The contactless cap in London is a daily or weekly limit on the total fare charged when using a contactless card/device for travel on TfL services (Tube, bus, DLR, Elizabeth line, and6 National Rail). As of 2025, the daily cap for zones 1-6 is £16.30, automatically limiting costs to a maximum daily fare.
Contactless Daily Cap 2025
If you want to use your contactless card to pay for travel for the whole day, there's a 'daily cap'. This is the maximum you pay for unlimited travel in one day. For central London, it's £8.90.
You can spend up to £100 in a single contactless card transaction. If your purchase exceeds this amount, you can still complete the payment using chip and PIN. You can also manage your contactless card settings in the mobile banking app: Adjust your contactless limit: Increase or reduce it up to the maximum of £100.
All you need to do is touch in and out using contactless (card or device) or an Oyster card to pay the right fare. Pay as you go is cheaper than buying a paper single or return ticket (train companies may offer special deals on some journeys).
On your mobile
With mobile contactless payments, you can even make purchases over £100 where approved by the retailer and your bank.
With Apple Pay, you can make payments for any amount, but some retailers limit the spend to £100.
You will have an option to pay through Contactless up to a maximum of €50 per transaction within the existing limits. (Please note that the €50 Contactless limit is a limit set by Visa in Ireland).
If you have a Railcard or other discount, it may be cheaper to use your Oyster or Smartcard as you cannot apply a discount to pay as you go with contactless. However, you can travel further beyond London using pay as you go with contactless than you can with an Oyster card.
Using pay as you go (paying only for the journeys you make when you travel) is the easiest and cheapest way to pay for travel in London. You don't have to work out the cost of your journey in advance or buy tickets. You can pay as you go using: A contactless card or device (overseas charges may apply)
The price you're charged for travel with Oyster or a contactless card is the same - and in both cases the overall amount you can pay in a day or a week is capped. However, using Oyster or a contactless card is cheaper than buying paper tickets for your travel.
You can use a contactless card as many times as you like within a day so long as each purchase is under £100. Just bear in mind that you may be asked to use chip and PIN after using contactless a few times in a row. Don't worry, it's just an extra security measure to check it's you making any payments.
Because contactless payments require neither PIN nor signature authorisation, lost or stolen contactless cards can be used to make fraudulent transactions.
Same station exits
If you touch in when you enter a station and then touch out to exit it within a short period of time, you'll be charged a same station exit charge. These are: Between 0 - 2 minutes: a maximum fare. If you re-enter the same or a different station within 45 minutes, you'll be refunded.
Where to Pay. You can tap your card at most retailers, including coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations for any purchase up to $250. If you don't see the contactless symbol when making a purchase, either swipe or insert your chip card into the terminal to pay.
The London bus 1-hour rule refers to the Hopper fare, allowing unlimited journeys on London buses and trams within one hour of the first tap-in, for a single £1.75 charge (as of early 2025). You must use the same Oyster or contactless card/device for all taps, and it works automatically, enabling free transfers between bus and tram services within that hour.
Get an 18+ Student Oyster photocard
You can save 30% on Travelcards and Bus & Tram Passes with our 18+ Student Oyster photocard. You can also use this Oyster card to pay as you go but you won't receive the 30% discount.
A Visitor Oyster Card costs £5. You can then pre-load the card with pay-as-you-go credit, in quantities of £10, £15, £25, £40 or £50. The Visitor Oyster card is the cheapest way of getting around London as the maximum daily charges mean you travel free after you reach the 'daily cap'.
Our system checks that the card is a valid payment card (ie hasn't expired or been stopped) but it does not check that the payment card is actually contactless. You need to make sure that the card that you add is a contactless payment card. You can add an Oyster card to your account.
Apple Pay uses near-field communication (NFC) chips embedded in Apple devices to make contactless payments. The technology can also be used for in-app and online purchases.
Is Contactless Payment Technology Secure? Some people have questioned contactless payment technology security, but using contactless cards is very secure. Similar to EMV technology, contactless cards create a unique code for each transaction, so the cards are extremely difficult to counterfeit.