Abu Dhabi is a driving city that has quietly built a serious public transport network underneath
itself. If you have just arrived, the practical questions are the same four every time: how do the
buses work, what is this card everyone mentions, what will a taxi actually cost, and why is money
disappearing from an account you did not know you had.
This is getting around Abu Dhabi without the guesswork. Every fare and rule below
was read off the operator’s own pages on 20 August 2026 — they change without notice, so treat them as
a starting point rather than a contract.
Who runs it
One organisation runs almost all of it. Legally it is the Integrated Transport Centre, an affiliate
of the Department of Municipalities and Transport; publicly it trades as Abu Dhabi
Mobility. It is not a rename — official news releases still say Integrated Transport Centre.
Its remit covers land transport, aviation and maritime activity, plus driver and vehicle licensing,
public transport, Mawaqif parking, freight and the roads sector.
So the same body sets your bus fare, your taxi tariff and your toll. That is unusual, and it is why
everything below lives on one website.
The Hafilat card
Hafilat is the smart card that pays your bus fare in Abu Dhabi emirate. Validators sit at both the
entrance and the exit of the bus — you tap in and tap out, because the fare is distance-based.
Forgetting the second tap is the classic newcomer mistake.
| Card or pass | Price | Validity |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Hafilat card | AED 10 | 5 years |
| Personalised card | AED 5 | 5 years |
| Student pass (personalised) | AED 5 | 5 years |
| Senior Citizen pass, 55+ (personalised) | AED 5 | 5 years |
| People of Determination pass (personalised) | AED 5 | 5 years |
| Weekly pass | AED 30 | 7 days from purchase |
| Monthly pass | AED 80 | 30 days from purchase |
The three concession passes each give free unlimited city and regional trips for the year, and the
People of Determination pass also covers one accompanying person. Personalised cards are issued only
at bus station offices and Customer Happiness Centres, and not at weekends — worth planning around.
You can buy and top up at sales machines in bus stations and stops, at Lulu Hypermarkets across Abu
Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra, and at Al Ain Cooperative. The maximum you can hold is AED 150. One
detail that catches people out: a top-up at a sales or recharge machine is immediate, but topping up
online or at a BMBE machine takes about two hours to appear. Do not top up online at the bus stop and
expect to board.
You may also see a claim that the card lasts sixteen years. It does not — the operator’s own page
says five.
Bus fares
The Standard Service covers trips within the city and its suburbs across Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al
Dhafra. The structure is simple: AED 2 to board, plus 5 fils per kilometre, capped at AED 5 per
journey for trips over 60 km. Children aged ten and under travel free.
Transfers are generous if you know the rules. Tap into another bus within 60 minutes of your last
tap-out and the transfer is free — up to two transfers across three buses. You may not transfer in the
opposite direction to your destination, and intercity services are excluded. The helpline is 800850.
Beyond the Standard Service the network also runs Inter City and Inter-Emirates services, Service
73, the on-demand Abu Dhabi Link, Automated Rapid Transit, Abu Dhabi Express and Green Bus services.
Fares and timetables for those sit behind interactive tabs we could not read reliably, so check the
operator’s site rather than trusting a third-party route list.
That includes the Abu Dhabi to Dubai coach. You will find a fare quoted confidently all over the
internet; we could not confirm it on either operator’s own pages, so we are not repeating it. Book
through RTA’s intercity portal and take the price it shows you. If you are heading between emirates
regularly, our guide to Etihad
Rail’s first passenger service covers the alternative now taking shape, and our
Dubai Metro
and nol card guide covers the other end of the journey.
Taxis
The fleet is operated by TransAD — silver bodies, yellow roof signs. Uber and Careem both operate in
the emirate, and there are 24-hour ranks at Zayed International Airport.
| Silver taxi | Day, 06:00–22:00 | Night, 22:00–06:00 |
|---|---|---|
| Flag fall | AED 5.00 | AED 5.50 |
| Per kilometre | AED 1.82 | AED 1.82 |
| Waiting, per minute | AED 0.50 | AED 0.50 |
| Minimum trip fare | AED 12 | AED 12 |
| Booking fee | AED 4.00 | AED 5.00 |
Airport taxis picking up from the airport start at an AED 20 flag fall, with the same AED 1.82 per
kilometre and the same waiting and booking fees.
Note what the night rate actually does. It raises the flag fall by fifty fils and the booking fee by
one dirham. That is all. The widely repeated claim that Abu Dhabi applies a 25% night surcharge does
not appear anywhere in the official tariff.
Payment is accepted by cash, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, the PayBy app, and credit card online through
the Abu Dhabi Taxi app. Book by app, or call 600 53 53 53 from inside the UAE and +971 2 4186000 from
outside. One naming trap: the booking app is called Abu Dhabi Taxi. TXAI is something
different — the autonomous robotaxi service — and the two are constantly confused.
Darb, the road toll
Darb charges AED 4 per crossing, read automatically from your number plate. There
are no barriers and no kiosks, which is precisely why people do not notice it until a fine arrives.
Tolling runs 07:00–09:00 and 15:00–19:00, Monday through Saturday, with Sundays and official public
holidays free. A lot of sites say Monday to Friday; the amending regulation says Saturday is chargeable.
Two changes matter if your information is more than a year old. First, from 1 September 2025 the
daily and monthly caps for private vehicles were removed — there used to be an AED 16 daily ceiling and
monthly ceilings of AED 100 to 200. Now every crossing costs AED 4, with no cap. Management of the
system also passed to Q Mobility, an ADQ subsidiary. Second, two new gates went live on 4 May 2026, on
Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Street in Ghantoot and on Wahat Al Karama Street at the entrance and exit of
Sheikh Zayed Street. Unlike the original bridge gates, these two operate 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. If you drive the Ghantoot stretch on a Sunday night assuming it is free, it is not.
Ambulances, armed forces, civil defence, public buses, motorcycles, authorised taxis and school
buses, buses of 26 seats or more, police and Ministry of Interior vehicles and trailer vehicles are
exempt automatically. People of Determination, families of limited income, senior citizens and retired
citizens can apply for an exemption on one vehicle each.
The fines are where it gets expensive: AED 100 for a first unregistered crossing, AED 200 for a
second, AED 400 thereafter; AED 50 per transaction for insufficient balance; AED 10,000 for tampering
with a plate or damaging equipment — with an annual ceiling of AED 25,000 per vehicle. Register at the
Darb portal or app before you drive, not after. Our dedicated explainer on
how the Darb toll works goes deeper,
and our guide to UAE
traffic fines and Salik covers the Dubai equivalent.
If you are going to drive
Most residents eventually do. That means a licence and a registration, both handled through the same
department: see our guides to
converting or obtaining an
Abu Dhabi driving licence and to
car registration and
mulkiya renewal. For what all of this adds up to monthly, our
Abu Dhabi
cost of living breakdown puts transport alongside rent and bills. And if you are arriving or
leaving, our guide to
Zayed International
Airport covers the connection at the other end.
Primary sources, all read 20 August 2026: Abu Dhabi Mobility on the
Hafilat card,
bus
fares,
taxi
tariffs and
the Darb toll;
the Integrated Transport Centre’s announcement of
two
new Darb gates and of the
2025
amendments to the road toll regulations; and the Department of Culture and Tourism on
Abu
Dhabi taxis.
