Beijing Subway Guide: Fares, Hours, Tickets and Key Lines

The Beijing subway is one of the largest in the world and, for visitors, one of the easiest to use: every station and train has English signage, announcements are bilingual, and fares are cheap. This page covers what you actually need on day one.

Fares and payment

Fares are distance-based, starting at CNY 3 for short trips and rarely exceeding CNY 7 within the city. You can pay with a transport card, buy single-journey tokens at machines, or use QR codes through Alipay / WeChat Pay / the official app.

Single journey tokens — Machines have an English option; touch your token at entry and drop it at the exit gate.
Transport card (Yikatong) — A refundable deposit card, useful if you are staying a while.
QR code entry — Fastest option once set up — scan at the gate, no queueing.

Paying as a foreign visitor: Tap-to-Go

Since 2025 you can tap a foreign Visa or Mastercard straight at the gate reader (Tap-to-Go) — no card to buy, no app, no Chinese phone number. If you prefer an app, open Alipay and use its transit mini-program to generate a QR ride code; WeChat Pay has one too. Single-journey paper tickets remain available at every station as a backup.

Tap a foreign card at the gate — Look for the contactless symbol on the reader; tap and walk through.
Alipay transit code — Open Alipay and search for the transit mini-program to show a QR code at the gate.
Keep a paper ticket as backup — Handy if your card is declined or the reader is offline.

Hours and frequency

Most lines run around 05:00 to 23:00, with trains every 2–5 minutes at peak. Airport Express and a few lines run later. Check the last train time for your specific station — they vary by up to 30 minutes.

Lines that matter for visitors

You do not need to learn 20+ lines. These cover almost everything:

Line 1 — Runs east–west through the centre: Tiananmen East, Wangfujing, Tiananmen West.
Line 2 — The loop line around the old city — Qianmen, Beijing Railway Station, Lama Temple.
Line 4 — Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan, Beijing South Railway Station.
Line 8 — North–south spine: Nanluoguxiang, Shichahai, Olympic Park.
Line 9 — Southwestern Beijing, including Guogongzhuang — interchange with the Fangshan Line.

Crowd timing: when the trains are unrideable

Beijing's subway crowding is not uniform across the day — it tracks office hours. The worst windows are roughly 07:30–09:00 and 17:30–19:30 on weekdays, especially on Lines 1, 5, 6, 10 and the Changping Line, where you may wait for two or three trains before the doors let anyone in. Tourist corridors behave differently: Line 4 toward Beigongmen and Yuanmingyuan, and Line 8 toward the Olympic park and Nanluoguxiang, stay busy all day but peak mid-morning and mid-afternoon with tour groups. If your schedule is flexible, ride between 10:00 and 16:00 or after 20:00, when you will almost always get a seat. Weekends are calmer at rush hour but busier around the big sights themselves — the trains to the Great Wall interchange points fill up before 09:00 on Saturdays. The metro app shows live congestion per station, which is worth a glance before you set out.

What a ticket does not cover — and common gate mistakes

A subway ticket covers only the metro network. Transfers to buses cost extra (also around CNY 2–10 depending on distance), and the Airport Express is priced separately, so do not assume one fare carries you from downtown to Daxing or the Capital Airport. Children under 1.3 metres ride free with an adult. The most common visitor mistakes at the gates: entering with luggage wider than the gap between gate flaps — use the wide, staffed 'accessible' gate on the left of most stations instead — and tapping a contactless card too slowly, which cancels the read; a firm tap on the reader, not a wave, works best. Also remember you must tap out, not just in: if you tap in but exit without a valid tap-out (for example on Tap-to-Go), the system may charge you a maximum fare or flag the account, and fixing it means queuing at a staff window with your passport.

Accessibility, luggage and late-night alternatives

Lifts and wide gates — Every station built after 2008 has lifts from street to platform, and staff will escort wheelchair users to a ramp between platform and train if you ask at the service window — allow 10–15 extra minutes.
Late trains are rare — Most lines end near 23:00 and do not extend for holidays. If you land at Daxing after 22:30, budget for a taxi (roughly CNY 120–160 to central Beijing) rather than trusting the last Airport Express.
Night bus fallback — A small network of night buses runs when the metro is shut; routes are numbered with a '夜' prefix, and fares are a flat CNY a few yuan — handy if a taxi queue is long.
Exit numbers matter — Stations can have 8+ exits spread over 200 metres. Note the exit letter/number printed on your map app before descending — choosing wrong can add a 10-minute surface walk.
Beware station closures — Exit stairwells and occasionally whole stations close without notice around big events or inspections; check the official Beijing Subway announcements on the day.

Riding tips

Security checks are routine — Bags go through scanners at every station. It is quick.
Avoid 08:00–09:30 and 18:00–19:30 with luggage — Carriages are genuinely packed.
Follow exit letters — Exits are labelled A, B, C, D — use the letter, not the street name.
Stand right on escalators — Left side is for walking.