. While some of the main attractions (National Museum, Fine Arts Museum, National Gallery) are included, it clearly misses some obvious elements such as the airport shuttle bus, the Funicular, the Parlament, the Fisherman's bastion or the Matthias church. Especially that the first two of these are operated by the same organisation, so they wouldn't even have to negotiate with external partners. In exchange, there are some hidden far away museums which can be reached only after a long trip with the public transport, and 10-20% discounts IF you buy the correct card. The information is also inadequate on their website, as they consider the various types of cards together, showing off how many places you can enter, conveniently omitting the fact that depending on the precise type of card you choose, the available discounts can be more restricted... Altogether, I can't recommend this card at all.

Terrible experience, paid 77 euros including a service fee to get it delivered at the Ikonik Parliament hotel. Hotel lost it…. No one is doing anything except telling me I need to get it arranged between me and the hotel…. What a total mess and of this is the feeling thats given by the Hungarians as service towards customers and tourists I can imagine an idiot “dictator” like Orban does have a lots af friends in this pathetic country….. Will not go back ever again to this so called European country, looks indeed more like a Russian Lada service instead…. 🤮🤮🤮 Please take both, hotel and card provider, into account if you would like to get the experience of Eastern European customer services….

We got the 120hr Budapest Cards as we had 7 nights in this wonderful city and after some careful planning and working out costs, this definitely made things easier and more cost effective for us. I was a little apprehensive at first as I had seen *so* many bad reviews, BUT I'm so glad that I just went and got them, as it was 100% worth it! I need to say now, before I continue my review that if you like to plan in advance, pack lots into your schedule and check out the individual websites, opening times, routes etc then this card IS for you! If you don't and you're just going to "go with the flow" or you aren't good at keeping to plans or doing any research, I'd suggest not to get the card and maybe just get a travel card and a couple of tours maybe. You can buy the card online or at any of the BKK Customer Services places that are dotted around the city and also at the airport. If you buy online, you need to exchange your paper/pdf ticket for plastic cards before you can use them and these are also exchanged at the BKK Customer Service places. Easy to do, just make sure to take your passport/ID numbers with you, as these are put on the cards to make them "yours". We used the trams, metro, buses and trains a lot whilst we were there, as well as visiting quite a few museums. I am a big planner and my itinerary for our time there made my family very happy (even if it accidentally did include 30,000 steps the first day. Oopsy 😆). The public transport is extremely easy to use and the Card made everything even simpler as you can just walk straight onto the metro, trams and trains without doing anything at all and with buses, just flash your card on your way on. I won't bore everybody with *all* of the details of our entire trip, but I'll share a bit that was included with the card for those that are interested and want to carry on reading. One of our days was all in the Castle District and as well as the transport over there, the Card covers a lot of the attractions etc in that area. This meant for a nice day without getting our bank cards out every time we wanted to go into a museum, a gorgeous hall or a gallery. It also includes the little Budapest Castle Bus, which was an absolute godsend on such a hot day with all the walking around. If you like archaeology, then definitely work your way up to Aquincum, if you have a lot of time. It's not a large place and it is a little out of the way, but Google maps will help you with the public transport and it's a lovely place with lots of Roman history and a few little prehistoric finds too. There is a large supermarket in the vicinity that is absolutely fantastic for those that like to take home food and drink souvenirs for others or themselves. The best place that I actually found in Budapest! (Also called Aquincum, by the way). We did the GastroCellar wine tasting that comes with the card and one of us did the syrup and jam tasting and we shared around, so we got a taste of everything. It was a nice experience and I ended up buying a bottle of the white wine to take home as it was extremely tasty! We obviously did one of the daytime cruises along the river. We went early so that we had lots of time to explore Margaret Island. We went on the Duna Bella cruise and it includes a drink both ways. We chose the lemonade both ways, but you can choose champagne also. It includes a return ticket on the Zugliget Chairlift, which takes you up to a spectacular lookout tower and back down again. We chose this opportunity to use the Children's Railway to get to the chairlift, as one of the stops takes you to the top. We still rode down and back up again just for the experience! On our last day, to help with our achy feet from all the walking, we chose to go to the St Lukács Baths. It was certainly what we needed! And you just show your Budapest Card at the reception in exchange for a wristband that gets you in and around the complex. I won't go into detail as I already did a review for them, but totally worth it! Ignore any bad reviews and just research before you go, so you too can have a wonderful time like we did 😁 we spent half a day there!! We went to a few other museums and did many other things that were not included, but all in all we were extremely happy with our purchase of the Budapest Cards and would do it all again! Thank you

Very useful for a day of sightseeing around Budapest. Good for using on the metro and a cruise on the Danube

Although the card should allow access places refuse, what is more annoying is that if you are over 70 you have free access to many places, something not advised by the official tourist information office, Free access avoids the unnecessary cost of the card as over 65s are allowed free travel on public transport

absolutely not worth it for the value public transportation is cheap in the first place and it hardly gets you into any of the expensive museums for free many of the museums that get you into our half off which I already got half off because I am a European citizen, so the card was basically a waste of money most of the restaurants it lists as cheap are either tourist traps which are overpriced anyway, or have closed down it didn’t even get me on the bus 100 E to the airport for free which was advertised. The only nice thing about it is public. Transportation was quite easy because you could just flash it instead of having to get Tickets.

Warning! Don’t even think of getting on a tram, metro or bus in Budapest without buying a ticket in advance. You cannot pay once you’ve boarded and will be fined 12000 ft (£25 pp) on the spot. There are numerous inspectors catching foreigners on all forms of transport, no signs on how to pay anywhere and no where to buy a ticket before boarding. Apparently there’s a warning on the airport shuttle, but we got a taxi, so hadn’t a clue. You must download the app ‘Go Budapest’, and always validate/tap your mobile as you board. Transport is very cheap but they make their money from unwitting tourists.

Don't purchase, everything on the card is already free. Sonthe only thing you are paying for is transportation, which is quick and easy and also 10x cheaper. You're welcome!

For me, the Budapest Card has two main advantages: Free admission to a variety of attractions (you can find the full list on the Budapest Card website) Unrestricted access to Budapest's public transportation system If you need to pack a lot into your time in Budapest, then relying on public transport is a must. And the Budapest Card allows you to forget about buying tickets or worrying whether you can board a certain mode of transportation. It gives you the freedom to move around the city with ease. And don't forget to download the free BudapestGO mobile app. It will help you plan your journeys, finding connections from anywhere to anywhere in the city. The combination of free entry to attractions and unlimited public transit access makes the Budapest Card an invaluable tool for making the most of your time in the Hungarian capital. It removes the hassle and uncertainty, letting you focus on exploring and experiencing all that Budapest has to offer.

Budapest is a wonderful city with so much to see. Don't end up in the hospital! My husband was in the hospital for 3 days. The staff was good,the facility ugh!

Bought the card on arrival at the airport. Little disappointed with the minibud service from the airport. We waited an hour for a shuttle. Used the card for all public transport, river cruise, funicular railway and Luckas bath. Have a shuttle booked for return journey to airport. Use the free visits to places and the trains and metro. We navigated the public transport really well. Hopefully will not be late picking us up. Worth it to us.

Use of card is easy and transportation a breeze, but the directions for obtaining the card are confusing. It says they can be delivered to your hotel, but you still have to go somewhere else to register for them, but that turned out to be wrong! So we did extra steps for nothing.

Budapest is such a beautiful city, the Budapest card helped us so much, specially with the transportation being included. transportation system in Budapest is very easy and great

Great experience with the card, made using public transport really easy. Buses don’t really check for tickets but the metro can have inspectors you just show the card to, very easy to get into the included museums aswell and definitely a time saver.

I bought the 72 Plus card for a three-day trip. I built my itinerary around the card and calculate that I broke even, so it was just about worth it from a financial point of view. It was mainly helpful to me in structuring my trip and not having to mess around with buying and validating public transport tickets. As others have said, it's not a massive money saver and would require you to jog round a lot of attractions in order to see the benefit. However, I probably would have never done a walking tour if it hadn't been free and I probably wouldn't have gone to the Lucaks baths either, so it was a spur to do a few things I wouldn't have otherwise chosen. A few glitches that need to be ironed out - some, but not all, attractions require you to get a ticket from the booking office even though entry is free with the card, and it's not clear which attraction operates which policy, meaning that I queued unnecessarily for tickets when all I needed to do was show the card at entry. Also the Minibud airport shuttle experience was quite poor - it's advertised as free with the 72 Plus card but I couldn't book a transfer before my arrival as you need to have the physical card (which you collect on arrival) so had to pay for a taxi (I was arriving late at night so didn't want to faff around finding my way to my hotel). For my return leg I found that I couldn't book online without going through a payment process and no one replied to my email query so I ended up having to telephone. That was fine but I didn't receive any confirmation following the call, which my hotel said was wrong, so rung them the next day to check and it wasn't clear whether they had my booking, which made me somewhat anxious that the shuttle wasn't going to arrive. It did, but the driver seemed unhappy about my using the card and frogmarched me to the Minibud desk on arrival at the airport. I still don't really know what that was all about but it wasn't a good experience and the process needs to be clearer. The same goes for using public transport - I used the trams and had no idea whether I should swipe the card or whether I just needed to show it to an inspector (it turns out the latter is acceptable). These are all things that many travellers want to know beforehand. To be fair, the Minibud issues were partly at the Minibud end but there's definitely some improvements to be made.

One of the most useless thing you can buy for trip to Budapest. This card is way much overpriced. Please carefully study the list of places that are included for discounts before you even buy it. It refers mostly to the places that are looked for by tourists the fewest. The only thing that is really useful is free public transport but that's something you can get way cheaper buying an ordinary ticket.

They did not accept the card on Castle History museum today 19th December, (72 explorer card) and they told me they only accept the plastic physical ones, which is mental, since it’s the same card in digital form.

Just returned from Budapest and wanted to give an update of travelling on public transport. Use the bus (100E) to and from airport. They're trialling a new paying system. All you do is Tap your bank card on the machine for up to 5 people and that's it...! Runs about every 40min and goes right to city centre. The very same set up applies on the Metro but only on the Yellow district line. Just tap n go.. This worked out at £1/trip pp. Airport run is about £5 per trip pp and is roughly 40min. If you're there longer or intend to make many trips around then there is the option to purchase a 24/48 or 72hr card which makes travel cheaper.

We went on line and quite honestly had a hard time deciding which card to get. We ended up with the brand new digital eXplorer card. Stay away from it. It seems pretty clearly designed to force you onto the Hop On/Hop Off bus but doesn’t include public transit. It’s not at all clear how to activate the card. We were riding the trams for 2 days without realizing this card doesn’t include that. A lot of places do not accept it, including the St. Matthias Church and the funicular on the castle hill. Honestly, it was frustrating and not just for us. The card is so new people don’t seem to know what to do with it. I thought getting a digital card ahead of time would be easier but it was not. Maybe the standard 72 hour card with public transit is a better choice.

We bought 48 hours card. We got public transport free (wich we used a couple of times) and castlebus free. Some museum were included i the price, but none we would like to see. Otherwice you would get a discount on sightseeing things, but like 20%.. So I do not recomend to buy this. Expenciv, and you don't get value of the price...

when and if your hotels are located in the city centre and your trip lasts longer than 72 hours it will be more convenient to buy only a pack of single tickets in a machine . because everything is in walking distance and a weekly pass is more expensive . for cabs use the application bolt . it is tested more than once .

The card is not really a great investment since it is nearly impossible to use enough services to justify the price of the card. We were using the 24 hour card and we were in motion the entire day and still we calculated that we would spend half of the money spent on the card if we just payed for the things we used. We took the walking tour that is free with the card and i must say it was amazing. Our guide, Fésus Monika was awesome, really interesting and a wonderful guide, you can see she loves her job and is great at it. The town is so big and beautiful, full of interesting things to see, we only saw a portion of it. So we are definitely coming back.

It is very difficult to get the full value out of the card because few places take it, even those listed in the book and there are several included sites too far to reach without a car. Some of the places also tried to scam us into buy additional tickets or refused published discounts by saying the that the material which came with the pass is wrong or outdated. Highly recommend just buying the activities you want and avoiding this pass all together.

When visiting Budapest, you shoud dowload the travel app called "Budapest Go", which enables you to enter your rdesired location and will then show you all possible travel options. It's fantastic - enables you to use the impressive local transport system like a local!

Although the idea sounds initially attractive - a card that combines free public transport with free entry to a number of key museums and discounts on a range of others - unless you ran round the museums on skates and around the city on a helicopter, you'd be hard pressed to do more than one large, "free" museum each day - and some of the discounts for the paying museums entrance tickets are as small as 10% with this card. A 72 hour Budapest card costs 63 Euros (£56) compared to the 72 hour travelcard - covering all buses, trams and metros lines - which costs only £13.00. Trust me, you're not going to spend £43 on "free" museum entry in 3 days. Get the standard travelcard (1 or 3 days) and just pay as you go for museum entry. You'll enjoy each museum far more and not feel as though you've been ripped off. As others have mentioned, be aware that most mueseums are closed on Mondays and several are only open on the weekends.

Not able to find pick up point.Bad signposting. Should be more central points to pick up cards. Worth for public transport but some of the attractions hard to locate to.

Fantastic card to have and helped us get around. The only issue was collecting it, we put the address in google maps and it sent us to the opposite side of the town so after a 3 mile walk we found a very hidden hotel that wasn’t signed as a hotel but apartments to get our passes. The stafff were very helpful and assisted us quickly as we were then running late for our booked trip. Would also be great to have it electronically on your phone

I had to go out of the way to redeem the card. Then after an hours of searching we found the “redemption point” (which was NOT what was advertised as a redemption point, but in small writing at the bottom), THEN after all that I was unable to use it!! I paid €90 for nothing! NEVER ABLE TO USE IT.

72 hour Budapest Card Not worth the money, limited places accept it for 100% free entry. The places you most want to go to don’t take the card (eg House of Terror) and many places only accept a much more expensive 72hour PLUS card ( funicular, St Matthias church etc). We used it at one museum only. Also note museums are closed on Mondays that no one told us when purchasing on a Saturday! Quite expensive and waste of money. Get the much lower priced public Transport only pass which is better value.

Bought 2 48hr cards from Cityrama, costing £84,having told them what days we would be using them, after out 72hr hop on bus passes ran out, on a Monday and Tuesday.. We were told that we would be able to use on transport and to get in to museums free or with big discounts. At no time were we told that the museums are closed on a Monday! We walked everywhere, so didn’t actually use them for any public transport either. We went back to the Cityrama office to get refunds, and were told they couldn’t refund us, but to go to the main tourist office, and they would do it. We did as we were told, but at the tourist office, they said the refund had to come from Cityrama, as we had purchased them there. The tourist office even phoned Cityrama, who told them that we could go back to see them, but they would not issue a refund!….so it was a very expensive waste of money,and time off our visit trying to resolve it……DO NOT BUY THESE PASSES…IT IS A WASTE OF MONEY AND DO NOT DEAL WITH CITYRAMA

We purchased two 48 hour cards on the belief that they would give us entry to tourist attractions as well as public transport. They were not accepted on public transport or museums. St Steven's cathedral gave us a modest discount. Unfortunately definitely not worth the money😩

Don't bother buying this or anything other than cancelable experiences in advance. We were forced to cancel our vacation after major delays with our flights.

We were in Budapest for a week and purchased the 120 hour card. It was a waste of money. As our apartment was centrally located we walked almost everywhere and used public transportation only twice. We did walking tours every day, most of them with “Free Budapest Walking Tours”, which were excellent. The only tour which disappointed was the Buda Castle area tour provided free of charge with the Budapest Card. The entrance fees for museums are not expensive. The card is superfluous, other than as a contribution to the Hungarian economy.

The idea of a single card allowing the free pass to attractions is nice but in the case of this particular card it appeared to be less practical. If you are staying for a week or more it is better to buy a 7-day ticket for all the city transport which costs 4950 HF . As for discounts - the similar discounts to many places can be obtained by simply buying the tickets online. And in reality you won't be able to visit more than 5 museums in three days if you want not just run through the halls but appreciate art and admire the views.

I love this card. Helped me entirely with logistics and itinerary. I did more than I planned since the card was accepted in many amazing sites. Recommended.

I bought the 72hour card for the ease of public transport and the discounts on the attractions. The transport was pretty much covered by the hop on hop off bus but it transpires that the discounts advertised were not for the 72 hour card, you had to have 72 hour +. This was not clear from the advertising, therefore, we couldn't use the card as we'd planned, it was used only once on the small castle shuttle which would have been a lot cheaper to pay as you go.

The card is good for public transportation but most of the valiue things are for 72 hours card and unfortunatly we came only for 2 days

DO NOT BUY BUDAPEST CARD, IT IS A SCAM. Unless you aren't a student (50% discount) in all museums or attraction or a teacher (free entrance) IT IS NOT WORTHY. For public transport you get 7 days card and it gives you the same service as included in the card. BUT THE WORST is that if you buy it through internet you are forced to pay in euros (fixed price). Arriving to Budapest you will see the in forints is almost 14 € cheaper per card of 120 hours. DO NOT BUY BUDAPEST CARD, BOYCOTT IT!!

Arrived at Budapest airport Sunday 9 Feb (1pm). Saw the card and read “Danube cruise included”, but didn’t see this was only on the 72h pass until we were on the bus to the city. The pass allows you to get to 200E, which only goes part way to the centre (doesn’t allow free use of the 100E which goes right into the centre) so you have to change onto the Metro at the 200E terminus BUT this is closed, so there’s a replacement bus service. With the change it’s almost an hour to the centre, so we were downtown with luggage about 230pm. It was a other 15 mins to our hotel. So by the time we were ready to start using the card, it was almost 3pm. Most attractions close at 4pm this time of year, so figured we’d start tomorrow but the Palvolgyi Cave is closed Mondays! This means the only really interesting free attractions we could take in are the Buda Tower and the St Lukács Baths, however we’d already booked another of the baths for a later date, so we’ve basically paid 6500HGF (22€) for a 24h Transport ticket and the tower (which costs 1500HGF / 4.50€) and maybe a museum. Would not recommend this card for 24h unless you’ve planned your day meticulously!

Used it mainly for the public transportation. The trams, bus and the Metro. They do check the card as you exit so keep it handy. A great adminity for my holiday in Budapest.

As your getting off the plane don’t buy this for €43.... good for busses and trams which are free anyway!!! Used for castle tram and castle entry which was a waste of time it was practically closed!!!

The card was pretty much good. But i had to travel all the way to the airport in order to collect the card as they did not send the card to my hotel as mentioned.