On Trains & Buses

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Ireland's Public Transport Fares Set to Rise in 2027

Posted on September 5, 2026

Reading time: 17 minutes.

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On 3^rd September 2026, the National Transport Authority (NTA) announced a revised national fare structure for Public Service Obligation (PSO) public transport services. These changes are planned to take effect during 2027, following consultation with operators on implementation timelines, across the Transport for Ireland (TFI) network, and they represent the first broad adjustment to PSO fares since 2018. The decision sits within the NTA’s National Fare Strategy and is presented as a way to support ongoing public transport growth while maintaining key protections for passengers who rely on discounted or free travel.

Although the revised structure includes an average adult increase of 15%, the NTA states that fares will still be around 8% lower than they were eight years earlier. This is linked to fare reductions introduced in 2022 as part of Government cost of living measures, including a 20% discount applied to all subsidised public transport fares. The NTA also frames the scale of the increase against wider economic changes, noting that cumulative inflation rose by 20.8% between January 2022 and May 2026, a figure it draws from the Central Statistics Office.

The revisions apply to cash fares, Leap Card fares and time-based products such as weekly and monthly passes. They cover services operated by Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail, Luas, Go-Ahead Ireland and TFI Local Link. While most attention naturally falls on adult price rises, a significant part of the package is aimed at rebalancing and standardising child fares, particularly in regional cities, towns and the Dublin Commuter Zone, where many child fares are set to fall.

What Stays Protected

A central element of the NTA’s approach is that major concessions are protected. Free travel for children up to their ninth birthday is retained, as is free travel for people aged 66 and over. Other passengers who qualify under the Free Travel Scheme continue to be covered, including changes introduced in 2025 that extended free travel to children aged five to eight and enabled a companion to travel free with eligible passengers aged 70 and over. The 50% Young Adult and Student Discount on equivalent adult Leap fares, introduced in 2022, is also maintained and further standardised across more ticket types in regional cities, towns and parts of the commuter network.

The NTA highlights the scale of these concessions, stating that almost 1.5 million people, around 27% of Ireland’s population, are eligible for age-related free travel or fare concessions. That group includes nearly 550,000 children under nine and more than 860,000 people aged 66 and over. The broader policy direction, therefore, is not only about increasing fares but also about narrowing inconsistencies in how discounts are applied across regions and modes, with a stronger emphasis on uniform ratios for children and young adults.

Funding a Growing Network

Behind the fare changes is a financial argument about sustaining service growth. Fare revenue currently covers about 38% of public transport operating costs, which the NTA describes as being at the lower end of the European average. The remainder is largely covered by the State, supported through PSO funding alongside the Free Travel Grant and other income channels such as advertising and car parking, and in 2026 Government PSO funding reached a record €940 million for operating services across the TFI network.

At the same time, the NTA notes that fare revenue has remained broadly unchanged in recent years due to fare reductions and the expansion of discounted and free travel initiatives, even as passenger numbers have climbed. Demand growth is illustrated by patronage figures for subsidised services: in 2025 there were 363.6 million passenger journeys, a 5.8% increase on 2024, and this figure surpasses the 2019 pre-pandemic peak of 294.6 million journeys by 23%, or 69 million journeys.

The NTA links this rise to a combination of service expansions and fare reforms. These include the expansion of Dublin BusConnects, the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Programme, new rail stations such as Woodbrook (which opened on 10^th August 2025 between Bray and Shankill), the launch of the Portlaoise town bus service, the rollout of the Dublin city and commuter zone fare framework in April 2025, and the introduction and expansion of the TFI 90-Minute Fare to cover commuter rail services in the Dublin Commuter Zone.

Annual Reviews from 2027

From 2027 onwards, fares are set to be reviewed annually. The NTA says these reviews will align fares with operating costs, investment requirements and affordability objectives, which introduces an expectation of more regular changes than passengers have grown used to over the past decade, when broad fare adjustments were relatively infrequent.

Much of the detail behind the 2027 revisions is set out in the NTA Fares Determination 2026, which breaks changes down by area and service type, starting with the Dublin city and commuter zones, then regional cities and towns, then national bus and intercity rail, and finally TFI Local Link. Across many categories the average increase is 15%, but within that average there are notable exceptions where particular fares rise more sharply, where caps change or where child fares fall because of standardisation.

Dublin City and Commuter Zone

In Dublin, the fare changes are closely connected to the evolution of the Dublin city and commuter zone model that went live from April 2025. This structure includes city bus services operated by Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland, Luas light rail and DART heavy rail services in the city zone, with Bus Éireann commuter routes, Go-Ahead Ireland commuter services, J.J. Kavanagh & Sons Route 139 and commuter rail in the commuter zone. A key feature of the zonal approach is the use of distance-based fares, described by the NTA as “crow fly” pricing in line with the National Fares Strategy published in 2023, alongside the extension of integrated products such as the TFI 90 fare and multimodal daily and weekly caps, intended to make transfers easier and reduce the penalty for changing modes.

The Dublin City Zone

Within the Dublin city zone, most fares and products will increase by an average of 15%, but the “Short” fare is set to rise by 33% as part of a longer-term plan to simplify the fare offering. The NTA states that it intends to merge the Short fare and the TFI 90 fare into a single 90-minute flat fare in Dublin, a change linked to future ticketing reforms including Next Generation Ticketing and contactless EMV payments, as well as the practical objective of reducing boarding times by minimising the need to interact with the driver. The Short fare is therefore described as being phased out over future fare determinations, with the current determination beginning that process.

The specific changes are clearly set out. In Dublin city bus Leap fares, the adult Short fare moves from €1.50 to €2.00, the adult 90-minute fare from €2.00 to €2.30, and Xpresso and Nitelink from €2.40 to €2.75. Young Adult Leap fares follow the same structure in proportion, with the Short fare moving from €0.75 to €1.00 and the 90-minute fare from €1.00 to €1.15. Child Leap fares for the 90-minute ticket increase from €0.65 to €0.75, while the child Xpresso and Nitelink fare falls from €1.00 to €0.90, reflecting the wider push to standardise child fares at a lower ratio in many places.

Cash fares in the city zone also rise. For Dublin city bus, adult cash Short goes from €2.00 to €2.70, adult Long from €2.60 to €3.00 and Xpresso and Nitelink from €3.10 to €3.60. Child cash Long rises from €0.90 to €1.00, while the child cash Xpresso and Nitelink fare increases from €1.00 to €1.20. Visitor Leap products also increase, with the 24-hour product moving from €8.00 to €9.20 and the 7-day option from €24.00 to €27.60, matching the 15% uplift applied widely across capped and period products.

The same Short fare shift is applied consistently across Luas and DART in the Dublin city zone. Luas Leap adult Short increases from €1.50 to €2.00 and adult 90-minute from €2.00 to €2.30, with equivalent Young Adult changes and the child 90-minute fare moving from €0.65 to €0.75. Luas cash fares also rise, with the adult cash single for Zone 1 increasing from €2.00 to €2.70 and Zone 2 to 8 increasing from €2.60 to €3.00, while child cash singles rise from €0.90 to €1.00. Cash returns increase from €4.00 to €5.40 for the adult Zone 1 return and from €5.20 to €6.00 for Zones 2 to 8, with child returns rising from €1.80 to €2.00.

Capping in the City Zone

Because integrated travel has become a bigger part of the Dublin offer, changes to capping are also important. The multi-operator Leap daily cap in the Dublin city zone increases from €6.00 to €6.90 and the weekly cap from €24.00 to €27.60. Young Adult daily rises from €3.00 to €3.45 and weekly from €12.00 to €13.80, while child daily rises from €1.95 to €2.25 and weekly from €7.80 to €9.00. The NTA positions these caps as continuing to provide strong value for passengers making multiple trips, and it compares them with cap or ticket levels in cities such as Amsterdam, Milan and Paris.

The Dublin Commuter Zone

In the Dublin Commuter Zone, most fares and products rise by around 15%, but the notable structural change is the introduction of a reduced child rate priced at 33% of the equivalent adult fare for all ticket types. The NTA describes this as delivering an average discount of roughly 23% to 27% for child passengers. One example it provides is a child rail trip between Laytown and Balbriggan, where the Leap single is revised to €0.85, a 26% decrease from €1.15.

The commuter zone is also where the NTA retains interim fare measures introduced during the April 2025 rollout. These interim products applied discounts to some Zone 2 and Zone 3 weekly fares while passengers adjusted to the new zonal structure, and under this determination they stay in place, although the NTA indicates it intends to bring them into line with standard weekly prices in a future determination.

The commuter zone approach extends beyond rail to include commuter bus, with detailed approved fare bands for Leap, cash singles and cash returns. These include travel within the Dublin city zone under a DEX fare, plus distance-based bands moving outward. Alongside single fares there are revised commuter bus caps for each zone with daily, weekly, monthly and annual prices shown, including an adult daily cap of €10.65 in Zone 2 and €14.40 in Zone 3, as well as child versions of those caps.

The Eastern Regional Zone

Beyond the immediate commuter zone, the determination also affects Bus Éireann’s longer-distance eastern regional zonal products for areas such as Cavan, Virginia, Mullingar and Tullamore. These Yellow and Orange outer zone products rise by 15% for adult Leap period tickets, but the discount ratios are standardised so that Young Adult and Student fares sit at 50% of the adult rate and child fares at 33%. This produces significant reductions for younger passengers even as adult prices rise, including a child Yellow Zone one-day product decreasing by 34% from €9.60 to €6.35 and a child seven-day product decreasing by 25% from €33.60 to €25.35. Young Adult and Student products see comparable reductions, with a Young Adult or Student Yellow Zone one-day product reducing by 26% and seven-day Yellow and Orange products reducing by 16%.

Regional Cities and Towns

Outside Dublin, the fare determination is closely tied to ongoing urban fare reform in regional cities and towns, with a strong emphasis on preparing the ground for further integrated ticketing, such as 90-minute products, and simplifying the structure of city fares. Regional city services cover Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, while dedicated town services operate in Athlone, Balbriggan, Carlow, Clonmel, Drogheda, Dundalk, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Navan, Portlaoise and Sligo. The NTA also notes that in some cases TFI Local Link routes serving urban areas with a relatively good cumulative service level should use a town fare, a rule already applied on Local Link routes in 13 towns, including Carlow, Portlaoise, Athlone, Mullingar, Sligo and Clonmel among others.

Cork

Cork is treated differently from the other regional cities because major changes were implemented recently. The Cork City bus fare was rationalised to a flat fare with an adult Leap single of €1.70, Young Adult €0.85 and child €0.55, and these rates are retained under this determination, as are the cash singles of €2.40 for adults and €0.80 for children. A city bus only Leap daily and weekly cap was also established in an earlier 2026 fares determination and successfully implemented in July 2026 alongside the introduction of TFI 90 in Cork. The caps are set at €5.10 daily and €20.40 weekly for adults, €2.55 daily and €10.20 weekly for Young Adults and Students, and €1.65 daily and €6.60 weekly for children. The NTA notes that capping is expected to extend to the Cork commuter rail network in a later determination, subject to technical capability.

Cork commuter rail fares do change, with cash, Leap and period products increasing by an average of 15% for adults, while the standardisation of the young adult and child ratios produces decreases for many child fare types. The determination splits the previous flat child Leap single fare into distance bands aligned to the adult fare structure, meaning Band A falls by 15% to €0.55 while Band D, covering journeys to and from Mallow, increases to €1.50. Child cash singles, day returns and monthly fares are set to fall, typically by 20% to 26%. Alongside this, the NTA signals its intention to develop a Cork commuter zone and associated fares for both bus and rail in a subsequent determination, following similar principles to Dublin’s zonal approach.

Galway, Limerick and Waterford

For Galway, Limerick and Waterford, the determination introduces a flat urban fare, discontinuing the previous standard zone fare and replacing it with a structure identical to Cork City: Leap adult €1.70, Young Adult €0.85 and child €0.55. For adults currently paying the higher zone fare this represents a 10% increase, while those paying the €1.35 standard zone fare see a 26% increase. Child Leap singles fall from €0.65 to €0.55 due to the standard discount ratio.

The NTA describes the flat fare as a prerequisite for a 90-minute product and indicates it intends to roll out a similar offering in these cities in future fare determinations, supporting the BusConnects network redesign.

Period Products Across the Regional Cities

Period products in regional cities also change. One-day, seven-day, monthly and annual tickets rise by an average of 15% for adults, while young adult, student and child prices shift to the standardised ratios of 50% and 33% of the adult fare respectively. This results in fare reductions for younger passengers in the range of 18% to 37% on these products, with examples including student one-day products reducing by up to 31% and child one-day products reducing by up to 37%, depending on the city and zone.

Town Services

Town services see a different balance again, with adult fares rising but child fares falling. The adult Leap town fare increases by 10% from €1.50 to €1.65 and the cash town fare increases by 15% from €2.00 to €2.30. The child Leap town fare decreases by 23% from €0.65 to €0.50 and the child cash town fare decreases from €0.90 to €0.80, while the Young Adult town fare becomes €0.80 on Leap, set at roughly half of the adult rate.

The NTA links these changes to supporting continued expansion of town bus networks, pointing to recent launches and enhancements such as the Portlaoise service in 2025, a new Mullingar town service in February 2026, and the addition of Sligo route S3, which began service in 2025.

National Bus and Intercity Rail

On national services, the fare determination applies to Bus Éireann stage carriage routes and Iarnród Éireann intercity rail.

Bus Éireann Stage Carriage Services

Stage carriage fares increase by an average of 15% across cash and Leap, while Leap continues to provide savings compared with cash and maintains the 50% Young Adult and Student discount on equivalent adult fares. The determination notes that child fare discount standardisation for stage carriage will be reviewed in a subsequent fare determination as the National Fares Strategy is rolled out more widely.

Intercity Rail

Intercity rail reforms are a significant element of the 2027 changes, not only because of price but because of ticket type and fare structure. Intercity rail fares have historically been divided into Express, Economy 1 and Economy 2, with pricing linked to quality and frequency of service. The NTA says this rationale is less relevant now, and it notes that it has already merged Economy 1 and Economy 2 into a single Economy rate in earlier determinations. In this determination, Express fares increase by an average of 10% while Economy fares increase by between 8% and 21%, reducing the variance between the categories over time.

A major operational change is that intercity rail Open Return tickets will be discontinued. This is linked to planned ticketing upgrades and the limitations of magnetic stripe tickets, with the NTA stating that the change supports Next Generation Ticketing and contactless payment. Passengers are encouraged to use web fares for single and return journeys, particularly when booked in advance, with the NTA also noting that advance booking supports predicting train loadings and making the best use of available capacity.

In addition, the NTA plans an evidence-based review of rail promotional fares, including discounted tourist rates, to decide which should continue or be discontinued in light of other policy changes such as web fares, the extension of free travel and the establishment of the Dublin Commuter Zone.

TFI Local Link

TFI Local Link services, which include both fixed-route rural services and door-to-door options, also see fare changes. Patronage growth is linked to the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan, while innovation is highlighted through the Smart Demand Responsive Transit pilot known as TFI Anseo, currently piloted in Achill, Killarney and north-east Limerick City. The NTA notes that contactless payment options are being rolled out across the Local Link network, with full deployment scheduled for the end of 2026, which will allow payment by Leap, cash or contactless.

Under the 2026 determination, Local Link fares increase by an average of 15%, and period products are standardised using multipliers that set a one-day product at 2.5 single trips and a seven-day product at 3.5 day rates, mirroring the approach used in the commuter zones. No fare adjustments are proposed for the TFI Anseo pilot routes.

The determination also acknowledges longstanding fare differences between Local Link and Bus Éireann where both serve similar corridors but calculate fares differently, with Local Link often charging per 10 km and Bus Éireann using stage carriage pricing. Examples include Newport to Limerick, at €2.25 on Local Link compared with €3.64 on Bus Éireann, and Cavan to Monaghan, at €3.90 compared with €7.35, a variance of 88%. Similar gaps appear on other shared corridors, including Birr to Athlone (€4.50 against €6.72) and Doolin to Galway (€6.15 against €9.45).

These variances are recognised in the National Fares Strategy and are expected to be addressed in the longer term as the strategy is rolled out across stage carriage bus and intercity rail, with implementation currently scheduled for 2027. The NTA’s stated goal is a move towards consistent crow fly distance-based fares and standardised discount ratios in line with the Dublin Commuter Zone.

What the January 2027 Fare Reform Means for Passengers

Alongside the technical detail, the public messaging around the change emphasises balancing affordability and investment. Anne Shaw, Chief Executive Officer of the NTA, described the revision as supporting expanded services, increased capacity and enhanced connectivity, while also noting that almost 1.5 million people will continue to benefit from free travel or concessions and that the 50% Young Adult and Student discount is being maintained. The NTA has also indicated that dedicated information campaigns will be undertaken ahead of implementation so that passengers understand what the changes mean for their journeys.

As January 2027 approaches, the fare determination illustrates two directions at once. One is a straightforward uplift in many adult fares and caps after years of reductions and expanded concessions, and the other is a longer-term structural shift towards simpler, more consistent pricing across modes and regions. That shift is visible in the growing role of products like TFI 90, in the preparation for updated ticketing systems including contactless payments, and in the steady standardisation of child and young adult discounts across regions that previously applied very different rules.

Annual fare reviews from 2027 suggest that this will be an evolving framework rather than a one-off adjustment. Future determinations are likely to continue reshaping how fares are calculated and how discounts are applied across Ireland’s public transport network, and passengers who track the detail each year, rather than waiting for the next headline increase, will be best placed to understand what it means for their own journeys.