Berlin WelcomeCard: Current Prices, Zones & Worth It?

The Berlin WelcomeCard is a combined public transport ticket and discount card that covers Berlin’s buses, trains and trams while cutting 25-50% off more than 170 attractions, restaurants and tours. This guide covers what the card actually includes, its current price tiers, how it compares to the EasyCityPass Berlin, and the one detail that trips up the most visitors: picking the wrong fare zone and getting stranded without transport to the airport.

Short on time? Pick the Berlin WelcomeCard if you plan to visit several paid attractions over a few days, and pick the EasyCityPass Berlin if you mainly want cheaper transport with a smaller set of discounts. The rest of this guide explains the current prices, zones and details behind that choice.

What is the Berlin WelcomeCard?

The Berlin WelcomeCard is Germany’s official Berlin tourist ticket, combining unlimited public transport with discounts at museums, tours, restaurants and shows. It comes in three versions: the standard Berlin WelcomeCard (transport plus discounts only), the Berlin WelcomeCard all inclusive (transport plus discounts plus free entry to more than 25 attractions), and the Berlin WelcomeCard Museum Island (transport plus discounts plus free entry to the Museum Island museums, available only as a 72-hour ticket).

Every version includes the underground (U-Bahn), city trains (S-Bahn), buses, trams and BVG ferries within your chosen fare zone, plus up to 3 children aged 6 to 14 travelling free with each adult card (children under 6 always travel free). The standard card and the all-inclusive card are sold for 48 hours, 72 hours, 4 days, 5 days or 6 days; the Museum Island version is sold only as a 72-hour ticket.

Choosing your fare zone: AB or ABC

Pick zone ABC, not AB, if you’re landing at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) or visiting Potsdam, since the AB zone’s transport ticket does not cover the airport or Potsdam and cannot be extended afterwards. Zone AB covers Berlin’s urban area only. Zone ABC adds the surrounding region, Potsdam and BER airport, reachable on the S-Bahn, regional trains and the Airport Express (FEX), which reaches the city centre in about 15 minutes. According to the card’s own official FAQ, you cannot buy a separate zone C connector ticket to extend an AB card once you have it, so choosing AB by mistake means buying an entirely separate airport ticket on arrival.

Berlin’s two older airports no longer factor into this decision: Tegel Airport closed permanently in November 2020, and Schönefeld Airport closed the same year and was absorbed into the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), which now handles all of the city’s commercial flights. If an older guide mentions choosing a zone for “Schönefeld or Tegel,” that reflects the airport system before 2020, not the one in place today.

Current Berlin WelcomeCard prices

The table below shows the standard Berlin WelcomeCard’s official prices, confirmed directly from berlin-welcomecard.de.

A discount-only version without public transport is also available for 72 hours (€10, $11, £9) or 6 days (€15, $16, £13), for anyone who already has transport covered another way and only wants the attraction discounts.

The Berlin WelcomeCard all inclusive is priced separately from the standard card rather than following the same table above; a 48-hour all-inclusive card runs from about €99 ($106, £84) at the time of writing, which includes free entry to more than 25 attractions on top of full public transport. The Berlin WelcomeCard Museum Island, sold only as a 72-hour ticket in either zone, is priced separately again and should be checked on the card’s own site, since aggregator prices for it vary and this guide would rather send you to a live figure than print one that may already be wrong.

Prices for city tourist cards change more often than most travel content gets updated, so treat the table above as a snapshot and check berlin-welcomecard.de directly before you buy, especially for the all-inclusive and Museum Island prices.

What’s included with the Berlin WelcomeCard all inclusive

The all-inclusive card’s headline benefit is free entry to more than 25 of Berlin’s attractions, on top of everything the standard card offers. Attractions on the free-entry list have included the Berlin Television Tower, the DDR Museum, and the Berlin City Circle Sightseeing hop-on-hop-off bus, though the exact list of more than 25 venues changes over time, so check the current list in the Berlin WelcomeCard app or on the official site rather than assuming a specific venue is still included.

What’s included with the Berlin WelcomeCard Museum Island

The Museum Island version gives you free entry to the Alte Nationalgalerie, Altes Museum, Bode-Museum, Neues Museum, PETRI Berlin, and the “Pergamonmuseum. Das Panorama” exhibition, on top of the standard card’s transport and discounts. Note that the actual Pergamon Museum building has been closed for renovation since October 2023 and isn’t scheduled to reopen until spring 2027 as part of Museum Island’s wider master plan; the panorama exhibition and the newer PETRI Berlin archaeology museum currently stand in for it on the card’s included list. This card version is only sold for 72 hours, in either zone AB or ABC.

Standard WelcomeCard discounts on attractions, tours and restaurants

Every version of the Berlin WelcomeCard, including the basic one, gives a minimum 25% discount (up to 50% at some partners) at more than 170 attractions, sights, restaurants, theatres and tours. Categories covered include major museums such as the Berlin Cathedral, the Museum of Natural History and the Berlinische Galerie, sightseeing options like river cruises, bike tours and the TV Tower, and dozens of restaurants and stage shows across the city.

The full discount list runs into the hundreds of individual partners, changes throughout the year as venues join or leave the programme, and is kept current in the Berlin WelcomeCard app and on the official discounts page rather than in any static list, including this one; check there for the exact current discount at a specific venue you’re planning to visit rather than relying on a printed percentage that may be out of date by the time you travel.

How to tell if the card pays for itself

Add up what you’d spend without the card, then compare it to the card’s price for the same days, rather than trusting a general rule of thumb, since the answer depends entirely on your own itinerary. A single BVG transport ticket covering 24 hours in zone AB currently costs €11.20, so a 3-day trip using transport every day already costs about €33.60 in transport alone before you’ve paid for a single attraction; a 72-hour standard WelcomeCard in zone AB, at €39.50, adds only about €6 on top of that for the 25-50% discounts at 170-plus partners.

From there, the maths depends on what you actually plan to do: two or three discounted museum entries, a river cruise, or a couple of restaurant meals at participating venues can easily cover that €6 gap and put you ahead. If your plan is mostly free sightseeing with little paid entry, skip the WelcomeCard and buy a plain transport ticket instead, since you’d be paying for discounts you won’t use. The all-inclusive and Museum Island versions work the same way in principle, but need a bigger gap in transport-plus-discounts pricing to clear, since they cost more upfront in exchange for guaranteed free entries rather than percentage discounts.

Who the Berlin WelcomeCard is for

The Berlin WelcomeCard suits travellers who plan to pack several paid attractions and some public transport into a short trip, since that’s where the combined discount and transport ticket earns back its price fastest. If your Berlin trip is mostly free things (walking neighbourhoods, parks, window shopping) with only the occasional paid stop, a normal transport ticket without the WelcomeCard is usually cheaper, since you’re not paying for discounts you won’t use.

The card also has no group rate: it’s sold per adult, with children 6-14 riding free on transport (up to three per adult) but not automatically covered for attraction discounts, so check each attraction’s own child policy. There are no separate discounts for seniors or students on top of the card price.

Where to buy the Berlin WelcomeCard

Buy the Berlin WelcomeCard online at berlin-welcomecard.de, or in person at Berlin Tourist Info Centres, many hotels and retail outlets, and at BVG and S-Bahn ticket machines and sales points, including on BVG buses. Online purchases come as a print-at-home ticket (no validation needed, valid from the time printed) or can be added to the Berlin WelcomeCard app; tickets bought in Berlin come as a physical “hardticket” that you validate once, at a ticket-validation machine, before your first ride.

You can also buy the Berlin Welcome Card through GetYourGuide, which bundles the card with a pocket travel guide.

Practical tips for using the Berlin WelcomeCard

Match the card’s length to your actual sightseeing days rather than your whole trip, since a shorter card that runs out a day early costs less than a longer one you don’t fully use. Validate a physical hardticket only once, at the start of your first journey, since the validity window (48 hours, 72 hours, or midnight-to-midnight for the multi-day versions) starts from that first validation, not from purchase. Before visiting any attraction on the discount list, check the current terms in the app or on the official site, since discount percentages and included venues both change over time, and always show your card before paying rather than after.

Alternative: EasyCityPass Berlin

EasyCityPass Berlin is a separate tourist ticket, sold by S-Bahn Berlin, that also combines public transport with discounts, though it skips the WelcomeCard’s free-entry attractions and focuses purely on transport plus percentage discounts. It comes in the same duration options as the WelcomeCard (24 hours through 6 days) and the same AB/ABC zone split, with zone ABC again covering Potsdam and the wider Berlin area.

The table below shows EasyCityPass Berlin’s official current prices, confirmed directly from sbahn.berlin.

EasyCityPass Berlin discounts up to 25% at around 80 partner venues covering tours, museums, restaurants, stage shows and shopping, a shorter list than the WelcomeCard’s 170-plus, but it costs noticeably less at every duration and zone combination. As with the WelcomeCard, up to three children aged 6 to 14 travel free with an adult ticket, and children under 6 always travel free.

You can buy the EasyCityPass Berlin through GetYourGuide as well as directly from easycitypass.com or sbahn.berlin.

Berlin WelcomeCard vs EasyCityPass Berlin: which one to choose?

Choose the Berlin WelcomeCard if you plan to visit several paid museums or attractions and want the option of free entry through the all-inclusive or Museum Island versions; choose EasyCityPass Berlin if you mainly need transport plus modest discounts at a lower price. At every matching duration and zone, EasyCityPass Berlin costs less than the standard WelcomeCard, but the WelcomeCard’s larger discount network (170+ partners against roughly 80) and its free-entry versions can outweigh that gap if you’re planning a museum-heavy trip.

Neither card makes sense if you’re mostly walking, using parks and free sights, and only occasionally paying for transport or attractions; a normal single or day transport ticket will cost less in that case. If you do want a card, pick the shortest duration that covers your actual sightseeing days, since neither card can be exchanged, refunded or extended once bought.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh. The team covers Germany for independent travellers, including the city passes, transit options and sights worth booking in Berlin, and updates this page when prices and zone rules change.