Hola Barcelona Travel Card: Is It Worth It vs T-casual and the Barcelona Card?

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What does the Hola Barcelona travel card include?

The Hola Barcelona Travel Card is TMB’s tourist transport pass. TMB runs Barcelona’s metro and city buses. The card gives unlimited travel for 24 to 120 consecutive hours. According to TMB and the Turisme de Barcelona shop (both checked 22 Oct 2026), it covers:

Zone 1 is wider than the city. TMB’s terms list Badalona, Barcelona, Castelldefels, Cornellà de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat, Gavà, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Montcada i Reixac, Montgat, El Prat de Llobregat, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Sant Just Desvern, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Viladecans.

The airport, in detail. The card includes “one metro journey from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to Barcelona and one return journey” on line L9 Sud, which stops at Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. Those two trips don’t need the €5.90 airport ticket. The airport is in El Prat de Llobregat, which is in zone 1. On our reading, TMB bus 46 (to Plaça Espanya), the NitBus N17 and N18 and the R2 Nord train from Terminal 2 are therefore covered like any other zone-1 journey. The Hola pages don’t say this outright, so ask at a TMB point if your plan depends on it.

If you want to ride the Montjuïc cable car or the hop-on hop-off bus, you need separate tickets. Our hop-on hop-off guide compares the two bus companies.

How much does it cost, and where is it cheapest?

TMB issues the card, and two official channels sell it online at different discounts:

All prices were checked on 22 Oct 2026. The regular prices come from TMB’s own catalogue and match the “regular price” shown by Turisme de Barcelona. They have applied since 1 January 2026.

*TMB’s product page shows only the 24-hour price (€11.25), but TMB’s online shop applies the same 10% to every duration: €16.83, €24.57, €32.04 and €39.24 (checked 23 Oct 2026).

Our honest take: we earn a commission if you buy through the tourism board’s shop, but holabarcelona.com, TMB’s own shop, is €0.93 to €2.18 cheaper per card. It is also the only online channel that sells the 24-hour card. The tourism board’s shop is worth using if you are already buying other tickets there or want to collect in person at a tourist office.

How does validity work: hours or days?

Hours. Both official sites say the same thing: the card runs for 48, 72, 96 or 120 consecutive hours from the first validation, and you can start at any time of day. Buying or collecting the card doesn’t start the clock.

This matters at both ends of a trip. Say you land at 3 pm on Thursday and tap in at the airport metro. A 72-hour card ends at 3 pm on Sunday. If your flight leaves at 7 pm on Sunday, your included return trip to the airport falls after the card has expired. We found nothing saying the airport trip survives expiry, so plan as if it doesn’t. You then have two options:

• 72-hour card plus a €5.90 airport ticket on Sunday: €25.94 + €5.90 = €31.84.
• 96-hour card: €33.82, so €1.98 more for hours you mostly won’t use.

An unused card does not stay valid forever. TMB says unvalidated cards expire on 28 February of the year after purchase. A voucher bought on holabarcelona.com is valid for 180 days.

Is it worth it compared with a T-casual?

The T-casual is the standard 10-journey ticket: €13 for zone 1 in 2026, plus €1 for the cardboard card if you don’t already have one. One “journey” includes up to three transfers within 75 minutes, so metro to bus to metro counts once. It is for one person at a time, and it doesn’t work at the airport metro stations. To reach the airport on a T-casual you need a €5.90 airport ticket for the metro, or you take the R2 Nord train or bus 46, which the T-casual does cover.

In all the maths below, we price the T-casual side the cheapest way: one T-casual (€14 with the card), then €2.90 single tickets for journeys 11 to 14, then a second T-casual (€13) from the 15th journey. Hola prices are the tourism board’s online prices. Each trip fits inside the card’s hours, and we assume three journeys a day.

Three realistic trips at three journeys a day

If you also pay for the Aerobús, add €7.75 per trip (online, checked 22 Oct 2026) to both columns. It doesn’t change which option is cheaper.

At four journeys a day, the Hola card wins whenever you use the airport metro

If you arrive and leave by Aerobús or taxi (no airport metro), the T-casual still wins at four journeys a day on every one of these trips: by €3.76, €6.14 and €6.82. If you use the R2 Nord train or bus 46 for the airport, those trips count against the T-casual too and the gap narrows (on the 3-day trip it falls to €0.34).

Break-even: how many journeys before the Hola card pays off

Count a journey as each time you set off somewhere, not each line you change to. Most visitors make three or four a day: hotel to sight, sight to sight, and back. Late nights add NitBus trips, which the Hola card covers and which use up T-casual journeys.

The maths isn’t everything. With the Hola card you don’t need to count journeys, there’s no 75-minute transfer limit and no airport ticket to buy at the machine. For some people that is worth a few euros.

Hola card vs Barcelona Card

The Barcelona Card bundles similar transport with free entry to more than 25 museums. On transport alone, the Hola card covers more and costs less:

Prices were checked on 22 Oct 2026. The Barcelona Card is worth it only if the free entries you will actually use are worth more than the price gap: €17.34 at 48 hours and €27.16 at 72 hours. Our Barcelona Card guide works through three itineraries. A Gaudí-focused trip usually loses money on it, because Sagrada Família and Park Güell aren’t included.

Who should buy it, and who should skip it

Buy the Hola card if:

• You fly in and out and will take the metro from the airport both ways. On a 2-day trip it is almost always cheaper.
• You will ride four or more times a day, or you will be out after the metro closes and need NitBus.
• You don’t want to count journeys, transfers or time limits.

Skip it if:

• You arrive by Aerobús, taxi, train or cruise ship, or you take the R2 Nord train or bus 46 to the airport. A T-casual is cheaper for most 2- to 4-day trips.
• Your hotel is central and you mostly walk.
• You are only in town for one day. The T-dia (€12, plus €1 for the card) also gives 24 hours and one airport return, and costs about the same as a 24-hour Hola card.

Children: do kids need a Hola card?

Children under 4 travel free and need no card. Neither official shop lists a child price, and TMB’s catalogue has no child version, so children aged 4 and over pay the adult price. A family of two adults and two children aged 6 and 9 pays 4 × €25.94 = €103.76 for 72 hours.

TMB’s fare list shows a free T-16 pass for ages 4 to 16. The city council’s page says it is only for children registered in one of the 296 municipalities of the integrated fare system, so visitors can’t get it. The T-casual also has no child price, so for children aged 4 and over the per-person maths above stays the same.

How to buy and collect it

1. Online from TMB (holabarcelona.com): 10% off, all five durations. You get a voucher code by email and swap it for the card at a ticket machine in any metro station, including the airport stations. You can get a refund until you redeem the voucher, within 180 days.
2. Online from the tourism board (Turisme de Barcelona shop): 5% off, 48 to 120 hours, with free cancellation. You get a voucher code to redeem at a metro ticket machine, or you can collect the card at a tourist office. Opening hours listed on 22 Oct 2026:
   • Airport T1 and T2, metro level: 8:30 am–2:30 pm
   • Airport T2: 8:30 am–7:30 pm
   • Plaça de Catalunya 17-S: 8:30 am–8:30 pm
   • Sagrada Família office: 8:30 am–8 pm
   • Plaça Espanya, the Columbus Monument and the red booth in front of El Corte Inglés (Plaça de Catalunya): 8:30 am–2:30 pm
3. In person, without the online discount: metro ticket machines (regular price), TMB customer service points (Punt TMB), the Hola Barcelona Store in the L3 lobby of Catalunya metro station, and tourist offices.

If you land after 2:30 pm at T1, the tourist office there is already closed. Swap the voucher at the L9 Sud ticket machine instead.

Hola card not working? Common problems and fixes

• You are using the voucher, not the card. The emailed code doesn’t open gates. Swap it at a metro ticket machine first.
• Where to tap. Hold the card against the contactless symbol on the validator. On buses, a green light and a soft beep mean the card is valid. A red light and a loud beep mean it was rejected. In the metro, the gate simply won’t open.
• Second airport trip. Only one metro trip from the airport and one back are included. For a third trip, buy a €5.90 airport ticket, or take bus 46 or the R2 Nord train.
• The hours have run out. The card stops working at the same clock time it started, two to five days later.
• Someone else is using it. A card can’t be used by two people at the same time.
• Damaged or unreadable card. If a card in good condition won’t read, ask metro staff or a TMB customer service point to exchange it. TMB won’t replace cards damaged in other ways. Keep the card until you leave the station, because staff may ask to see it.
• T-casual at the airport. If a travel companion is on a T-casual, the L9 Sud gates at the terminals will reject it. That is a rule of the ticket, not a fault.

Alternatives worth knowing

The T-usual is personal and loads onto a personalised T-mobilitat card, which costs €4.50. We haven’t confirmed how a visitor registers for one, so check with TMB before you rely on it for a long stay. For all passes and city cards, see the bus and passes hub.

How we checked this page

• Official pages read on 22 Oct 2026: the Hola Barcelona Travel Card page in the Turisme de Barcelona shop (thisisbarcelona.com), for prices, inclusions, collection points and hours; TMB’s Hola Barcelona Travel Card page and fares page (tmb.cat); TMB’s Hola Barcelona shop and its terms of use (holabarcelona.com); ATM’s T-casual, T-dia and “getting from the airport” pages (atm.cat); the Barcelona Card and Aerobús pages in the Turisme de Barcelona shop; and the city council’s T-16 page (lesmevesajudes.barcelona.cat, read through a summary tool).
• Prices: the regular prices for each duration come from the fare catalogue that holabarcelona.com loads from TMB (prices active since 1 January 2026). The TMB online prices for 48 to 120 hours come from the online-discount list the same site loads (10% off every duration, checked 23 Oct 2026); its product page displays only the 24-hour price (€11.25).
• Our own work: all the T-casual comparisons, the break-even table and the hours example.
• Our reading, not stated by TMB: that bus 46, NitBus N17/N18 and the R2 Nord train to the airport count as ordinary zone-1 journeys on the Hola card.
• Not first-hand yet: nobody on our team has bought, collected or used the card. We haven’t tested the voucher swap at an airport machine, timed the tourist-office pickup, checked which gates at Rodalies or FGC stations read the card, or taken photos.