Paris RER Ticketing

[jthjth]

I’m very confused as to how to buy a ticket from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.
I only want to make a single trip and would like to use an iPhone.
So far I think I need the IDF Mobilités app. As far as I can tell I can purchase a ticket on this app and then use my iPhone to tap in at the gate.
is this correct?
thanks

 

[rvdborgt]

That app is indeed one of the possibilities:

https://www.ratp.fr/en/titres-et-tarifs/smartphone-tickets

 

[Gaelan]

I’m very confused as to how to buy a ticket from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.
I only want to make a single trip and would like to use an iPhone.
So far I think I need the IDF Mobilités app. As far as I can tell I can purchase a ticket on this app and then use my iPhone to tap in at the gate.
is this correct?
thanks

You shouldn't need the IDF Mobilités app - you should just be able to create a Navigo card in the built-in Wallet app (click the "+" in the top right of the app, choose "Travel Card", find "Navigo" under France), then add one "Metro Train Ticket" to it (you can pay with any card you've previously added to Apple Pay).

The simplest backup plan in case the Apple Wallet option fails is to buy a physical Navigo card with one "Metro Train Ticket" on it from a ticket machine. There's some fee for a new card but it's not ridiculous. The ticket machines are straightforward enough to use and have an English option.

 

[rvdborgt]

The simplest backup plan in case the Apple Wallet option fails is to buy a physical Navigo card with one "Metro Train Ticket" on it from a ticket machine. There's some fee for a new card but it's not ridiculous. The ticket machines are straightforward enough to use and have an English option.

These are also sold at the Eurostar bar, pre-loaded with 2 metro/RER tickets. You can also charge them with your phone.

 

[jthjth]

You shouldn't need the IDF Mobilités app - you should just be able to create a Navigo card in the built-in Wallet app (click the "+" in the top right of the app, choose "Travel Card", find "Navigo" under France), then add one "Metro Train Ticket" to it (you can pay with any card you've previously added to Apple Pay).

The simplest backup plan in case the Apple Wallet option fails is to buy a physical Navigo card with one "Metro Train Ticket" on it from a ticket machine. There's some fee for a new card but it's not ridiculous. The ticket machines are straightforward enough to use and have an English option.

Thank you - I never knew that the Apple Wallet could do that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Aug 2025 ==

These are also sold at the Eurostar bar, pre-loaded with 2 metro/RER tickets. You can also charge them with your phone.

Thank you

 

[AlastairFraser]

I’m very confused as to how to buy a ticket from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.
I only want to make a single trip and would like to use an iPhone.
So far I think I need the IDF Mobilités app. As far as I can tell I can purchase a ticket on this app and then use my iPhone to tap in at the gate.
is this correct?
thanks

It is, but it can take a while to set the app up (have tried this on the way into Gare du Nord coming off a Eurostar, took a bit longer than expected!), so either the physical Navigo or the Apple Wallet feature is better IMHO (I have tried the physical Navigo with mostly instant success and my friend used her iPhone to pay for tickets easily).

 

[Chris Butler]

I have exactly the same problem, but using a Samsung Android phone. All I want to do is to make one single journey Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.

I have downloaded the Bonjour RATP app, but it then told me to download the Tickets sans contact app and then suggested I might need the My Navigo tickets app. I have all three on my phone now.

It looks easy to buy the single €2.50 ticket, but I don't know what happens when I have bought it. Does the ticket just get stored by the Bonjour RATP app so that it can be used (via NFC) directly from my phone ? If not do I instead need to use one of the other two apps to store the ticket for use at the gates?

I'm sure I can work it out, but I'd rather understand the 'customer journey' now rather than be trying to figure it out on the Eurostar.

 

[Watershed]

You really have to ask why they have made it so complicated rather than just allowing direct payment via contactless, as most other metro-like systems do.

 

[rvdborgt]

You really have to ask why they have made it so complicated

Because France.

 

[signed]

It looks easy to buy the single €2.50 ticket, but I don't know what happens when I have bought it. Does the ticket just get stored by the Bonjour RATP app so that it can be used (via NFC) directly from my phone ? If not do I instead need to use one of the other two apps to store the ticket for use at the gates?

You just tap your phone, screen off and it will work

You really have to ask why they have made it so complicated rather than just allowing direct payment via contactless, as most other metro-like systems do.

Before the simplification the logical reason would have been that 99% of metro stations don't have barriers on exit so unable to count zones, now I have no idea

That may change in the future of course (and I guess it will)

 

[SephenWorceste]

Because France.

I was surprised travelling this year. I expected just to tap my card everywhere. Paris, Barcelona, some of Majorca do not seem to do this. I will be in Berlin soon and I think that is the same. Tap with contactless card or phone without a dedicated app is not universal. After London I was expecting to just tap with my card. It is so easy in London.

 

[canary fan]

You shouldn't need the IDF Mobilités app - you should just be able to create a Navigo card in the built-in Wallet app (click the "+" in the top right of the app, choose "Travel Card", find "Navigo" under France), then add one "Metro Train Ticket" to it (you can pay with any card you've previously added to Apple Pay).

The simplest backup plan in case the Apple Wallet option fails is to buy a physical Navigo card with one "Metro Train Ticket" on it from a ticket machine. There's some fee for a new card but it's not ridiculous. The ticket machines are straightforward enough to use and have an English option.

I used this in the summer and it really is incredibly straightforward. I also was previously unaware of the + sign in the top right of the apple wallet app and almost all the other options listed are in the Far East. I got my information from the ever helpful ‘man in seat 61’
I understand it is slightly more complicated with android phones.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

I understand it is slightly more complicated with android phones

It's the same - and I'd never seen it either! - just "+ Add to Wallet" then select "Transport Pass" then search for the operator. Nearby schemes are listed first. It will also prompt you to add an operator if you've used the phone to pay for travel, so I now have Brighton & Hove in mine. This is the best of both - pay simply but get a mini-app that shows usage in a more specific way than a normal payment, knows about caps, etc. London appears on the list but all it says is something like "just use it"!

I've paid contactlessly in Lyon where I think the scheme was quite new. Perfect when it works but one station and two buses would have none of it, and the paramilitary (and needed it) revenue check on a tram revealed that only one of the inspectors had the right device. I never got to see what that device was as it all kicked off with someone who was clearly a regular and had their performance perfected. Works very well in Belgium and Madrid is on the way, the metro completing the set in the new year.

I think there is great inertia in organisations, particularly in the public sector but it happens everywhere, and many transport authorities who have done great things with the infrastructure can't seem to do the same with fares and insist upon holding onto systems they invented, I suppose because sometimes only recently, rather than seeing where the world is going with payments. TfL should get credit for seeing that, and making early steps to make Oyster almost obsolete only a few years into its existence.

 

[Chris Butler]

It's the same - and I'd never seen it either! - just "+ Add to Wallet" then select "Transport Pass" then search for the operator. Nearby schemes are listed first.

Are you sure what you're telling people is correct ?

Sure, you can add passes to Android in the same way as with Apple. The problem is that someone has to write those mini-apps and I don't think there is one for Paris. I certainly can't find one. Let us know if you really do have a Paris pass on Google Wallet else perhaps change your post since I think 'canary fan' was correct.

 

[signed]

Let us know if you really do have a Paris pass on Google Wallet else perhaps change your post since I think 'canary fan' was correct.

On a French Google account, Paris isn't a possibility but on Samsung Wallet you can add roughly the same way as on Apple

 

[rvdborgt]

Are you sure what you're telling people is correct ?

Sure, you can add passes to Android in the same way as with Apple. The problem is that someone has to write those mini-apps and I don't think there is one for Paris. I certainly can't find one.

IIRC this functionality is still under development for Android.

 

[dutchflyer]

I was surprised travelling this year. I expected just to tap my card everywhere. Paris, Barcelona, some of Majorca do not seem to do this. I will be in Berlin soon and I think that is the same. Tap with contactless card or phone without a dedicated app is not universal. After London I was expecting to just tap with my card. It is so easy in London.

Gruss aus DEutschland. NO-this is about unheard of here in Germany-CASH payment is quite often still the way to pay-but do realise that with some 12million+ D-Tickets=that cheap universal monthly and most of other passengers having whatever type of local pass, actual sale of tickets is minimal to often near zero. Except perhaps the tipical tourist in the tipical touristy towns, like Berlin is. There will always be a growling protest when some local council in the end decides that doing away with dozens of busdrivers still holding cash for change etc for perhaps 1 or 2 sales/day is not justifiable.
BUT in those touristy towns you buy a ride-at-will for the nr of zones wanted for the nr of days wanted and thats all-most often there is not any check-and no barriers at all anywhere on metro and the like. AND there near always is integrated ticketing-valid on all means-not the split way you in UK handle it.
In many more regional touristy areas the hotels give out local ´Guest cards´ that often also contain free use of transport in the area-plus perhaps other entries etc. Thats why you pay the touristy tax for.
Interestingly-with Germans so often still sticking to their own language (not mine) the word ´ticket´ is now near universal-in just a few years it took over the german ´Fahrkarte´.
That tapping is now universal in my country, Nederland, called OV-pay and I think thats about all for total coverage in EURope.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

Are you sure what you're telling people is correct ?

I was talking in general... There's nothing for Paris yet. Thanks for pointing it out and sorry for the confusion

 

[ClivePage]

It's a few months since I was last in Paris so things might have changed, but from what I remember: You can buy a Navigo card from the buffet car on the Eurostar train (I think they used to sell them in the terminal in St Pancras as well, but not any more) which is preloaded with two single journeys. Within the Paris cental area (roughly within the Peripherique motorway) you can use cards on RER or Metro services. Beware at La Defense which has a Metro station and a separate RER station, the latter is not within the inner Paris area and costs more. Alternatively you can use a machine at Gare du Nord to buy a Navigo card and preload it with N single journeys. The machines can be set to use English and are fairly easy to use, but not all machines will sell Navigo from scratch, some just allow you to top up one you have already. We did in fact buy our Navigos on Eurostar for simplicity, but later found we could have saved a euro or two by using one if the machines, which didn't have a queue. As someone else said: at present you only have to touch in within central Paris, but if you use the card to travel further out, e.g. to an airport, your card needs to have more credit on it and then you have to touch out as well at your destination.

 

[SephenWorceste]

Gruss aus DEutschland. NO-this is about unheard of here in Germany-CASH payment is quite often still the way to pay-but do realise that with some 12million+ D-Tickets=that cheap universal monthly and most of other passengers having whatever type of local pass, actual sale of tickets is minimal to often near zero. Except perhaps the tipical tourist in the tipical touristy towns, like Berlin is. There will always be a growling protest when some local council in the end decides that doing away with dozens of busdrivers still holding cash for change etc for perhaps 1 or 2 sales/day is not justifiable.
BUT in those touristy towns you buy a ride-at-will for the nr of zones wanted for the nr of days wanted and thats all-most often there is not any check-and no barriers at all anywhere on metro and the like. AND there near always is integrated ticketing-valid on all means-not the split way you in UK handle it.
In many more regional touristy areas the hotels give out local ´Guest cards´ that often also contain free use of transport in the area-plus perhaps other entries etc. Thats why you pay the touristy tax for.
Interestingly-with Germans so often still sticking to their own language (not mine) the word ´ticket´ is now near universal-in just a few years it took over the german ´Fahrkarte´.
That tapping is now universal in my country, Nederland, called OV-pay and I think thats about all for total coverage in EURope.

Thank you for this information. It will be an interesting trip. Including both Amsterdam, Berlin and a cruise to Norway.

 

[DeverseSam]

Beware at La Defense which has a Metro station and a separate RER station, the latter is not within the inner Paris area and costs more.

I think this doesn’t apply anymore

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Sep 2025 ==

As someone else said: at present you only have to touch in within central Paris, but if you use the card to travel further out, e.g. to an airport, your card needs to have more credit on it and then you have to touch out as well at your destination.

I think you have to specifically add the airport ticket to the pass. Not just credit like on Oyster.

 

[Thames99]

The zones have gone apart from special airport fares. This means you can do some very cheap trips on longer journeys - central Paris to Meaux for example. The La Defence issue doesn't apply any more.