Germany’s popular monthly transport ticket will soon cost more

The cost of Germany’s Deutschland-Ticket – a cheap transport pass – is set to rise by about 18 per cent next year, a senior official said on Monday.

The popular ticket, introduced last year, allows people to use all local and regional trains, buses and subway systems across the country for a set monthly fee.

Transport ministers from Germany’s 16 states agreed that the price of the Germany Ticket, which has cost €49 per month since it became available in May 2023, should rise to €58 at the beginning of 2025.

“With this price, we will manage to keep the ticket attractive and put the financing on a more solid footing,” Oliver Krischer, the transport minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, told German news agency dpa.

He said the decision shows that German regional authorities “want to stick to the successful model of the Germany Ticket and further develop it”.

Officials say ultra-low pricing isn’t financially viable

The Germany Ticket was intended to encourage people to ditch their cars in favour of more environmentally friendly forms of transportation.

It followed a successful experimental ticket offering unlimited travel for €9 per month that was offered for three months in the summer of 2022, as part of a government program to help combat high inflation and fuel prices.

Officials said that ultra-low price wasn’t financially viable. But it and the Germany Ticket had the added merit of simplifying for ticket holders a fractured public transit system in which individual regions offered myriad different fare options that baffled many travellers.

Around 13 million people in the country of some 83 million people use the Deutschland-Ticket.

Bavaria’s transport minister, Christian Bernreiter, said a price rise was “unavoidable” because sales were short of expectations, raising the prospect of a large financing shortfall next year.