Bilhete Único: São Paulo's three-hour bus and rail fare integration
São Paulo's contactless Bilhete Único launched on 18 May 2004, letting riders board several municipal buses on one fare within two hours; the state-run Metro and CPTM trains were added from 2006 and the bus window widened to three hours in 2008. In January 2026 an integrated fare of R$9.38 buys up to three bus boardings in three hours plus one rail boarding in the first two. Ordinary bank cards work at Metro turnstiles since December 2025 and on 12 bus lines since 2019, but a bank tap buys no transfers. Fraud is chronic: SPTrans blocked 123,700 cards for irregular credit use in the first five months of 2025.
Live
📅 since 2004
✔ Editor-reviewed
📊 Impact
One integrated fare of R$9.38 (rates effective 6 January 2026) covers up to three municipal bus boardings within three hours plus one Metro or CPTM boarding in the first two hours; bought separately a bus fare is R$5.30 and a rail fare R$5.40. A monthly integrated pass costs R$411.13 for ten boardings a day over 31 days. Municipal buses have been free every Sunday since 17 December 2023, which the city put at about R$280 million a year in forgone fare revenue.
🎓 Lesson
Open-loop bank cards are the easy half of ticketing. São Paulo has carried transfer rules across a municipal bus operator and a state rail operator since 2006 on a proprietary card, and seven years after its bank-card pilot began it still cannot do the same with a bank card: tapping Visa or Mastercard buys one ride, never an integration. Whoever owns the transfer rule owns the fare system.
Evidence🏛️ Official
Scale🏙️ City-wide
Cost≈R$15M for the 2005 bus-rail integration rollout, split evenly between city and state
FundingCity of São Paulo (SPTrans, fare revenue plus municipal subsidy); the 2005 rail integration cost was shared with the state government
Sources
↗ SPTrans — Tarifas (fares effective 6 January 2026)Operator fare table. Integrated common credit R$9,38: 'permite até três embarques em ônibus diferentes, no período de três horas, e um embarque no Metrô/Trem, nas duas primeiras horas' ('allows up to three boardings on different buses within three hours, and one Metro/train boarding in the first two hours'). Bus-only R$5,30; rail-only R$5,40; VT integrated R$11,32; monthly integrated R$411,13, which 'dá direito a dez embarques/dia durante 31 dias corridos' ('gives the right to ten boardings a day for 31 consecutive days'). Also lists 'Gratuidade aos domingos: R$ 0,00' ('free on Sundays').
↗ SPTrans — Bilhete Único Comum, rules of useOperator rulebook: 'Até 4 embarques em ônibus diferentes, no período de três horas, com o pagamento de uma tarifa de Ônibus Comum' ('up to 4 boardings on different buses within three hours on one common bus fare') and 'Um embarque no sistema trilhos (Metrô/CPTM) e até 3 embarques em ônibus diferentes no período de 3 horas' ('one rail boarding plus up to 3 boardings on different buses within 3 hours'), the rail leg 'durante as duas primeiras horas' ('during the first two hours').
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — Bilhete Único completa 10 anos (19 May 2014)City retrospective, source for the launch date and the rail integration year: 'Quando foi lançado, em 18 de maio de 2004' ('when it was launched, on 18 May 2004') and 'A partir de 2006, o Bilhete Único passou a ser utilizado também pelos passageiros da CPTM e do Metrô' ('from 2006 the Bilhete Único came to be used also by CPTM and Metro passengers'). It adds that 43 million cards were issued in the first ten years.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — Integração do Bilhete Único com metrô e trens da CPTM começa em novembro (2 September 2005)Announcement of the bus-rail integration: 'A integração será implantada progressivamente a partir do final de novembro' ('the integration will be rolled out progressively from the end of November') and 'o custo será de R$ 15 milhões, divididos igualmente entre Prefeitura e Estado' ('the cost will be R$15 million, split equally between the city and the state'). Source of the cost figure; the city's own 2014 retrospective dates passenger use from 2006, so the entry uses 2006.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — Uso do Bilhete Único é ampliado de 2 para 3 horas (28 July 2008)Dates the extension of the transfer window: 'Entrou em vigor nesta segunda-feira (28/07)' ('came into force this Monday, 28/07'), affecting '6 milhões de passageiros que podem fazer até quatro viagens pagando apenas uma passagem' ('6 million passengers who can make up to four trips paying only one fare'). This correction matters: the extension is widely misattributed to the 2014 Haddad administration, which in fact launched the separate monthly and daily temporal passes.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo / SMT — pilot for contactless bank-card fare payment on buses (17 September 2019)Pilot began 16 September 2019 on 12 bus lines, planned for three months or 500,000 transactions. Key limit: 'Nesta primeira fase do projeto não haverá a integração tarifária com outros ônibus ou com os sistemas de trilhos' ('in this first phase there will be no fare integration with other buses or with the rail systems'), plus a cap of 'ligado 5 passagens em meia hora e 10 passagens por dia' ('5 fares in half an hour and 10 fares a day').
↗ SPTrans — Pagamento da tarifa com cartão de débito e crédito (current)Operator page still listing the same 12 lines plus 3 terminals and 6 Expresso Tiradentes stations seven years after the pilot began, and stating 'O pagamento por essa tecnologia não permite integração tarifária com outros ônibus ou com outros modais' ('payment by this technology does not allow fare integration with other buses or other modes'). Canonical URL without the accent: https://www.sptrans.com.br/pagamento-da-tarifa-com-cartao-de-debito-e-credito/
↗ Metrô de São Paulo — Bilhetes e CartõesState operator page confirming the two-administration governance: the municipal Bilhete Único carries bus-rail integration credit, while the state Cartão TOP works on rail and on intermunicipal EMTU buses 'com redução tarifária no segundo embarque' ('with a fare reduction on the second boarding'). Municipal and state instruments remain distinct.
↗ Diário do Transporte — Catracas do Metrô passam a aceitar pagamento por aproximação em todas as linhas (1 December 2025)Independent trade press, replacing the operator's own post at metro.sp.gov.br which returns 404. Establishes the December 2025 open-loop rollout and its limits: physical Mastercard, Visa and Elo cards only, with virtual cards on phones and smartwatches not accepted in this first phase; at least one dedicated turnstile per station; lines 1 and 3 first, lines 2 and 15 during December; the same card usable again only after a 30-minute interval; and a pilot of six months, extendable. No fare integration with buses is claimed anywhere, which is the point this entry rests on. An engineering-association summary (aeamesp.org.br, 3 December 2025) asserts that Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay work — that contradicts the operator and the trade press and was not used.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — Cidade de São Paulo terá Tarifa Zero nos ônibus aos domingos (11 December 2023)Free Sunday travel from 17 December 2023 on all SPTrans municipal lines, explicitly not covering rail: 'Não há necessidade de integração com o sistema metroferroviário' ('there is no need for integration with the metro-rail system'). Forgone revenue put at 'R$ 280 milhões no ano' ('R$280 million a year'). Independently corroborated by the current SPTrans fare table.
↗ Diário do Transporte — TCM audit finds the Bilhete Único system outdated and insecure (11 July 2019)Trade press reporting the Tribunal de Contas do Município audit: 'o sistema de Bilhete Único da cidade tem tecnologia ultrapassada e insegura, o que possibilita fraudes' ('the city's Bilhete Único system uses outdated and insecure technology, which enables fraud'); 'o software do Bilhete Único é de 2004, desde sua criação, e é vulnerável a várias fraudes'; '60% dos cartões em circulação são de tecnologia já ultrapassada, mas os 40% restantes também têm vulnerabilidade' ('60% of cards in circulation use already outdated technology, but the remaining 40% are also vulnerable'). The R$100 million modernisation figure is attributed in the article to a news report, not to the audit.
↗ Jornal de Brasília / Agência Estado — SPTrans registrou quase 100 boletins de ocorrência contra fraudes em bilhete único em 2025 (10 June 2025)Source of the 2025 fraud figures: 'SPTrans registrou neste ano 99 boletins de ocorrência em delegacias da capital contra fraudes no bilhete único' ('SPTrans filed 99 police reports this year against Bilhete Único fraud') and 'nos cinco primeiros meses do ano, 123,7 mil cartões acabaram bloqueados por uso irregular de crédito' ('in the first five months of the year, 123,700 cards were blocked for irregular use of credit'), with seven arrests.
↗ Portal de Dados Abertos da Prefeitura de São Paulo — SPTrans datasetsSPTrans publishes five datasets under Creative Commons CCZero (CC0): payroll, cash flow, code of conduct, 'Créditos Eletrônicos do Bilhete Único' (outstanding card credit by card type) and the tariff cost spreadsheet. No boarding-level, origin-destination or transaction ride data is published, which is why this entry carries no open-data tag.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Bilhete Único: São Paulo's three-hour bus and rail fare integration” — São Paulo, Brazil. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/sao-paulo-bilhete-unico/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
🔗 Related projects
🇹🇭 Bangkok Rail Fare & Ticketing Integration · Bangkok
Concessions decide who transfers: Bangkok's BTS takes only Rabbit; São Paulo's card has crossed city bus and state rail since 2006.
🇯🇵 Osaka Metro Open-Loop Contactless Fare Payment · Osaka
Kansai switched 548 stations to bank cards in a day; São Paulo's Metro took them in December 2025, and a bank tap still buys no transfer.
🇲🇽 Movilidad Integrada: One Fare Card Across Eight Transport Systems · Mexico City
A bank card opens every Mexico City turnstile but caps nothing; in São Paulo only the proprietary card carries a transfer.
🇺🇸 CharlieCard and the AFC 2.0 Fare System Replacement · Boston
Both cards are old and forgeable: Boston's was cloned twice; SPTrans blocked 123,700 for irregular credit in five months of 2025.
→ Open this project in the interactive atlas · → 🚲 Mobility category · 🚩 Report an error