Does tram 28 in Lisbon take contactless?

Lisbon's metro now takes open-loop contactless: tap your own Visa or Mastercard, or a phone or watch, at the fare gates, and you are charged 1.92 euros per journey, one person per card. That part is official and dependable.

The historic trams are run by a different operator, Carris, and here it gets murky. Some onboard validators accept a contactless tap and some do not, and recent local guides openly disagree about whether it works on the 28. The city is rolling it out, but as of 2026 you should not board the packed 28 assuming your card will tap. Bring a fallback.

Get a navegante occasional card for 0.50 euros from any metro ticket machine or ticket office. It is reusable for a year, and each traveler needs their own. Then load zapping, pay-as-you-go credit, and each Carris ride (tram, bus or funicular) costs 1.72 euros, the cheapest single fare there is, with free transfers inside 60 minutes.

If you are doing the classic tram-and-funicular sightseeing day, the 24-hour Carris and Metro pass at 7.25 euros is better value, and it covers the trams, buses, metro, the funiculars and the Santa Justa lift. One quirk: a navegante card holds only one fare type at a time, so you cannot mix zapping and a day pass on the same card. Locals just buy two 0.50-euro cards.

You can buy a single ticket from the tram driver, but it is the tourist-premium option at about 3.30 euros a ride, nearly double the zapping fare, and drivers often want coins or small notes. On a route as busy as the 28, fumbling for change while boarding is also how you hold up the queue and flag yourself to pickpockets.

So the order of preference is simple: zapping or a day pass on a navegante card first, the metro's contactless gates while you are on the metro, and paying the driver only as a last resort.

Even where a tap works, Lisbon does not give you London-style fare capping across the whole network. The metro caps your own contactless spending at about 6.50 euros a day, but that cap does not stretch across the trams and buses, and it is per card, not per group. For a few days of mixed sightseeing, a navegante card with zapping is still the simplest thing to hand a travel companion. The full Portugal money guide covers cards, cash and the rest.

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