3 German metros among the 10 most expensive in the world

According to a new ranking, U-Bahn networks in three German cities are among the most expensive worldwide for a single ticket. Which international cities offer the most expensive and cheapest tickets?

Remitly ranks affordability of metro systems

The Global Metro Affordability Index by Remitly has ranked the U-Bahn networks in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin among the 10 most expensive when it comes to the cost of a single ticket.

Remitly ranked Munich, where a single U-Bahn ticket currently costs 4,20 euros, as the fourth most expensive metro system in the world. Hamburg (4,10 euros) and Berlin (4 euros) came in fifth and sixth, respectively.

Of the 94 cities considered, Lausanne, Switzerland, was named the international city with the most expensive metro ticket, coming in at 5,85 Swiss francs (6,36 euros) for a single ticket. Lausanne’s network does go up some impressive hills, but it only has two lines. Metro systems in Copenhagen and London rounded out the top three most expensive for a single ticket.

However, when it came to the least affordable network based not just on the price of a single ticket, but how journey price compares to the average daily wage, the Rio de Janeiro metro system was the most expensive. In Rio, a single ticket swallows up an average of 6,85 percent of an employee's daily wage. That’s a lot of money if you’re travelling to and from work every day.

Caracas, where a ticket costs 0,02 euros, was named as the city with the cheapest metro ticket. The Venezuelan capital also has the cheapest ticket when compared to average wages, with a metro ticket costing just 0,17 percent of the average daily wage. 

Metro systems in Doha, Mexico City, Almaty and Seoul rounded out the top five cheapest in the world for a single ticket compared to average daily wages.

Remitly doesn’t account for the Deutschlandticket

According to Remitly, the cities with the most affordable annual transport tickets are Prague (155 euros), Kuala Lumpur (132 euros) and Sofia (189 euros). In the capital of Czechia, residents need to pay an average of 7,3 percent of their monthly wage for an annual ticket, 9,9 percent in Kuala Lumpur and 12,1 percent in Sofia.

However, the ranking did not account for the Deutschlandticket. “For metros that don’t offer an annual travel pass, we extrapolated the price of a monthly travel pass (i.e., multiplied it by 12),” Remitly explained.

Since many local German transport associations don’t offer an annual ticket, and the local monthly ticket often costs more than a Deutschlandticket, German cities would likely have performed better if the Deutschlandticket were considered.

The Deutschlandticket offers holders unlimited travel on public and regional transport across Germany for 63 euros per month. The price will increase to 66,80 euros per month from January 1, 2027.

However, even with the price rise, people earning Germany’s average monthly salary of 4.851 euros before tax only have to spend 16,5 percent of their paycheck on an annual subscription. And that is for transportation across the whole country, not just in their city.

This is actually lower than in Warsaw, the city which ranked as the 10th most affordable for annual transport passes. An annual pass in the Polish capital costs 314 euros, 16,6 percent of the average monthly wage.