Can you pay for BART without Clipper?

Soon, people using transit in the Bay Area will be able to pay using a credit card. Starting next year, Bay Area transit riders won't need a Clipper card to ride a train or ferry, and instead will be able to pass BART turnstiles or board Muni buses with the simple tap of a credit card.



As of 2026, you can finally pay for BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) fares without a physical or digital Clipper card. Following a system-wide upgrade in late 2025, BART now supports "Tap and Ride," allowing passengers to use any contactless credit or debit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or Discover) or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay directly at the fare gates. This is a significant shift for tourists and infrequent riders who previously had to navigate the Clipper ecosystem just for a single trip. While "Tap and Ride" provides the ultimate convenience, it defaults to the standard adult fare. If you are eligible for specific discounts—such as the Senior, Youth, or Clipper START (low-income) programs—you still need to use a registered Clipper card to receive those reduced rates. Additionally, if you plan to transfer between BART and other local transit agencies like Muni or Caltrain, a Clipper card may still offer better "transfer credit" benefits. For the average traveler heading from SFO to downtown San Francisco, however, a simple tap of your phone or bank card is now all that is required to board.

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Children 4 and under ride free but everyone else must have a Clipper card (a plastic card or in your digital wallet) or a BART paper ticket (no longer sold at stations except SFO) with funds loaded.

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A simple tap of a credit card will soon carry you everywhere within the BART or Muni system that a Clipper card currently does. With just the tap of a contactless debit or credit card, riders will be able to breeze through barriers on the two transit systems by the summer of next year.

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All BART Stations have Clipper vending machines which accept cash, credit cards and debit cards as payment. You can add cash value to Clipper cards at all BART ticket machines. Clipper cards can be ordered online at www.clippercard.com. Many retail outlets throughout the region also sell Clipper cards.

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BART makes it extremely easy to get a ticket from the San Francisco airport to downtown San Francisco. All you need to do is use one of the ticket vending machines to buy a one-way ticket for each passenger, which costs about $10.15 per person for a one-way ticket and $20.30 for a round trip.

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Using Clipper® on your mobile device is fast and easy – and you avoid the $3 fee for new plastic Clipper cards.

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Cards added using the Clipper app allows you to tag and pay with your phone. Value added to cards on your phone will be available to use immediately. You will be able to load value and transit passes to your card using the app, and then tag and pay with your plastic card.

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Whether you need to be connected for work or fun while riding BART, you'll find a mostly continuous mobile signal for you to text, talk and surf the web on your wireless phone from Balboa Park into downtown San Francisco, through the Transbay Tube and all throughout the Oakland underground as long as you are a customer ...

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The Clipper card is a smart, contactless travel card that can be used all over the Sasn Francisco Bay Area. Travelers, both residents and tourists, can add value to their card either as they go or automatically, depending on what works best for them.

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Can two people use the same card at the same time? No, every rider needs their own card or device (phone or watch) to pay for fares.

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Beginning November 30, 2023, paper tickets will no longer be accepted at BART. This change is occurring as BART begins to roll out new state of the art fare gates which will not accept paper tickets and as Clipper prepares for the launch of the next generation of Clipper.

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Transit Saves You Money The average BART fare is approximately $3.96. For the same price as one year of car ownership, you could take nearly 3,000 average trips on BART – or about seven trips a day. Use our Fare Calculator to determine the exact cost of your trip.

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