The best Paris Metro card option for tourists is determined more by the day of the week than your length of stay in the city. The weekly card operates on a fixed calendar and runs from Monday through Sunday; therefore, if you arrive on Thursday, you will have paid for a full week but only have four days of usage out of that week. The Transport Authority of Île-de-France (the region of Paris) sets this rule; it was confirmed that it remains unchanged from the time it was verified on September 20, 2026 on the official web site of the Authority when checking fares.
The second component of the card type you purchase will be a physical difference; while Paris has two types of Visitor cards, both offer different goods and services. The Anonymous Visitor card allows you to purchase individual tickets and daily Passes, but does not permit you to purchase weekly passes, while the Personal Visitor card allows you to purchase weekly passes but not individual tickets. The tickets for the airport will be considered separate from both card types and will need to be purchased separately at their respective prices. The prices for all the options mentioned above will have changed between 2025 and January of this year.
What Changed After the 2025 Fare Reform and What a Ride Costs Now in 2026
Go to the Navigo weekly pass page on the region’s transport website; it shows a price of €31.60, but it specifies that this price is valid from January 1, 2025. Go to the 2026 fare page for the same website, and you will see a price of €32.40 for the same pass. Both of these pages were checked simultaneously on September 20, 2026.
The price you see on the 2026 page is the current price; the €31.60 price seen on the 2025 page is a default price on a page nobody has updated recently. This is the primary cause of the discrepancies you are seeing between the guidebooks you have been reading, and it is helpful to remember that if you see a price without a valid date, you should assume it is not accurate.
All other prices listed above are taken from the 2026 fare schedule published by Île-de-France Mobilités, the organization that sets the fares for transport services in and around Paris. This schedule was confirmed on September 20, 2026; however, please keep in mind that the organization can change the prices at any time; therefore, it is essential to verify each price against your actual travel dates before building your travel budget.
In 2025, France’s RATP (the same company behind Paris’s public transit) substantially rebuilt its entire public transport system from the ground up rather than introducing a price increase for its ticket offerings. Paris had previously priced its tickets based on distance travelled using zone pricing; therefore, a ticket to the outer suburbs would cost a lot more than a ticket all the way across the downtown core. The arm’s length local pricing established through carnet or “books” of tickets provided bulk price discounts to customers who used their public transport system on a regular basis. As of January 1, 2025, this all changed. In RATP’s account of the reform, one flat-fare ticket now covers any metro, RER or suburban-train journey in Île-de-France, a second covers any bus or tram journey, and trips to the airports were pulled out into a ticket of their own.
The bulk discount for the carnet has also been removed. So, whether you buy one ticket or ten tickets, you will pay the same amount per ride.
Although RATP’s releases state that this reform represents a “simple” approach, it actually does provide for the same fare regardless of the distance traveled within the far/outer suburbs (for example, tickets from the far/outer suburbs to Paris). However, within the central districts of Paris, this revision to the pricing structure is less beneficial to infrequent users than the previous zone structure, as most of the visits to the City Centre occur within the old zone structure (zones 1 and 2). Therefore, if you remember that the metro was once less expensive than you remember now, then you did remember incorrectly; the current price is significantly higher than the price at which the same ticket was available in the old pricing structure.
In 2026, the prices for an adult would be (a) full price for each product, and (b) the benefits of the products purchased.
| Ticket or pass | 2026 price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Metro-Train-RER ticket | €2.55 | One rail journey anywhere in Île-de-France, airports excluded |
| Bus-Tram ticket | €2.05 | One bus or tram journey, airport coaches excluded |
| Paris Region ↔ Airports ticket | €14.00 | One rail journey to or from Orly or Charles de Gaulle |
| Navigo Jour (day pass) | €12.30 | One calendar day, all zones, airports excluded |
| Navigo Semaine (week pass) | €32.40 | Monday to Sunday, all zones |
| Paris Visite, 1 day | €30.60 | One day, all zones, airports included |
| Paris Visite, 5 days | €78.00 | Five consecutive days, all zones, airports included |
When skimmed, two of those rows do the most harm. The “Airports Excluded” field is more than just a zone technicality; it indicates that you cannot use the €12.30 Day Pass to gain entry to the Charles de Gaulle or Orly station and that when you arrive at Paris on the day of your flight home, you will purchase a €14 ticket separately. The “Monday to Sunday” field is not just a floating span of time (seven days) but rather a separate entity that has separate paragraphs further down the page; combined they will create the majority of the missed connection revenue generated from transportation to and from Paris.
What about the cardboard tickets from your last trip?
On November 2025, Cardboard t+ tickets ceased to be available for sale. They have been invalidated for use on buses and trams. Île-de-France Mobilités’ August 2026 published note regarding Cardboard t+ tickets states that they remain valid for use on the Metro until 15 December 2026, and they can be exchanged at RATP or SNCF ticketing offices until 14 January 2027 for a maximum of five tickets (an exchange rate of €2) to obtain a Navigo Easy card. Cardboard t+ tickets which remain unused will not be refunded.
One important distinction that should be made is that for tickets purchased through an app, there is no limit to how long those tickets are valid. The Cardboard t+ ticket has a defined expiry date; the price of a fare has no such limit.
As such, the remainder of this decision depends on the ticket pass itself, which must exist on some form of credit; the two methods of payment available to tourists through Paris do not offer the same form of payment.
Navigo Easy vs Navigo Découverte: Price, Photo Requirement and What Each Card Can Actually Hold
These are two different types of cards. One card will not hold whatever the other card does.
Reports of how much these cards cost (€2 for the Easy version, €5 for the Découverte) and what they carry (the Easy version carries no personal details; the Découverte version requires a name/photo) are correct. However, both reports do not mention what is causing confusion for people at the counter.
Both Île-de-France Mobilités and RATP both provide a limited list of services that each type of card will provide. Week passes are not included on either list. The services available on RATP card are as follows: Metro/Train/RER point-to-point tickets, Bus/Tram point-to-point ticket, Paris Region ↔ Airports ticket; Navigo Jour day pass; and Navigo Jour sticker, which only during pollution peak screen settings; whereas the Île-de-France Mobilités will list only the last item, as opposed to the first item. RATP’s version runs to the Metro-Train-RER ticket, the Bus-Tram ticket, the Paris Region ↔ Airports ticket, the Navigo Jour day pass and a pass sold only during pollution peaks; the transport authority’s own list swaps that last one for the Paris Visite pass. Since there is no way to get the week pass added at the counter, neither organisation will allow you to add weeks. The published terms for the Découverte card run the opposite direction and, therefore, carry the day, week and month passes whereas no single tickets are available.
| Medium | Holds | Does not hold |
|---|---|---|
| Navigo Easy, €2 | Single rail and bus tickets, up to 20 of each; the €14 airport ticket; two day passes; Paris Visite | The week pass |
| Navigo Découverte, €5 | Navigo Jour, Navigo Semaine and Navigo Mois passes | Any single ticket |
| Your own phone | Single tickets, day passes and the week pass | Nothing, but it needs an app account first |
The weekly pass is the one product that many visitors to Île-de-France will come to purchase initially. It cannot be purchased with a €2 card, but it may be purchased with a €5 card for somebody needing only to take four rides, and therefore cannot buy a single ticket. If you purchased a low-cost card in anticipation of needing a weekly pass, you will ultimately need to purchase the other card as well.
Can you just use your phone instead?
In many cases, this is correct, but it avoids both cards and their respective fees, because it allows the user to store all types of tickets in their phone: single tickets, a day ticket, and a weekly pass. However, to make this all happen, the user must create an account first.
To create an Île-de-France Mobilités Connect account, you will need a mobile number where you can receive a verification code via SMS, and only mobile numbers from a prescribed list of geographic locations can be used. The information regarding the need to have a European mobile number circulating around is not what the online account application page displayed when checked on 20 September 2026. The verified sources use only European mobile numbers and numbers from Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the UK. Numbers from the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, China, Mexico, Morocco, Argentina, Algeria, and Colombia can only be used if created from within mainland France.
The second clause contains all the information. If you attempted to set up a phone number from Texas or Sydney the week before your departure, and it didn’t work, you would deduce that you cannot set it up via the phone. You would be able to set up a number after arriving in your destination, at which point the number would be made active. If you don’t see your country listed above, you should follow the instructions from the Île-de-France Mobilités website: set up your account when you get to France, or find a Navigo agency.
Before continuing to the next section, I want to point out one last physical feature regarding what you will be carrying. The Découverte is not one item; it is a chip card combined with a paper name card in a clear sleeve, both of which share the same six-digit number. According to the rules for how the pass functions, you need to show both components together because they cannot be separated. If you lose either your chip card or name card, you will not be able to replace either the card or the loaded pass.
The possibility of losing either of these components is not as much of a concern for a few days. However, a more significant matter is determining which dates the loaded pass is valid for because you do not have the ability to pick those dates yourself.
Why the Weekly Pass Runs Monday to Sunday and What Happens If You Buy It on Friday
How to calculate how much your €32.40 actually gets you divided by the number of days, with a Monday arrival only being a detail.
For example, if you arrive on Monday, the weekly pass will cost you around €4.60 per day (or around €32.40 / 7 days). If you arrive on Wednesday, your €32.40 would cover the last 5 days of the weekly pass, which works out to around €6.50 each. If you arrive on Thursday, the weekly pass is only valid for 4 days and your cost per day will be approximately €8.10. This is typically the break-even point where a single week pass is just as cheap as purchasing many individual daily tickets.
The mathematical calculation listed above is true and not approximate. According to Île-de-France Mobilités’ general terms and conditions, the Navigo Semaine pass is valid from Monday at 00:00 until the next Sunday at 23:59 (the departure time is on the tap-on). Each week, night buses offer a short extension not available elsewhere in the network: on the Noctilien network, passengers can remain on the ticket until 06:00 Monday morning after buying the pass, but not the first metro Monday morning.
The purchase policy follows the same general guideline as above. A weekly pass is available to you from the previous Friday until the Thursday of the week that the pass is valid for. However, if you take this logic from the perspective of the ticket counter rather than the calendar, you will still be able to buy a pass that covers the week that you are currently in on a Wednesday but not on a Friday when there are no weekly passes for sale except for the one that will become valid the following Monday.
The simple answer to the Friday question: Nothing went wrong, you just bought a pass that has not yet begun. You purchased a weekly pass that begins after you have left.
You should verify the date of the pass before assuming you have one because the machine tells you what you are buying — any weekly pass offered on-screen or through an agent has a start date of the upcoming Monday; if that date has passed, you have purchased the current week, but if it is yet to occur, you have purchased a pass that will not provide you access until then.
The confusion over these passes is strong, even among experienced travellers. In a July 2023 thread on Rick Steves’ website, a traveller who was planning to travel Thursday through Sunday expressed confusion about what passes to buy, and he needed to buy a weekly. Many of the prices quoted in that thread have been changed since they were posted, but in that case, the same rules apply.
Can you get your money back if you buy the wrong week?
It’s very straightforward; refunds are only available before the weekly pass has begun. For example: If you purchase a weekly pass for Monday on Friday, you can cancel it at any time up until the beginning of its validity without incurring any penalties. Cancellations can be completed at a ticket office, at a vending machine or through a mobile application if your pass is saved to your phone; the funds will then return to your account via either a bank transaction or your credit/debit card, rather than in cash.
After a weekly pass has commenced, there is little option for a customer to obtain a partial refund unless your reasons for doing so meet specific criteria (i.e. sick, fired or relocated) — a visitor’s change of plans does not meet any of these criteria.
While the above outlines the terms of cancellation and the associated restrictions, it does not explain the other selling point of a weekly pass and how far it goes after entering through the gate; once you are through the gate, the use of day passes and individual tickets are completely different.
Airport, Versailles and Disneyland: Which Ticket Actually Covers Them
Starting in January 2025, two of the three exceptions already outlined no longer exist as exceptions. The third exception will continue to exist.
Like Versailles, Disneyland Paris is located in an outer zone of the Île-de-France region (Zone 4), but it had to rely on a long-distance train fare (by distance) before. Day passes stopped this. You can now use a €2.55 Metro/Train/RER ticket for all train journeys in Île-de-France, including travel to Château de Versailles (Zone 5) and Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy (Zone 5). That means one ticket each way will include travel on the Metro to the RER station.
This point should be emphasized because several current English-language travel guides continue to incorrectly state otherwise. For instance, a popular English guide that was published in June 2026 tells readers that the RER C fare to Versailles must be booked as a point-to-point fare and that you must buy a separate RER A fare if you’re visiting Disneyland because both destinations are located outside of Zone 1. This was true before the reform; if you still believe that today, then you’re paying for something that you already possess.
Airports, on the other hand, are the only examples of exceptions that exist for a specific purpose. The routes between the Parc de la Villette VTC (Métro)-Parc de la Villette/Saint-Denis RER and both Orly (Zone 2) and Charles de Gaulle (Zone 2) Airport and vice versa are excluded from all flat-rate single ticket and day pass options. The €14 ‘Paris Region ↔ Airport’ ticket exists solely to fill the gap, allowing unlimited travel (by Metro, RER, etc.) to/from any station in the Paris Region to either airport.
People tend to get caught up when it comes to the Navigo Jour round ticket. This is an all-zones ticket which allows you to go anywhere within the region, including Versailles or Disneyland with no issue whatsoever. However, you will not be able to open the gates at the airport station. The exclusion is stated by Île-de-France Mobilités (the operator of the train service) in one line next to the price, and technically, it is not something that you can argue with at a barrier.
The weekly ticket (the one used on Mondays) is also available to get to the airport stations via the train, which makes it seem like a better option when you first arrive on a Monday. Its published terms still carve out a specific list, though, and these are named services rather than zones:
- the Orlyval shuttle between Antony and Orly
- Le Bus Direct and the VEA shuttles to Disney
- the OpenTour and Cars Rouges sightseeing buses
- the TGV, and any line that doesn’t apply Île-de-France fares
Zoning creates another problem. Weekly tickets are also available as a 2-zone version (2-3, 3-4, 4-5), which are priced a few euros cheaper but only valid for the zones you purchase. A 2-3 weekly transport does not go to Paris city centre or Charles de Gaulle airport. For travellers looking to travel into Paris, an all-zones ticket is the best option.
Why your card may refuse the airport ticket
This situation is more mechanical than geographical and is experienced when you arrive at the train machine on the first day.
The Navigo Easy card will house the airport ticket, but it will also hold ordinary Metro-Train-RER tickets. In accordance with the compatibility rules of Île-de-France Mobilités, updated in April 2026, you cannot load both types of tickets at the same time. Additionally, RATP’s guidelines about airport tickets are consistent with those from Île-de-France Mobilités (under which you cannot have an incompatible ticket on the card if you are offered only a Metro-Train-RER ticket). If the machine does not display the Metro-Train-RER ticket for purchase, it already has an incompatible ticket loaded onto the card (usually an airport ticket or leftover cardboard-era t+ credit).
The remedy published by Île-de-France Mobilités is twofold and completely straightforward. You can either use all of the tickets that cannot coexist, or you may purchase the new ticket on a separate medium. In practice, this means that you will arrive at Charles de Gaulle Airport with the existing €14 ticket already loaded onto your Easy card, take the Metro or RER into Paris, and then load your Metro-RER tickets after your arrival in the city; alternatively, you may download the airport ticket onto your smartphone and retain your card for your trip into Paris. There is also a limit to the number of tickets that you may store on the Navigo Easy card: within the rigid card typology, you can store up to four ticket types, while the flexible version allows for a maximum of two ticket types.
The above rules are also responsible for preventing families from sharing one Navigo Easy card without prior notice. A Navigo Easy card cannot store both an adult and a child (aged four to nine) with their respective single fare and reduced fare tickets; therefore, a second €2 card is required, rather than being a workaround.
The Coverage section informs customers where each version of the Navigo Easy card will provide service. However, there is no current information about which type to purchase; this information can be calculated in approx one minute.
How Many Rides Make a Day Pass or Weekly Pass Cheaper Than Single Tickets
The majority of the calculations can be made using information pertaining to transportation fares in 2026 from three separate numbers.
Pricing on a one-way rail ticket is currently €2.55, while the price for the day pass is €12.30, so if you plan to travel by rail five times in a day, it is cheaper to purchase a day pass. If you travel by rail four times and purchase the day pass for €12.30, you only save €10.20 if you buy the ticket for each journey. Traveling five times will cost you €12.75; therefore the day pass provides a savings over individual rail fares of €0.45. This difference is less than that presented by most guides on how much to save on rail fare, but it is significant because four rail journeys represent the frequency of travel during a typical day spent in Paris.
For the week, the Weekly Pass is equal to singles for a Total of 13 rides on the Mon-Sun period as follows; 13 rides @ €2.55 = €33.15, 7 rides @ €2.55 = €17.80 – hence, The Weekly Pass will save you atleast €32.40 for all 13 rides. If you require the €5 Découverte card too, the onboarding costs are additional.
After you add in the airport to the equation, you are now losing the ability to save through the mix of travel counts for a particular period.
A round-trip rail ticket to either Orly or Charles de Gaulle Airport will cost €28 (€14 for each direction) before you even travel within Paris. The cost of the weekly pass, €32.40, provides very little savings when considering an airport round trip. If booked through a telephone, you will not pay a fee for the card. As such, if you will be traveling two more times while in Paris, this brings the total for individual journeys to €33.10 and the total for the weekly pass remains at €32.40. On a physical card, you will not realize any savings unless you travel at least four times. Either way, if you fly into and out of the same airport between Monday and Wednesday, you will have purchased the weekly pass before taking in any sites within the city.
As you consider your purchase decision, take a moment to visualize how you will travel on one normal travel day out of your itinerary, counting the number of trips on the Metro or train (i.e. hotel to first attraction, first attraction to lunch, lunch to last attraction, and back). Most travelers will average out three to four trips on the Metro or train, as opposed to six trips. If when counting your trips you have four and you are not using a rail trip to/from the airport, then going back to our calculations, your best option is to only buy single fare tickets.
Four questions that pick the product
- What day of the week do you land?
- Does your whole stay sit inside one Monday-to-Sunday week?
- How many rail rides will you take on a normal day?
- Will you take the train to or from Orly or Charles de Gaulle?
Once you have completed the count of your legs and know your total, then please refer to the table below and enter that number into the column for Travel Type. This will allow you to make a sound decision on which transportation method you will use based on our four key variables to calculate the cost of the trip at current fares for 2026 (please see our definition for “current”).
| You land on | Stay inside one Mon–Sun week | Airport by train | Best buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Wednesday | Yes | Either way | Navigo Semaine |
| Monday to Wednesday | No | Either way | Weekly for the covered days, singles after |
| Thursday | Yes | Yes | Navigo Semaine, four days, still cheapest |
| Thursday | Yes | No | Navigo Jour on five-ride days, singles otherwise |
| Friday to Sunday | No | No | Navigo Easy with single tickets |
| Friday to Sunday | No | Yes | Paris Visite for your exact days |
You might be surprised by the last row of the chart, but I want to show you how we made our calculations rather than just telling you.
When the tourist pass actually wins
The Paris Visit has long been viewed as a new purchase made by mistake. For example, the price of €78.00 for 5 days as compared with €32.40 for 7 days does not measure up to the value that is offered by a weekly pass. The Paris Visite can only be activated during the actual days the visitor is in Paris, while the Monday to Sunday is for the designated week. Its validity is extended to all forms of transportation, not just Metro or train, as our prices published by RATP’s visitor guidance for 2026 confirm, and this extends to the Airport pass, which is excluded from the daily pass.
To illustrate the above, a weekend trip, 2 days, landing on Saturday, and taking the train both ways to/from the airport.
The cost of a Paris Visite two-day pass is €45.40. Two 2-day passes on top of two tickets to the airport will be €52.60 prior to using the card. The cost of single tickets at four rides on the rail a day totals €50.40 if you have the card. Many people advise against purchasing the pass because it is the cheapest of the three passes but actually saves you the most money in less than a week.
It’s important to note one last asymmetry for those traveling with children. The child’s price for a Paris Visite is 50% off for a child aged four and under ten years old, while there is no discount for children using a Day Pass; and the weekly family pass does not provide any discounts. In cases where only a short trip with young children is planned, the $10 difference becomes irrelevant.
The important things to remember about this process do not come into play until you have the actual pass in hand, at which point you will encounter the final set of problems.
How to Buy Your Card at the Station, on Your Phone, and Avoid the Photo Fine
The locations that are frequented by many tourists to purchase a Navigo Découverte are now the only locations that do not offer the sale of this pass.
Charles de Gaulle Airport has ceased to offer the Navigo Découverte pass from August 2025, and the website Paris by Train also reflects this change as of March 2026. The reason for the withdrawal has been reported as the lengthy process of creating a new card while other customers stand in line to wait for a new card. This is an operational decision made by an individual station, and could be changed back with no warning; for this reason, it is wise to plan a trip around the possibility of having to purchase the Navigo Découverte elsewhere rather than waiting in line at the airport and having to change your travel plans with your luggage.
What is still available at Charles de Gaulle Airport is the Navigo Easy pass, the airport ticket, and the Paris Visite Pass, all of which will allow you to enter the city and give you sufficient time before proceeding to your destination. As for the Navigo Découverte, you will need to buy it from a staffed window located in one of the major train stations such as Gare du Nord, Gare de Lyon, Gare de L*Est or one of the other major train stations. Alternatively, you can also obtain a Navigo Découverte pass at an approved local retailer.
It is worth noting that there is a significant difference between the points of sale for the Navigo Easy pass and the Navigo Découverte pass. The Navigo Easy pass can be obtained via a ticket machine (which is available in English) that accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards. A Navigo Découverte pass cannot be obtained via a ticket machine, as it must be assembled by an employee who works at the ticket counter; this is the specific reason why the airports chose to no longer sell the Navigo Découverte pass.
What the photo rule actually says
This is less than what the internet claims, but more than is required to purchase the ticket.
The requirements for obtaining the Découverte offered by Île-de-France Mobilités state that the holder must write their full name on the card, affix a clear frontal photo of head and shoulders (not scanned or photocopied), and seal the self-adhesive flap. The requirements do not outline the millimetre dimensions of the photo; however, the 25 x 30 mm measurement commonly referenced is derived from practical guides provided by Île-de-France Mobilités’ photo service offerings and is reasonable. Standard passport-sized photos are generally too large and will need to be trimmed down when presented at the counter.
The requirements also specify when an inspection will occur. The holder is required to have both the smart card (loaded and validated) and the identification card (completed with photo and the self-adhesive flap closed). Inappropriate use of either can result in fines and penalties as established by the public transportation rules for Île-de-France. Fines that go unpaid for three months will be applied against the holder and will become increased fines collected by the French Treasury. The requirements do not specify how much the fines will be, as no euro amount is provided within the requirements.
There are euro amounts listed in the traveller reports, and these amounts should be treated as accounts rather than as rates. In the Rick Steves forum, a contributor in April 2019 stated that they had received a €35 fine at a Paris metro station because their card did not include a photo. The contributor also noted that “You will not be told that you must include a photo on your card.”
An additional contributor in the same conversation highlighted what the card picture area says: collez ici votre photo d’identité – paste your ID photo here. The total amount in that account in seven years does not help you to know what the penalty is in today’s world. The sequence of events does remain: nobody is finished with the card until payment is received, and no one at the window is required to finish the card for you.
You should take a photo printed at home and trimmed to size before you arrive, not after. Photo booths at stations are usually available for around €5 for a set of four. This is an expense for a problem that you could have solved by printing your own photos.
Why everyone in your group needs their own card
The Découverte card is personal and non-transferable, so you cannot share it with anyone else. The Navigo Easy is anonymous, so everyone thinks that it can be transferred; however, at the gates, you cannot pass it back for someone else to use. Therefore, if a couple has twenty tickets on one Easy card, they have one card that works for only one person.
The two adults will each require an additional €2 Easy card, and if they have a ten-year-old or older child, that child will also need an Easy card at full fare. If the child is under ten years old and requires a reduced fare, they must still have an Easy card since the one that is marked as Easy cannot hold both full-fare and reduced-fare tickets on the same Easy card.
The easiest way to do that is by using your mobile device’s NFC capabilities. If you have an Android or iOS device that uses Near Field Communication (NFC), transport app(s) installed on your device will read the physical Navigo card from the back of your phone as you are holding it up to the phone; showing you what you actually have stored on the card, as well as how many more rides per day and total remaining rides you have left. Using this once at the end of the day of your first ride will let you know whether the estimated distance from the previous section came close to the actual distance traveled, allowing enough time to adjust your travel plans accordingly.
Additionally, regardless of where you purchase your Navigo travel product, it is possible to use travel agencies to purchase Paris transport products and airport shuttle services. This publisher is one example of this; however, you are not required to purchase this way, such as the Découverte pass, which is card that cannot be purchased online and needs to be picked up at a ticket counter in Paris, regardless of whether you purchased it through the travel agency you used.
When going to the main train depot outside of the busy morning commute, you will find most likely a very short line, and the official price noted will be the price. Once you are in possession of the correct Navigo card, the only thing left to learn is the various gates, transfers and exits; everything is fully described in the companion guide for navigating the Paris Metro as a first-time user.
Quanto Você Deveria Gastar
There is basically one question to answer prior to leaving home: Does the entire duration of your travel exist in one week (Monday to Sunday) and will the train ride to/from the airport happen within this same week? If both answers are yes then it would be hard to beat the €32.40 weekly pass. If either answer is no, then typically the €2 card and €2.55 ticket option will be a better option. Make sure you do this comparison prior to arriving at the ticket selling kiosks as the machines will sell you an expired pass on your return trip home and the window for refunds is thereafter closed.
Frequently asked questions
Can I buy a card before I get to France?
No, you can only get the Découverte from a manned counter in Paris. You cannot buy it online. The Navigo Easy is available in vending machines at your station. The only thing you can organise before you arrive is setting up an account in the app.
I land on a Sunday. Should I buy the weekly that day or wait?
On a Sunday you can buy a ticket for the following week. From Friday until the end of the weekend, the only weekly passes on sale will be for Monday’s week. So if you buy one on Sunday morning, you will start using it as soon as you get off your plane (or whatever other form of transport you used), and the ticket will last for 7 days, less your first evening will be before you receive your ticket.
If I switch from the metro to a bus, does one ticket cover both?
No, according to the transfer rules published by the STIF, a Metro-Train-RER ticket is valid for 2 hours for transferring between trains and a Bus-Tram ticket is valid for 90 minutes for transferring between buses and trams. If you want to combine a journey on both, you need both a Metro-Train-RER ticket and a Bus-Tram ticket.
Is a Navigo Easy card from an earlier trip still usable?
Usually, the answer is yes. There is one small problem, however. If you still have a balance of t+ tickets from the cardboard era on your card, you cannot buy a current metro train RER ticket or airport ticket until the balance of t+ tickets is exhausted. Also, any t+ tickets issued after December 15, 2026 will not work on the metro.
