[German: Die Vienna City Card – zahlt sie sich aus?]
Think of the Vienna City Card as a network travel pass which also entitles you to various tourist discounts. Should you get one? Here’s my review…
- Buy one if you’re doing a mix of shopping, travelling around & sightseeing
- Also available as a “discounts only” version (no travel component)
- Also consider:
- Vienna Pass: free entry to many attractions
- Vienna Welcome Card: greater focus on mobility services
- Book a classical concert* for your trip
- See also:
Card benefits
The Vienna City Card offers three main benefits: free travel on public transport, seven days of discounts, and optional add-ons that can include sightseeing buses and airport transfer.
Choose between four basic card versions that differ only in how long the travel element remains valid. These 24-hour, 48-hour, 72-hour and 7-day options cost, respectively, €17, €25, €29 and €35 at the time of writing.
A fifth version is a 7-day discounts-only card for €9. As the name suggests, it has no travel elements, but offers access to reductions.
City card benefit: travel
(Vienna has an excellent public transport system)
The four main Vienna City Cards allow you to go anywhere in the Vienna city network on any of the numerous municipal tram, bus, subway or train services.
The major exceptions are, therefore, only the likes of the airport bus lines and other private bus, tram, and rail initiatives like the hop on hop off tours, Westbahn train service or CAT airport train.
(You can book some selected exempted services as an add-on to the network cards, though.)
This travel network covers more or less the entire city. One child aged 14 or less also travels free with your validated Vienna City Card (provided your card has the transport function). Note that Vienna airport is outside the city network.
Your card acts as a travel pass as soon as you activate/validate the travel function (see the website for details).
The moment your card begins “working” as a network travel pass, the clock starts ticking: the card remains valid for travel from then on for the period you bought, for example the next 48 hours or 7 days.
So, for example, the 24-hour pass is not a day pass but a genuine 24-hour pass. If you activate it at 4pm, it stays valid until 4pm the next day.
City card benefit: discounts
(The Graben is one of Vienna’s main shopping streets)
You can make use of various discounts throughout your stay in Vienna, too (up to a maximum of seven days).
And what are the actual discounts?
In terms of tickets for sights and museums, most offer only small discounts to cardholders.
While the card gets you just €1 off at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, for example, other destinations do include more generous reductions. For example, 30% at the Kunst Haus Wien or Madame Tussauds.
But there’s more to the discounts than entrance tickets.
Various concert venues, tours, city center shops, restaurants, coffee houses and more also have special offers or discounts for Vienna card holders.
Some examples at the time of writing:
- 20% off the Third Man Tour
- One-time 20% off at Café Landtmann
- 20% off Windobona indoor skydiving
City card benefit: add-ons
(The Big Bus sightseeing tour bus, one of Vienna’s two hop on hop off services)
You can purchase digital add-ons for your Vienna City Card (note offers may vary seasonally). Common examples I’ve seen at times:
- Airport transfer: for seven days from the day you activate your card, free use of these means of travel between the city and airport – CAT airport train, ÖBB Railjet (first class), S-Bahn (S7) city train, the Vienna Airport Lines buses
You can use this transfer option repeatedly over the 7 days. If they are not yet 15, two children can also travel on your card.
- A 24-hour ticket for a hop on hop off bus tour (one-time only during that seven-day period)
If they are under 15, one child can come along with you at no extra cost.
How to buy Vienna City Cards?
You can purchase them direct through the online store of the Vienna tourist authority as an app or print-at-home version.
Alternatively, you can also buy one in the city from, for example, the tourist information offices, many hotels, national rail ticket counters, and the Vienna public transport ticket offices (or online store).
Is the Vienna City Card worth it?
(One of several coffee houses offering cardholders a discount)
So the big question: should you buy one?
Here’s what I think…
The Vienna City Card is great if you’re taking in a few sights, doing some shopping, enjoying a meal or two out
That way you get value out of the discounts on offer.
If you take away the cost of a normal digital network travel card, this is how much you’re paying for access to the discounts with your Vienna City Card at the time of writing:
- 24 hour (or the Discounts Only card): €9
- 48 hour: €10.90
- 72 hour: €11.90
- 7 day: €15.30
So it really shouldn’t be too hard to get good value out of the card, especially since the discounts apply for up to seven days.
- If you’re interested in different mobility services (like e-scooters, taxis etc.) then consider the Vienna Welcome Card: a similar digital product with a lower price (at the time of writing), though with fewer discount partners (but more focus on mobility) and discount access matching the duration of the travel component
- If you’re buying a lot of tickets for museums, tours, and other attractions, then something like the Vienna Pass might be more suitable
The Vienna Pass (see my review) costs significantly more, but gets you one-time free entry into, frankly, all the top attractions in the city.
- If you’re just looking around, you might want to travel on foot (many sights are very central) and buy the occasional standard public transport ticket (just over €2 per single journey) for visiting places of interest outside the city center
For a look at all the common pass options and choices for Vienna, try my overview.