Getting Around Madrid: Metro & Buses
Madrid makes this easy. The Metro is dense enough that you’re rarely more than a ten-minute walk from a station, it runs late, and you can go weeks here without needing a car. The one thing worth doing before you land is deciding how you’re paying for it, because the ticket machines have more options than you need and it’s easy to buy the wrong one.
The card you actually need
Every fare in Madrid runs through the Tarjeta Multi, a reusable plastic card that costs €2.50 and holds whatever ticket you load onto it — it is not itself a ticket. Buy one from any Metro station machine on arrival; it’s a one-off cost, non-refundable, and one card works for the whole trip.
Once you have the card, load it with either single rides (€1.50–€2.00, rising with the number of zones you cross) or the Metrobús, a bundle of 10 journeys for about €12.20 that works on both Metro and city buses and can be shared between two or three people on the same card. For a stay of four days or more doing a lot of moving around, the Metrobús works out cheaper than singles almost every time. Crossing into or out of either airport station adds a flat €3.00 supplement on top of whatever fare you’re using — it catches nearly everyone the first time and nobody the second.
Trains run roughly 06:00 to 01:30. There’s no all-night Metro service.
For which station sits closest to a specific museum or landmark, the Madrid Metro guide has the nearest stop for every attraction on this site, plus which lines actually connect to which.
Buses fill the gaps
The orange EMT buses cover routes the Metro doesn’t reach directly, use the same Tarjeta Multi, and are the more scenic option if you don’t mind the extra time. After the Metro shuts down, the night network — the Búho buses — takes over, radiating out from Puerta del Sol and Plaza de Cibeles roughly every half hour until the Metro reopens.
Walking covers more than you’d think
Central Madrid is compact enough that a lot of visitors barely use transport at all once they’re in the old core. Sol, Plaza Mayor, Gran Vía, the Barrio de las Letras and El Retiro sit within roughly fifteen to twenty minutes of each other on foot, and walking between them is often faster than working out a Metro connection for one or two stops. Save the card for longer hops — Chueca to Casa de Campo, say, or anything involving the airport.
Taxis, ride-hailing, and bikes
Madrid’s taxis are white with a diagonal red stripe, metered, and easy to hail on the street or find at a rank near any major plaza — you don’t need to book one in advance the way you might in some cities. Uber and Cabify both operate normally here and tend to run a little cheaper than a street taxi for longer trips, though a licensed taxi is usually just as fast for anything inside the centre.
BiciMAD, the city’s bike-share system, has docking stations across the centre and works on a phone app with pay-as-you-go or short-term passes. It’s a reasonable way to cover Madrid Río or the longer stretches of Casa de Campo, less so in the old town, where the streets are narrow, cobbled, and full of pedestrians who won’t see you coming.
The airport
Madrid–Barajas (MAD) connects to the centre two ways: Metro Line 8 reaches Nuevos Ministerios in about 30 minutes (plus the €3 supplement above), or the Airport Express bus runs 24 hours a day to Atocha and Cibeles and is the better option late at night when the Metro has stopped. A taxi from the airport to the centre runs a fixed flat rate rather than the meter, which is worth knowing so you’re not negotiating on arrival.
For day trips out of the city
None of the above gets you to Toledo, Segovia, Ávila or El Escorial — those run on Renfe’s Cercanías and long-distance network, departing from Atocha or Chamartín rather than the Metro, and they’re worth planning as their own outing rather than an extension of a city day. See day trips from Madrid for the full breakdown of train versus coach for each.
