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The Oyster card is a payment method for public transport in London and some surrounding areas. A standard Oyster card is a blue credit-card-sized stored-value contactless smart card. It is promoted by Transport for London (TfL) and can be used as part of London's integrated transport network on travel modes including London Buses, London Underground, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Overground, Tramlink, some river boat services, and most National Rail services within the London fare zones. Since its introduction in June 2003, more than 86 million cards have been used.
Oyster cards can hold period tickets, travel permits and, most commonly, credit for travel ("Pay as you go"), which must be added to the card before travel. Passengers touch it on an electronic reader when entering – and in some cases when leaving – the transport system in order to validate it, and where relevant, deduct funds from the stored credit. Cards may be "topped-up" by continuous payment authority, by Online shopping, at credit card terminals or by cash, the latter two methods are available at stations and convenience stores. The card is designed to reduce the number of transactions at ticket offices and the number of paper tickets. Cash payment has not been accepted on London buses since 2014.
The card was first issued to the public on 30 June 2003, (2026). 9781854143419, Capital Transport. ISBN 9781854143419 with a limited range of features; further functions were rolled out over time. By June 2012, over 43 million Oyster cards had been issued and more than 80% of all journeys on public transport in London were made using the card.
From September 2007 to 2010, the Oyster card functionality was tried as an experiment on Barclaycard contactless bank cards. Since 2014, the use of Oyster cards has been supplemented by contactless credit and debit cards as part of TfL's "Future Ticketing Programme". TfL was one of the first public transport providers in the world to accept payment by contactless bank cards (after, in Europe, the tramways and buses of Nice, which started accepting NFC bank cards and smartphone on 21 May 2010), the widespread adoption of contactless in London has been credited to this. TfL is now one of Europe's largest contactless merchants, with around 1 in 10 contactless transactions in the UK taking place on the TfL network in 2016.
However, the Upass smartcard of the South Korean capital Seoul was eventually the first to implement this technology on a wide scale, at the end of 1995, eight years before London did the same with the "Oyster card". In the UK, the first smartcard publicly rolled out was the EasyRider in the city of Nottingham in 2000.
In August 2008, following a number of technical failures, TfL decided to exercise a break option in the contract to terminate it in 2010, five years early. However, TfL stated that the contractual break was to reduce costs, not connected to the system failures. In November 2008, a new contract was announced between TfL and Cubic and EDS for two of the original consortium shareholders to run the system from 2010 until 2013.
The intellectual property rights to the Oyster brand originally belonged to TranSys. Following the renegotiation of the operating contract in 2008, TfL sought to retain the right to use the Oyster brand after the termination of its partnership with TranSys, eventually acquiring the rights to the brand in 2010 at a cost of £1 million.
MIFARE Classic chips, on which the original Oyster card was based, are hard-wired logic smartcards, meaning that they have limited computing power designed for a specific task. The MIFARE DESFire chips used on the new Oyster card are CPUs with much more sophisticated security features and more complex computation power. They are activated only when they are in an electromagnetic field compatible with ISO/IEC 14443 type A, provided by Oyster readers. The readers read information from the cards, calculate whether to allow travel, assess any fare payable and write back information to the card. Some basic information about the MIFARE Classic or MIFARE DESFire chip can be read by any ISO/IEC 14443 type A compatible reader, but Oyster-specific information cannot be read without access to the encryption used for the Oyster system. While it has been suggested that a good reader could read personal details from a distance, there has been no evidence of anyone being able to decrypt Oyster information. By design, the cards do not carry any personal information. Aluminum shielding has been suggested to prevent any personal data from being read.
Oyster uses a distributed settlement framework. All transactions are settled between the card and reader alone. Readers transmit the transactions to the back office in batches but there is no need for this to be done in real time. The back office acts mainly as a record of transactions that have been completed between cards and readers. This provides a high degree of resilience.
In 2008, a fashion caught on for removing the RFID chip from Oyster cards and attaching it to wrist watches and bracelets. This allowed commuters to pass through the gates by "swiping" their hand without the need to take out a proper card. Although the RFID chips were charged in the normal way and no fare evasion was involved, TfL disapproved of the practice and threatened to fine anyone not carrying a full undamaged card, although it is not clear what the actual offence would be, were a case to be brought.
In early 2007, TfL and Deloitte worked to migrate the on-line payment systems to a more open architecture, using a number of open source components such as Linux, to resolve issues of Vendor lock-in costs, updates, incorporation of new security standards of PCI DSS, non-scalability, low and inconsistent quality of service, and slower response time to business changes.
As well as the £7 fee for the card, a minimum purchase of £5 credit or a week Travelcard or Bus & Tram Pass is necessary at point of issue.
Visitor Oyster cards can be obtained from Visit Britain outlets around the world, and from other transport operators, such as EasyJet and Gatwick Express, online, and from any ticket office. However, these limited-functionality cards cannot be registered. Any remaining credit on the card is refundable upon return of the card; the £5 price of the card is not refunded.
Oyster cards were initially free, but a refundable deposit of £3 was subsequently introduced in May 2009, then increased to £5 in January 2011. Deposits and unused credit may be refunded by posting the card to TfL; refunds are available by cheque in pounds sterling, by bank transfer to a UK account, as credit to another Oyster card, or as a TfL web account voucher. Customers must provide proof of identity and address for refunds exceeding £15. Refunds of up to £10, including the deposit, can alternatively be claimed in cash at London Underground ticket machines. Although the £5 deposit was intended to cover the cost of the card itself, ticket machines have no facility to retain the card, so customers completing a refund transaction remain in possession of a deactivated Oyster card. For cards issued since February 2020, the £5 deposit was replaced by a card fee, which is credited to the card after the first transaction made more than a year after issue. On 4 September 2022, the card fee increased to £7 and became non-refundable. On 7 September 2025, the card issue fee was raised to £10.
Unregistered cards can only be loaded with credit to use at adult pay as you go rates, and adult 7 day Travelcards.
Ticket vending machines on most National Rail stations will top-up Oyster cards and sell tickets that can be loaded on to Oyster. New Oyster cards are not available at most National Rail stations. At several main line termini, TfL runs Travel Information Centres, which do sell Oyster cards.
The Oyster Online service can also deliver regular Travel Statements via email.
On request, TfL can provide a complete eight-week touch history for registered and protected Oyster cards, but records are not available for any earlier period. Oyster online also displays up to 8 weeks of journey history.
An Oyster card can hold up to three season tickets at the same time. Season tickets are Bus & Tram Passes or Travelcards lasting 7 days, 1 month, or any duration up to one year (annual).
Travelcards are valid on all Underground, Overground, DLR, bus, tram and national rail services within the zones purchased. See the main article for a fuller explanation of . Tube, DLR and London Overground Travelcards may be used on buses in all zones. Trams may also be used if the travelcard includes Zones 3, 4, 5 or 6.
Although TfL asks all Oyster users to tap their card at entry/exit points of their journey, in practice Travelcard holders only need to "touch in" and "touch out" to operate ticket barriers or because they intend to travel outside the zones for which their Travelcard is valid. As long as the Travelcard holder stays within their permitted zones no fare will be deducted from the pay-as-you-go funds on the card. The Oyster system checks that the Travelcard is valid in the zones it is being used in.
In May 2006 TfL and the Department for Transport agreed a £20 million funding package for train operators to install the equipment necessary to accept PAYG at all London stations. The package was not taken up by any train operating companies and in September 2006, the South West Trains franchise was renewed by the Department for Transport with the condition that smartcard ticketing must be in place by 2009. In November 2007 the metro routes operated by Silverlink were brought under the control of TfL and operated under the brand name London Overground, accepting Oyster PAYG.
A necessary precursor of the acceptance of Oyster PAYG was the introduction of zonal single fares on the National Rail network in London; this was implemented in January 2007. Also in January, the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone announced that he required operators to sign up by 31 January 2007 in order to receive the funding package offer. c2c and Chiltern Railways accepted the deal and on 31 January 2007, a commitment was made by ATOC, in principle, that all other operators would eventually accept the PAYG product. According to ATOC, roll-out plans were subject to the installation of suitable ticket gates and back office equipment at all 330 stations. It was expected that by February 2009 TfL would announce plans for all suburban trains to accept the card. In May 2009 London TravelWatch indicated it had discovered that the works were unlikely to be completed until 2010. On 23 November 2009 the GLA announced that from 2 January 2010 the vast majority of rail services in Greater London would accept Oyster PAYG.
When Oyster cards were introduced, the PAYG system was initially named "pre pay", and this name is still sometimes used by National Rail. TfL officially refers to the system as "pay as you go" in all publicity.
The validity of PAYG has a more complex history as it has only been gradually accepted by transport operators independent of TfL. Additionally, the use of PAYG differs across the various modes of transport in London, and passengers are sometimes required to follow different procedures to pay for their journey correctly.
It is possible to have a negative pay-as-you-go balance after completing a journey, but this will prevent the card from being used (even if it is loaded with a valid Travelcard) until the card is topped up.
An example journey is Watford Junction to Richmond, which costs £12.50 peak and £9.00 off-peak by default, which is assumed to be via Zone 1. If travelling on a route outside Zone 1 via , the fares are £4.80 and £2.20 respectively, which can be charged correctly if the Oyster card is validated at the pink validator when changing trains at Willesden Junction.
Another example journey where a pink reader reduces the fare for non-Zone 1 travel, is Willesden Junction to Wimbledon, where the default fare costs £3.40 peak and £2.90 off-peak, but a touch at West Brompton will reduce the fare to £2.10 peak and £1.90 off-peak, as it suggests that the journey is made wholly on TfL services instead of using a National Rail service between Clapham Junction and Wimbledon.
Passengers enter or exit most London Underground stations through ticket barriers which are operated by scanning an Oyster card or inserting a valid ticket. Some tube stations (such as those at National Rail interchanges) and DLR stations have standalone validators with no barriers. In both instances, pay-as-you-go users are required to touch in and out.
Cash payment has not been accepted on London buses since 6 July 2014, with TfL heavily promoting the use of a contactless card or Oyster card. All major cards which carry the 'contactless symbol' are accepted, as is payment by mobile phone payment app. As London buses do not accept cash payments, TfL introduced a "one more journey" incentive on Oyster cards allowing passengers to take a bus if their cards do not have enough credit to pay for a journey (but not a negative balance). This may lead to a negative balance until the card is topped up later. When using the 'one more journey' feature, customers receive an emergency fare advice slip to acknowledge that the Oyster 'One More Journey' feature has been used and to remind them that their card needs to be topped up before another journey can be made. It was estimated in 2014 that by eliminating cash from buses, TfL would save £103m by the year 2023, to be reinvested into the capital.
Some London bus routes cross outside the Greater London boundary before reaching their terminus. Pay-as-you-go users are permitted to travel the full length of these routes on buses operated as part of the London Bus network, even to destinations some distance outside Greater London.
A more complex arrangement exists at Wimbledon station; tram passengers starting their journey there must pass through ticket gates in order to reach the tram platform, and therefore need to touch their Oyster card to open the barriers. They must then touch their Oyster card once again on the card reader on the Tramlink platform to confirm their journey as a tram passenger. Tram passengers arriving in Wimbledon must not touch out on the card reader on the Tramlink platform, but must touch-out to exit via the station gates. If the card is touched on the platform, the touch-out at the gate would be seen as a touch-in and cause the maximum fare to be charged to the card.
Examples include transferring between the Jubilee line at Canary Wharf and the DLR where Oyster card holders must tap their card at the ticket barriers in the Tube station, and then touch in on the validator at the DLR station. Balham (National Rail) to/from Balham (Tube) is another OSI, as is Camden Town (Tube) to/from Camden Road (London Overground). Failure to touch in or out on the validators in these circumstances will incur a maximum fare. In some cases (e.g. at West Hampstead NR stations) the OSI replicates interchanges which have existed for several decades before the invention of the Oyster system but were generally used with season tickets rather than day tickets.
Out-of-station interchanges can be temporary or permanent. A temporary arrangement may exist between two stations at short notice (routinely during weekend work but also when an emergency closure occurs). The two journeys that result are only charged as a single journey.
Top-ups made online, via the app, or through the helpline are available after 30 minutes and are loaded when you touch in or out during a normal journey at any station or on any bus, with no need to select a specific station or wait until the next day, as was previously required.
For further information on recharging and renewals, see the section on Renewals in this article.
Once the balance on the card has fallen below the £20 threshold, £10, £20 or £40 is added to the balance automatically when the Oyster card is touched on an entry validator. A light on the Oyster reader flashes to indicate the Auto top-up has taken place and an email is sent to confirm the transaction. Payment is then taken from the registered debit or credit card within 2 to 3 days. Should payment fail due to the bank declining to authorise the payment, the Oyster card could be hotlisted (blocked) unless payment is settled.
To ensure successful transactions, customers must record any changes to their billing address and update their debit or credit card details as necessary. Failure to do so will hotlist the card as above and customers are not reimbursed the fee to purchase a new Oyster card
A replacement for lost or stolen cards costs £10 and involves applying for a replacement card online or by calling the Oyster helpline. A new photograph is not required. The funds and remaining travelcard is transferable to a new student Oyster photocard.
Since 8 September 2006, students at some London universities have been able to apply for their 18+ Oyster photocard online by uploading a digital photograph and paying with a credit or debit card.
London residents who are over 60 but who do not qualify for a Freedom Pass can obtain a similar 60+ Oyster Card for a single fee. The outer boundary of the area in which Freedom Passes and 60+ Oyster Cards can be used is mostly the same as the area within which ordinary Oyster Cards and contactless payment cards can be used,'London Connections' map published jointly by TfL and National Rail. but does not extend to some Oyster-supported stations far from central London. Details may vary from time to time, and can be determined by comparing the current Pay-As-You-Go map and Freedom Pass map.
A Freedom Pass is also an English National Concessionary Bus Pass and provides travel on local buses throughout England. (Concessionary bus passes from other areas look the same as Freedom Passes, but are not additionally marked "Freedom Pass".) The 60+ Oyster card, however, is not valid for concessionary travel outside Greater London. This is because the concessionary bus travel scheme supported by the Freedom Pass is centrally funded by government and covers all of England, but the Oyster 60+ (and the Freedom Pass's validity on Tube, tram and rail networks) is funded by the Greater London Authority.
In 2005, Transport for London shortlisted two financial services suppliers, Barclaycard and American Express, to add e-money payment capability to the Oyster card. Barclaycard was selected in December 2006 to supply the card, but the project has since been shelved.
Certain limitations remain on National Rail, however.
Heathrow Express accepts Oyster pay as you go since 19 February 2019.
In November 2007, the metro routes operated by Silverlink were brought under the control of TfL and operated under the brand name London Overground. From the first day of operation, Oyster PAYG became valid on all Overground routes.
Since 2010, some stations both outside the London fare zones and outside the TfL network have started accepting Oyster Cards, starting with the c2c stations to , and has been expanded progressively to , , , , , , , , and . The final expansion of the Oyster area occurred in August 2019, since then, new stations have been added only to the contactless area, but not Oyster.
The pricing system is fairly complex, and changes from time to time. The most up to date fares can be found on Transport for London's FareFinder website.
The single Oyster fare for a bus or tram journey is £1.75, although the Hopper fare rules allow unlimited bus and tram journeys within one hour of first touching in for no additional cost. (To allow for disputes over clock settings, the system uses a time limit of 62 minutes.) Passengers need to touch in using the same card on all the bus and tram journeys made and any free fares are applied automatically.
Using PAYG, a single trip on the tube within zone 1 costs £2.80 peak / £2.70 off-peak (compared to £6.70 if paid by cash). Tube journeys within any other single zone cost £1.90 at peak times and £1.80 off peak (£6.70 for cash at any time). Journeys in multiple zones are progressively more expensive.
However, even for journeys passing through the same zones, the price may be different depending on the actual line(s) used. For example, a journey from Willesden Junction to Wimbledon has 5 different routes, 3 of them involving travel between zones 1-3 and 2 of them within zones 2-3 only, defined in the route database. If travel is made by changing at onto the District line by touching the pink reader there, the fare charged is only £2.10 peak / £1.90 off-peak, while if a touch is not made there, travel is assumed to be via onto the South Western Railway which is on a more expensive fare scale than the tube even though the trips are within the same zones. Similarly, travelling via zone 1 is more expensive if a change onto the South Western Railway is made at compared to using the tube all the way from via Earl's Court.
Travel to Heathrow Airport via Elizabeth line is more expensive than going via the tube even though both the tube and the Elizabeth line stations are in zone 6.
For every possible journey, there is a default route, possibly with other routes distinguished by intermediate touches, in the fare database. Each route has an associated "zones travelled" label which are the zones assumed to be travelled through. When touching out at a reader, the system looks up the appropriate route from the database according to the touches, which is the default route if no intermediate touches are made or if they don't match any of the alternative routes, to charge the correct fare, and to record the assumed zones travelled into the card for capping purpose.
The zoned fare system under which Oyster operates inevitably gives rise to some quirks in the fares charged. A 21 stop journey between Stratford and Clapham Junction on the overground is charged at £1.90 at peak times (£1.80 off peak) whereas a 1 stop journey between Whitechapel and Shoreditch High Street on the overground costs £2.80 peak or £2.70 off-peak. This occurs because Whitechapel to Shoreditch High Street uses zone 1 and zone 2, as Shoreditch High Street is in zone 1 only, whereas the entire Stratford to Clapham Junction line runs in zone 2 only.London Tube map Published Dec 2018 The cash fare is £6.70 in both cases and at all times. Similar anomalies are a feature of zoned fare systems worldwide.
There are 3 different caps in use: all-day cap (valid from 04:30 weekdays to 04:29 the next day on all rail, tram and bus services), off-peak cap (valid from 09:30 weekdays / 04:30 weekends to 04:29 the next day on all rail, tram and bus services) and bus & tram cap (valid from 04:30 to 04:29 the next day on buses and trams only). For both the all-day cap and off-peak cap, the respective zones travelled are recorded onto the card.
The Oyster system supports up to 15 zones. Stations which are not officially in zones 1-9 are allocated to the unpublicised zones, denoted A-E in hexadecimal (or 10-14 in denary), such as .
Because of how the price capping works, it can sometimes result in overcharging compared to using multiple Oyster cards. For example, if one takes a journey from zone 6 all the way to zone 1, then takes multiple journeys within zones 1-2, the system will charge for the journeys until the zone 1-6 cap is reached even though it may be cheaper to charge a zone 1-2 cap combined with a single fare from zone 6 because zone 1-6 travel is already recorded on the card. Contactless users don't suffer from this problem as fare calculation is done at the backend after the day of travel, where the cheapest combination of fares is charged. TfL is working on a similar system for Oyster as well such that overcharged fares may be refunded afterwards. Testing the new Oyster capping The complex interaction between single fares and the various caps may also mean that, by deliberately taking an extra bus journey, the total fare for the day may be reduced. Capping Examples - Oyster Fares Central
Price capping does not apply to PAYG fares on Heathrow Express, Gatwick Express, London River Services boats and on Southeastern high speed train services.
For journeys partially within the Travelcard coverage, an extension fare, corresponding to the extra zones used, is charged from the PAYG balance. If the PAYG balance is negative, the Oyster card can no longer be used for travel even within the zones covered until it is restored to zero or above by topping up.
This was originally the result of a deal between Transport for London and Petróleos de Venezuela to provide fuel for London Buses at a 20% discount. In return, Transport for London agreed to open an office in the capital Caracas to offer expertise on town planning, tourism, public protection and environmental issues. The deal with Venezuela was ended by Mayor Boris Johnson shortly after he took office, and the Bus and Tram Discount photocard scheme closed to new applications on 20 August 2008; Johnson said that "TfL will honour the discount on until the six-month time periods on cards have run out".
The Bus and Tram Discount Scheme reopened on 2 January 2009, this time funded by London fare payers. The scheme has been extended to people receiving Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and to those receiving Jobseeker's Allowance for 13 weeks or more.
Users must touch in and out even if the ticket barriers are open. At stations without ticket barriers where Oyster is accepted, an Oyster validator is provided for touching in and out.
The system allows starting a journey if the balance of the card is at least the minimum fare from the station, which may be 0 if the card reaches a cap or if the station is within the zones covered by a Travelcard. However the maximum fare is deducted upon entry which may bring the balance to negative at this point. An Oyster Rail Journey
Maximum Oyster fares may be contested by telephone to the Oyster helpline on 0343 222 1234 or via email. This involves providing the Oyster card number and the relevant journey details; further journeys appearing on the card are helpful to validate the user's claim.
If the claim is accepted then the maximum Oyster fare minus the cost of the journey will be refunded. This is credited to the card the next time it is used on a journey. The only way to collect a refund is as part of an actual journey, otherwise a further maximum fare is charged. This is because when the passenger touches the reader with their Oyster card, not only will the refund go on to the card, but a new journey will start.
Refunds become available to collect within 30 minutes. There is no longer a requirement to nominate a specific station from which to collect the refund.
Customers claiming a refund must do so within 8 weeks of the overcharge.
Oyster users who do not touch in before making a journey may be liable to pay a penalty fare (£80) and/or reported for prosecution if caught by a revenue protection inspector.
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Several rail companies have accepted London Underground single fares because they duplicate London Underground routes, and they adopted the Oyster PAYG on those sections of the line which run alongside the Underground. When TfL took over the former Silverlink Metro railway lines, PAYG was rolled out on the first day of operation of London Overground. As a consequence, some rail operators whose services run parallel to London Overground lines were forced to accept PAYG, although only after some initial hesitation.
Examples of these services include London Midland trains from to and Southern trains to .
The process of persuading the various rail firms involved a long process of negotiation between the London Mayors and train operating companies. In 2005 Ken Livingstone (then Mayor of London) began a process of trying to persuade National Rail train operating companies to allow Oyster PAYG on all of their services within London, but a dispute about ticketing prevented this plan from going ahead. After further negotiations, Transport for London offered to fund the train operating companies with £20m to provide Oyster facilities in London stations; this resulted in an outline agreement to introduce PAYG acceptance across the entire London rail network.
TfL announced a National Rail rollout date of May 2009, but negotiation with the private rail firms continued to fail and the rollout was delayed to 2010. Oyster readers were installed at many National Rail stations across London, but they remained covered up and not in use. In November 2009 it was finally confirmed that PAYG would be valid on National Rail from January 2010. The rollout was accompanied by the introduction of a new system of Oyster Extension Permits to allow travelcard holders to travel outside their designated zones on National Rail. This system was introduced to address the revenue protection concerns of the rail companies, but it was criticised for its complexity, and was abolished on 22 May 2011.
Outside of the London fare zones, since 2010, stations have been added into the area of Oyster acceptance, utilising the unused fare zones in the card. The expansion continued until August 2019 when all available zones were fully utilised and new stations could not be placed into an existing zone, since then further expansions have been contactless-only which doesn't have such limitation.
In August 2010 the issue of the impact of the Oyster card on staffing returned. In response to The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) ballot for a strike over planned job cuts, TfL stated that the increase in people using Oyster electronic ticketing cards meant only one in 20 journeys now involved interaction with a ticket office. As a result, it aims to reduce staff in ticket offices and elsewhere while deploying more workers to help passengers in stations.
Since the launch of contactless payment in 2012, over 500 million journeys have been made using contactless, using over 12 million contactless bank cards.
In , over 12 million Oyster cards and 35 million contactless cards were used, generating around £5bn in ticketing revenue.
On 2 January 2013, Oyster PAYG was extended to (a terminus of the Elizabeth line) and by Abellio Greater Anglia. Greater Anglia rail franchise Department for Transport
With regard to London's airports, TfL and BAA Limited studied acceptance of Oyster Pay As You Go on BAA's Heathrow Express service and the Southern-operated Gatwick Express service in 2006, but BAA decided not to go ahead. However, Oyster has been valid to on both the Gatwick Express and Southern Rail and Thameslink services since January 2016.
Oyster was extended to Hertford East when London Overground took over suburban services previously operated by Greater Anglia in May 2015.
Oyster was extended to Epsom, Hertford North, Potters Bar and Radlett in Summer 2019, which was the final expansion of the Oyster network.
There were proposals to extend the PAYG service to the Reading after the Elizabeth line was opened, utilising the final remaining fare zone F, but it didn't happen and the line eventually became contactless-only.
The same requirement to touch in and out on underground services applies with debit and credit cards. The same price capping that applies to the use of Oyster cards applies to the use of debit and credit cards (provided the same card is used for all the day's journeys). Each day, the fare total is settled with the card issuer and appears on the debit or credit card statement. Detailed usage data is written to Transport for London's systems and is available for customers who register their contactless cards with Transport for London. Unlike an Oyster card, a contactless card does not store credit (beyond the holder's credit limit) and there is no need or facility to add credit to the card.
Since the Oyster readers cannot write to a contactless card, the reader when touching out is unable to display the fare charged for the journey, as the card does not have the starting point stored in it. This is calculated overnight once the touch in and touch out information is downloaded from the gates and collated. If the card is registered with TfL journey charges can be checked online from the following day. When a touch in with a contactless card is made, the validity of the card is checked by debiting the card account with 10 pence. The final fare charged excludes this initial charge.
As with Oyster, a failure to touch either in or out charges the maximum possible fare; this may also happen if different cards are used for tapping in and out, and if payment is made by a mobile device unavailable for tapping out, e.g. when the battery is discharged. Transport for London state that if ticket inspection is taking place, it is then necessary to present the contactless card to the ticket inspector's portable oyster card reader. As the reader at the starting station cannot write to the contactless card and the card's use is not downloaded until the following night, it is not possible to determine if the card was used to touch into the system. However after conciliation if it was found that the card was not touched in at the moment of revenue inspection, a maximum fare would be charged as a failed revenue inspection, and the card may be blocked from further use.
In January 2025, TfL released an update to their flagship journey planner app, TfL Go, which implemented the same features as the original standalone app. At the same time, they announced their intent to shut down the original Oyster and contactless app in favour of the new update.
First-generation Oyster cards, identified by not having a "D" at the bottom left corner of the back (see images of the back of both generation cards above), can be used but are not compatible with either app, and TfL recommends that users get a new card, and transfer credit, season tickets, and refundable deposit from the old one.
Standard issues of the Oyster card have been updated since the first public release in order to meet TfL's Design Standards. Trial versions, Transport for London staff versions and the first version of the standard Oyster card for the public were released with the roundels on the front of the cards in red. The second issue of the standard Oyster card had 'Transport for London' branding on the back of the card, with the mayor of London (having replaced the 'LONDON' branding in the blue segment of the card's back). The roundel on the front of the card was changed from the colour red to white, as white was seen to represent Transport for London (whereas a red roundel is more known to represent London Buses).
The official Oyster branded holders have been redesigned on several occasions, keeping up with various iterations of the card and to increase service awareness. The initial version mimicked the blue design of the card itself, and was later modified to include the line "Please reuse your card" on the front.
In March 2007 the Oyster card wallet was designed by British designers including Katharine Hamnett, Frostfrench and Gharani Strok for Oxfam's I'm In campaign to end world poverty. The designer wallets were available for a limited period of time from Oxfam's street teams in London who handed them out to people who signed up to the I'm In movement. Also, to celebrate 100 years of the Piccadilly line, a series of limited edition Oyster card wallets were commissioned from selected artists from the Thin Cities Platform for Art project. The previous wallets handed out were sponsored by IKEA who also sponsor the tube map, and did not display the Oyster or the London Underground logos.
In late 2007 the standard issue wallets were redesigned with the only changes being the colour scheme changing from blue to black, and the removal of the resemblance to the Oyster card.
The most recent variation of the wallet came with the introduction of contactless payment acceptance on the network in 2012, where light-green "Watch out for card clash" wallets have been issued to raise awareness of "card clash", and replace the previous simplistic designs. The inside of these wallets reads "Only touch one card on the reader" on the clear plastic.
In 2015 Mel Elliot won the London Design Awards with her "Girls Night Out" themed wallet.
In addition to the official wallets distributed by TfL, which may or may not carry advertising for a sponsor, Oyster card holders and wallets are sometimes used as a marketing tool by other organisations seeking to promote their identity or activities. Such items are normally given away free, either with products or handed out to the public.
Historically, customers were given a free wallet when purchasing a card, and wallets could be picked up for free at most stations or newsagents, though in September 2019 TfL announced that they were discontinuing their free Oyster Card wallets citing the cost and also the use of plastic.
A number of limited edition Oyster card variant designs exist. These are produced in limited quantities but otherwise function as standard Oyster cards. These include:
In 2012, TfL released various cards to mark the Olympic Games taking place in London that year. The cards performed the same as any other card and also include all the same text, apart from a differentiating line (listed below), and the London 2012 logo. Cards like these were distributed solely to select 2012 volunteers who took part in the opening and closing ceremonies. They were used for the duration of the games and therefore are no longer valid for use on the transport system. The colour of these Oyster cards is pink with a coloured stripe:
Three design variations of the Oyster visitor cards also exist:
The system also applies two maximum fares (one for touching in, and one for touching out) to passengers who touch in and touch out at the same station after 30 minutes; this is due to the system assuming that, after such a long delay, the passenger has travelled to another station and returned without touching in or out at the other station, when in reality the passenger might simply have been waiting for a train, baulked at the long waiting time and exited.
There is an exploitable feature of the system, in that if a touch-in (or touch-out) is made in a zone where the oyster card is loaded with a valid season ticket or Travelcard but there is no associated touch-out (or touch-in), the system does not change a fare. Although encouraged to do so, such ticket holders are not obliged to touch-in or touch-out within the zones of their ticket's validity (other than to operate a barrier), and may in fact be impossible to do so when combining with a paper extension ticket for travelling outside the zones. This means that a passenger holding (say) a valid zone 1&2 Travelcard, can touch-in at a zone 1 station (to open the ticket barrier) and then travel to a zone 3, 4, 5 or 6 station that does not have a barrier without touching out or paying the extension fare. Ticket inspectors frequently operate at such locations to catch these fare dodging passengers. Since the system maintains a record of every touch the card does make (even with a valid travelcard), TfL will seek to recover all the unpaid fares when a passenger who is caught is prosecuted for fare evasion.
From January 2010 to May 2011, passengers using an Oyster card with a Travelcard loaded seeking to start a journey in their paid-for zones and end it outside those zones were expected to use a ticket vending machine to set an Oyster Extension Permit (OEP) on their card before starting their journey. The effect of this setting was that a maximum journey charge was deducted from the card when touching in even within their zones, and this removed the incentive to "forget" to touch-out at the end of the journey. The OEP system was poorly understood by staff and passengers alike and was abolished after less than a year and a half.
The police have used Oyster card data as an investigative tool, and this use is increasing. On 13 April 2006, TfL stated that "Between August 2004 and March 2006 TfL's Information Access and Compliance Team received 436 requests from the police for Oyster card information. Of these, 409 requests were granted and the data were released to the police." OysterCardRFI – Letter from TfL in response to a freedom of information request However, in response to another request in February 2012, "TfL said this had happened 5,295 times in 2008, 5,359 in 2009, 5,046 in 2010, and a record 6,258 in 2011".http://news.techworld.com/security/3336843/police-regularly-access-transport-for-london-oyster-card-accounts – Letter from TfL in response to a freedom of information request, February 2012
Additionally, in 2008 news reports indicated that the security services were seeking access to all Oyster card data for the purposes of counter-terrorism. Such access is not provided to the security services.
As yet, there have been no reports of customer data being misused, outside the terms of the registration agreement. There have been no reports of Oyster data being lost.
Oyster pay-as-you-go users, on London Underground, DLR and National Rail (including London Overground) services are required always to "touch in" and "touch out" to cause the correct fare to be charged. This requirement is less obviously enforced at stations where there are only standalone yellow reader rather than ticket barriers. Without a physical barrier, pay-as-you-go users may simply forget to "touch in" or fail to touch their card correctly, which will result in a maximum fare being charged. Equally, if the barriers do not function (reading 'SEEK ASSISTANCE') and the TfL or train operating company staff member has to open the gates manually, then the maximum fare may be charged. If this occurs a refund may be requested by telephoning the Oyster helpline the day after the incident occurs (to allow time for the central computers to be updated); the overcharged amount can be added back to the pay-as-you-go balance on the card from the following day when the Oyster card is used to make a journey.
The use of Oyster cards on buses has been subject to criticism following a number of successful criminal prosecutions by TfL of bus passengers whose Oyster card, when checked by Revenue Protection Inspectors, did not show that the passenger had "touched in" correctly on boarding. In particular, problems have been highlighted in connection with the quality of given to passengers when touching in has failed for any reason. In one case, a passenger successfully appealed against his conviction for fare evasion when the court noted that the passenger believed he had paid for his journey because the Oyster reader did not give sufficient error warning.
In 2011, London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon obtained figures from the mayor of London which revealed that in 2010, £60million had been taken by TfL in maximum Oyster fares. The statistics also detailed a "top ten" of stations where maximum fares were being collected, notably Waterloo and . In her criticism of the figures, Pidgeon claimed that "structural problems" with the Oyster system were to blame, such as faulty equipment failing to register cards and difficulty in obtaining refunds. A report by BBC London highlighted the system of "autocomplete" (in which Oyster cards journeys are automatically completed without the need to physically touch out, exceptionally used when large crowds are exiting stations) as particularly problematic.
On 10 March 2005 an incorrect data table meant that the Oyster system was inoperable during the morning rush hour. Ticket barriers had to be left open and pay as you go fares could not be collected.
On 12 July 2008 an incorrect data table disabled an estimated 72,000 Oyster cards, including Travelcards, staff passes, Freedom Passes, child Oyster cards and other electronic tickets. The Oyster system was shut down and later restarted during traffic hours. Some customers already in the system were overcharged. Refunds were given to those affected and all disabled cards were replaced. Freedom Pass holders had to apply to their local authority for replacement passes (as these are not managed by TfL).
A further system failure occurred two weeks later on 25 July 2008, when pay as you go cards were not read properly.
On 2 January 2016 the Oyster system failed, with readers failing to process Oyster cards but continuing to process contactless cards and Apple Pay transactions.
Transport for London has made a significant surplus from excess fares deducted for those travelling using PAYG and failing to touch out as they exit stations. According to information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act"TfL taps into £18m from Oyster fines", thelondonpaper, page 6, Friday 30 May 2008 TfL made £32m from pay as you go cards of which £18m was maximum fares for failing to touch out. Only £803,000 was paid in refunds, showing that whilst customers can apply for a refund, most do not. The oyster online site does not list all maximum fares eligible for refunds on the front page, and users must search for fares charged on a particular day to discover all maximum fares that have been charged. The maximum fares for failing to touch out were introduced late 2006.
On some National Rail routes where pay-as-you-go was valid, Oyster validators had not been installed at some intermediate stations. While Oyster pay-as-you-go users could legally travel along those lines to certain destinations, they were not permitted to board or alight at intermediate stations. If their journey began or ended at an intermediate station, they would be unable to touch out and consequently be liable for penalty fares or prosecution. (archived page)
The complexity of Oyster validity on these routes was criticised for increasing the risk of passengers inadvertently failing to pay the correct fare. Criticism was also levelled at train operating companies for failing to provide adequate warnings to passengers about Oyster validity on their routes and for not installing Oyster readers at certain stations.
TfL published guides to the limitations of pay-as-you-go validity diagrammatic maps illustrating PAYG validity were published in November 2006 by National Rail, Also available from TfL website but these were rarely on display at stations and had to be obtained from transport websites.
Even after PAYG was rolled out to the whole of London, passengers are still frequently caught out at locations outside the PAYG area, having tapped into the system in London and travelled on a train out of London, such as at Stansted Airport. MP slams 'unfair' Stansted Airport train fare penalties This trap equally applies to CPAY passengers as well as Oyster users.
Historically, Oyster card ticket renewals and pay-as-you-go top-ups made online allow users to make purchases without the need to go to a ticket office or vending machine. However, there were certain limitations to this system:
The Mifare Classic—which is also used as a security pass for controlling entry into buildings—has been criticised as having very poor security, and NXP criticised for trying to ensure security by obscurity rather than strong encryption. Breaching security on Oyster cards should not allow unauthorised use for more than a day, as TfL promises to turn off any cloned cards within 24 hours, but a cloned Mifare Classic can allow entry into buildings that use this system for security.
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