Contactless is the best way to pay for travel on our buses! Adult passengers can benefit from discounted daily and weekly capping when using TapTapCap from as little as £4.80 per day and £22 per week. On Lothian city buses, just board and tap. On all other services, board and state your destination, then tap when prompted.
Contactless can also be used to pay for paper tickets without capping, so you can pay for a friend or family member using the same card/device.
For adult passengers, tap the same card or mobile payment device for every journey across our entire network, and the following morning we’ll automatically charge you the cheapest adult daily fare for the journeys you’ve made. On Lothian city buses, this is capped at £4.80 per day!
You’ll never pay more than you need to, even if your plans change.
Keep using the same card or device all week and once you’ve reached one of our weekly caps, which run from Monday to Sunday, you won’t pay any more for the rest of the week. On Lothian city buses, this is capped at £22.00 per week!
All you need to do is tap, wait for the beep, and take a seat!
Travelling on Airlink, Skylink, EastCoastbuses or Lothiancountry services? Remember to state your destination to the driver before tapping so you’re charged the correct fare. Daily and weekly capping applies to journeys on these services – fare details can be found on our Tickets page.
Please note that it normally takes a couple of working days for payments to appear on your bank statement. If you used a physical card to travel, you can view your journeys and payments for the past 7 days on our online portal.
You can also buy paper tickets using contactless – just advise the driver of the ticket(s) you want, wait to be prompted to tap your card/device (to avoid accidently registering a TapTapCap payment) and then take your paper ticket(s).
If you’re an adult using TapTapCap and want to pay for another ticket as well as your own, just tap your card to record your TapTapCap journey and then ask the driver for any other tickets you need, following the steps above.
Here are some of the questions we're commonly asked...
If you use a Mastercard, your bank statement may show a ‘pending’ 10p or £1 charge for your first tap. This is just a temporary charge to check the card is valid – payment isn’t collected. The time it takes to be returned to your available balance depends on your bank – most banks take a couple of working days, but some banks take up to 30 days.
“Why did you take payment at 3am – I wasn’t travelling at that time?”
This is payment for a previous day’s travel. When you tap your card, we don’t charge you immediately because we don’t know how much your daily fare will be at that point – your daily fare depends on any other journeys you might take that day/night. You’ll therefore be charged the cheapest fare for the journeys you’ve made in the early hours of the following day.
“My card/device was declined but a payment was taken minutes later?”
If your card was declined but you’ve seen a payment come out of your account shortly afterwards, this will have been payment for a previous journey that remained outstanding. By attempting to use your card on board, this triggers an attempt to collect the unpaid fare and – if successful – the fare will come out of your account and your card will be unblocked.
“How can I check TapTapCap journeys/payments?”
Visit our online card portal to view the journeys and payments you have completed with your payment card. Please note this is currently not available for mobile payment methods.
“I still need some help!”
If you can't find the answer to your query here, please get in touch with our contactless team by emailing [email protected].
Check out our FAQ Page for more information about TapTapCap and Contactless.
View our Contactless Conditions of Use here.