Seoul Subway and T-money Guide: Fares, Passes, Transfers and Exits

Why a transit card beats a single-journey ticket

Seoul's subway lines, the Korail commuter lines that run through the city and its city buses share one distance-based fare system. Pay with a transit card and an adult subway ride costs 1,550 won for the first 10 km, plus 100 won for each further 5 km up to 50 km. A single-journey ticket, a contactless card you tap like T-money, costs 100 won more, and the machine also takes a 500 won deposit that you only recover by feeding the ticket into a refund machine at your destination. The bigger difference is that only cards earn transfer discounts, so a bus-plus-subway trip is priced as one journey instead of two.

The card nearly everyone uses is T-money (티머니). It is a plain stored-value card: you load won onto it, tap it on the reader at the gate or beside the bus door, and the fare comes off the balance. Convenience stores such as GS25, CU, 7-Eleven and emart24 sell it, as do the vending machines in subway stations, for around 3,000 won before any balance; designer versions cost more. At a store counter, ask for a T-money card and name the amount you want loaded, and the clerk handles the rest.

Every traveler needs a card of their own, because the subway gate reads one card per passenger and a couple cannot share. Children and teenagers ride for less, but Visit Korea notes that travelers under 18 must have their date of birth registered to the card at a convenience store for the reduced fare to apply. One small bonus for early risers: tapping in before 6:30 a.m. takes 20 percent off the base fare, handy if you want a palace gate or a mountain trailhead before the crowds.

Topping up: keep some cash for this one job

Plan on cash for ordinary T-money top-ups. Since March 17, 2026, 440 newer ticket machines in 273 stations on Lines 1 to 8 accept foreign-issued credit and debit cards and several mobile payment apps, but Seoul limits that to buying single-journey tickets and buying or charging Climate Card short-term passes, with an average service fee of 3.7 percent. Topping up a regular T-money card is not on that list, and Tmoney's own visitor guide warns that some machines take cash only. Convenience store counters also charge cards; do not assume a store that takes your foreign card for snacks will accept it for a top-up.

The machine sequence is short. Choose English on the screen, pick the transit card top-up option, set the card on the reader pad, insert notes, and wait for the new balance before lifting the card. Tmoney suggests loading roughly 30,000 to 40,000 won for a three-night, four-day stay, which is a sensible ceiling. Leftover balances can be refunded at convenience stores, minus a small fee, but the card price is not refundable, and Visit Korea says balances above 50,000 won can only be refunded at Tmoney Town near Exit 10 of Seoul Station.

If you would rather not handle cash at all, WOWPASS is the main alternative. It is a prepaid card with a transit function, issued for 5,000 won through its app or at its own kiosks in airports, stations and hotels, and it requires a passport. You recharge it in won or several foreign currencies at those kiosks, and leftover balance comes back as won cash from a kiosk. The trade-off is dependence on finding one of its machines, whereas T-money can be topped up at almost any convenience store in the country.

Climate Card short-term passes: when unlimited rides pay off

Seoul's Climate Card (기후동행카드, Gihu Donghaeng Kadeu) is the city's unlimited-ride pass. The versions that suit visitors are short-term passes of one, two, three, five or seven days, priced at 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, 15,000 and 20,000 won and loaded onto a physical card that costs 3,000 won. A pass covers subway rides within Seoul and Seoul-licensed city, village, night and circular buses. It does not cover the Shinbundang Line, GTX, subway sections outside Seoul, red express buses, airport buses or buses licensed by neighboring cities.

Two rules decide whether it suits you. First, validity runs by calendar day: a pass starts on the day you charge it, from the first train, and ends with the last train of its final day, so a one-day pass charged at 1 p.m. is finished that night, and passes cannot be charged in advance. Second, a subway trip must begin and end inside the coverage area; ride out of Seoul and station staff charge the fare for the whole trip. One useful exception: you may board inside the zone and get off at Incheon Airport Terminal 1 or 2, though a trip cannot start there.

Now the arithmetic. On T-money, a transfer inside the time window costs nothing extra, so count journeys rather than rides. A three-day pass works out to about 3,333 won a day and beats card fares once you make three separate journeys daily. The five- and seven-day passes, at 3,000 and about 2,857 won a day, win at two journeys. The one-day pass needs four. Add the 3,000 won card and the verdict is clear: buy a five- or seven-day pass for a week of sightseeing, and stay on T-money for shorter stays. Refunds require a Korean bank account or a trip to Tmoney's headquarters, so treat the pass as spent.

Buy the pass at the newer vending machines in Line 1 to 8 stations, which accept foreign cards, or at the Myeongdong and Seoul Tourism Plaza tourist information centers, Line 1 to 8 customer service offices (cash only) and convenience stores near stations. Tmoney says the tourist pass is not sold at the airport, so your first ride into the city goes on T-money or a single ticket. Like T-money, a Climate Card is one card per person.

Your contactless bank card is not a ticket yet

Visitors used to tapping a Visa or Mastercard at a London or Singapore gate often try the same here. As of October 2026 it still does not work in Seoul. The city is moving toward EMV open-loop payments in stages through 2030, and in September 2026 Tmoney signed agreements with Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, JCB and Hana Card, naming Seoul city buses as the first target for next year. The agreement set no date for the subway. Until a launch is announced, keep your bank card out of the same sleeve as your T-money card so the reader does not get confused.

You will see Seoul residents tapping what look like ordinary bank cards. Those are Korean-issued credit cards with a built-in transit function, billed monthly, which the subway operator accepts alongside prepaid cards. Foreign cards do not have that function yet. The one place a foreign card helps today is the newer station machine, where it buys a single-journey ticket or a Climate Card pass without cash, at the cost of the service fee.

Transfers: the 30-minute window and the tap people forget

Changing lines inside the subway is free as long as you stay behind the gates. Between subway and bus, or bus and bus, you get the transfer discount when you board the next vehicle within 30 minutes of tapping off the last one; from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. the window stretches to 60 minutes. You can transfer up to four times, five rides in all, but reboarding the same bus route does not count. The combined trip is charged at the highest base fare among the modes you used plus distance charges beyond 10 km, and cash payers get no transfer discount at all.

On a bus you board at the front door and tap, then tap again on the reader by the middle or rear door before you step off. Tmoney calls forgetting that second tap the most common mistake foreign riders make: you lose the transfer discount and may be charged extra on your next ride. Bus colors tell you the type of route. Blue trunk buses run long distances on main roads, green branch buses connect neighborhoods to stations, yellow circular buses loop the center, and red express buses run to the suburbs for 3,000 won. Small green village buses (마을버스, maeul beoseu) cost 1,200 won.

For short hops between central sights, a bus that stops near a palace gate can beat a subway trip that involves long corridors, stairs and an exit climb, and you see the city on the way. For anything crossing the Han River or running more than a few kilometers through traffic, the subway's predictability wins, especially at rush hour. Your map app will compare both; when the times are close, take whichever leaves you nearer the entrance you actually want.

Exit numbers are the addresses that matter

Koreans give directions as a station plus an exit number, and you should too. Every exit is numbered, signs inside the station point to them, and choosing the right one can spare you a long detour around a wide boulevard. The palace offices publish exits in their own directions: Gyeongbokgung Station (Line 3) Exit 5 for Gyeongbokgung, two minutes on foot; Anguk Station (Line 3) Exit 3 for Changdeokgung, five minutes; City Hall Station (Lines 1 and 2) Exit 2 for Deoksugung, two minutes; Jongno 3-ga Station Exit 11 or 8 for Jongmyo, five minutes; and Hyehwa Station (Line 4) Exit 4 for Changgyeonggung, about 12 minutes.

Decide on your exit before you tap out. Large interchange stations have a dozen or more exits spread across several blocks, and surfacing on the wrong side can mean an underpass or a long wait at a crossing. The neighborhood maps posted near the gates show which landmarks sit above each exit. When you arrange to meet someone, 'Anguk Station, Exit 3' is a complete, unambiguous address in Seoul; 'Anguk Station' on its own is the start of a phone call.

Worked example: Changdeokgung to Deoksugung by subway

Suppose you leave Changdeokgung through its main gate, Donhwamun, at 11:40. You have two subway options. The obvious one is Anguk Station Exit 3, five minutes away, but from there you would ride Line 3 one stop and then change to Line 1 at Jongno 3-ga, adding a transfer to a short journey. The better move is to walk about ten minutes to Jongno 3-ga Station Exit 7, which the palace office lists as its second entrance option, and board Line 1 directly.

Inside Jongno 3-ga, tap in and follow the Line 1 signs to the platform for trains toward Seoul Station (서울역, Seoul-yeok). Ride two stops, past Jonggak, to City Hall (시청, Sicheong). The trip is well under 10 km, so the card fare is the 1,550 won base. Tap out, follow the signs for Exit 2, and Daehanmun, Deoksugung's main gate, is a two-minute walk away. Allow roughly 25 minutes door to door, which leaves room for lunch near City Hall before you go in.

Two checks make this pairing work. Both palaces close on Mondays, so plan it for Tuesday to Sunday. And order matters: Changdeokgung closes between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. depending on the season, with last entry an hour earlier, while Deoksugung's grounds stay open until 9 p.m. with last entry at 8 p.m. Doing Changdeokgung first means a long lunch or a slow afternoon costs you nothing, and Deoksugung's stone buildings look their best once the lights come on.

Last trains, Owl buses and small courtesies

The subway does not run all night. Last trains leave around midnight, and the exact time varies by line, direction and day of the week, so check the last departure from your station in your map app before an evening performance. After that, Seoul runs 14 overnight Owl bus routes, numbered with an N, from about 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., at 2,500 won by card. Seoul-licensed night buses are covered by the Climate Card, which makes a late return free if you hold a pass.

Etiquette on Seoul transit is mostly about space and noise. Let passengers off before you board and step clear of the doors. Seats at the ends of each car are set aside for older, disabled and pregnant riders, and many passengers leave them empty even when the car is full. Keep calls brief and quiet, take a large backpack off in a packed car, and hold on as soon as you board a bus, because drivers often pull away before everyone is seated.