Taipei is well connected via the Taipei metro and being a capital city, I assumed the Taipei metro payment process would be similar to those in London, where you can use your contactless payment card to tap in and out, or like in Hong Kong, where you purchase an Octopus Card but can still make digital payments through Apple Pay on your phone. Unfortunately, I found the Taipei metro system to be a little behind the times, and while there is reports online of improving the system by 2025 so you can pay for metro trains by card, at the moment this is not the case.
Each time I researched how to pay for Taipei metro (also known as Taipei MRT), I was given a lot of instructions that just made me close my laptop and put ‘getting around Taipei’ on my ‘I’ll look at this later’ list. However, navigating the Taipei metro and how to pay for the Taipei metro it’s not overly complicated once you’ve gotten your head around it. Hopefully by reading further you’ll get a fuller understanding of the options available to you and which one suits you best. Below I’ll explain the two main ways to make payment on the Taipei metro, the pros and cons of both options, and the reason why I chose my option as I was only in Taipei for a short time (4 full days).
Suggested read: Elephant Mountain: How to find Taipei’s most Instagrammable photo spot
Taipei Metro – Cash or EasyCard
The main question you need to ask yourself when visiting Taipei is do you want to use cash or an EasyCard.
EasyCard
An EasyCard is like the London’s Oyster Card or Brisbane’s Go Card, where you can preload money onto the card and then use it to tap in and out of the Taipei metro. The EasyCard can also be used at selected convenience stores, which can be helpful to use up any excess money on there. You have to purchase an EasyCard and this purchase price is non-refundable. When I visited in December 2023, the EasyCard was 120NTD which is about £3/$6AUD, which isn’t expensive overall, but it is in comparison to when you look at how much individual metro trips cost and if you’re only staying in Taipei for a short time.
Cash
Taipei metro stations accept cash for tickets. You can purchase a ticket at the machines at the station, and below I’ll cover exactly how this is done. While it is a bit of an old school fashion way of doing it, it is actually very easy to do and doesn’t take very long. While you receive a discount when paying for the metro by the EasyCard, I found that when I travelled to most places across Taipei (for example from the Taipei Main Station to Songshan or Xiangshan (suggested read: Elephant Mountain: How to find Taipei’s most Instagrammable photo spot) tickets purchased by cash were only 25NTD, which is about £0.60/$1.20AUD per journey.
Taipei is a very cash friendly city
As a result of Taipei being very cash friendly, getting cash out is essential if you want to eat in any of the markets and in most restaurants. Although the EasyCard is accepted in convenience stores, it is not the default payment system everywhere and therefore when I realised that I was going to be getting cash out anyway to use an EasyCard, that swayed me towards paying for the Taipei metro with cash rather than buying an EasyCard.
It depends how many Taipei Metro trips you think you’ll make
Over the course of the 4 full days (Saturday-Thursday) I was in Taipei, I stayed in two very well located walkable areas (in Songshan and near the Taipei Metro Station) so I only used the Taipei Metro four times, which equalled 100NTD for all trips. Had I bought an EasyCard, rather than paid with cash, I would have paid about 205NTD (even with the EasyCard discount on each metro trip).
Please note, you can use the EasyCard or cash to pay for the bus trip from Taipei to Jiufen so if you are planning on taking public transport there. For more information, see: The easiest way to get to Jiufen from Taipei by yourself.
Keeping all in check of course, we are not talking about a lot of money compared to western countries. For example, travelling on the London tube, I often would hit the £9.60/$19AUD price cap, which is 300NTD for just one day of tube travel.
It also comes down to convenience
The EasyCard can be purchased at Taipei metro stations as well as convenience stores across the city (and they really are all across the city – there are so many of them!) whereas if you’re paying cash for the Taipei metro you have to purchase your ticket at the stations. While the EasyCard overall is more convenient, the Taipei metro ticketing system, while its outdated, is pretty simple to use. Which I’ll get into below so you have a better idea of what to expect when you arrive.
How to buy a ticket for the Taipei Metro using cash
Arrive at your metro station and look out for the ticket machines. They’re often just before the barriers to enter the platforms. Above the ticket machine there is a metro map, which shows all the different locations you can travel to from the Taipei metro station you are currently at.
Look at the map and find the Taipei metro station destination you are going to. Underneath that Taipei metro station will be a number, that’s the price of the fare to travel to that station from the station you are currently in.
Click ‘Single Journey Ticket’ then choose the number option on screen. You also have the ability to buy more than one ticket for that price. I kept it simple and just bought one ticket for each journey I was taking at the time.
These machines only accept coins or 100NTD notes and don’t accept card payment – which is another sign of the Taipei metro system being very outdated. They do give change though if you don’t have the exact amount in cash. Once you do deposit the money, you’ll receive your ticket – which is a token rather than a paper ticket.
Use this token at the entry barrier by tapping it to the same spot as others tap their EasyCard (this got me the first time I used it because I assumed there would be a slot for me to put it into!). On exit, you do put the token into a slot in the exit barrier, which swallows it up and returns it to be reused by the Taipei metro.
While paying for the Taipei metro in cash was a more time consuming process than tapping on with the EasyCard, because I knew I wasn’t going to be jumping on and off the Taipei metro and was only there for a short time, it didn’t bother me.
Contactless is available on the Taipei Airport train
For those coming into Taipei from the Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, you’ll be happy to know that the Taipei Airport train system has been upgraded and allows for contactless payments. So if you are just coming into the Taipei Main Station area on a layover from the airport, I’m sorry you got this far down into this blog before finding out, you’ve got easy – just tap your card and go!
Please note this blog is written as guidance only based on my own experience (I am not an expert). Things may have changed between publishing and when you read it but I hope you can use this as a general and simple overview to better understand how to get around Taipei on short visits to the Taiwan capital.
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