The way we use the Madrid metro is going to change forever with the modification that the Madrid Regional Transport Consortium (CRTM) plans to implement in the payment method for each journey. With it, passengers will start paying at the end of the journey and not at the beginning, as it has been done until now.
The first steps in this direction were taken last March, when some of the CRTM representatives traveled to London to participate in the Transport Ticketing Global, a large professional forum specialized in smart ticketing. The objective? “To learn first-hand about new payment systems that could be applied in the future in the region“.
One of the most prominent isAccount-Based Ticketing (ABT), which allows the fare to be calculated automatically according to the number of times the cell phone is brought close to the reader during a given period of time or the user’s location.
Less than a month after that visit, on April 2, 2025, a prior information notice was published on the Public Procurement Portal of the Community of Madrid under the title ABT Account based Ticketing Project Service.
Now, as published by El Economista, the tender for the contract is scheduled for the second quarter of 2025 and will be worth 25 million euros.
When will the new payment method arrive in the metro?
No dates have been mentioned yet, but according to the duration of the contract -which is for five years and is listed in the Public Procurement Portal of the Community of Madrid- it is expected that the new payment method for the Madrid metro will be operational from 2030 onwards.
The new transport fares from July 1, 2025.
Much closer in time is the change of fare in the transport season ticket from July 1, 2025, which among other consequences will raise the price of the youth season ticket (15-26 years old) to 10€ per month, when it used to cost 8€. You can consult the table with all the prices in this article.