Is the Lisboa Card worth it? The sums for 24, 48 and 72 hours, and the Belém catch

💡 The Short Version: The Lisboa Card is €31 for 24 hours, €51 for 48 and €62 for 72, with public transport and free entry to 51 museums and monuments. On the sums below it pays at three paid sights in 48 hours, and loses money on one or two. The limit is Belém: the Jerónimos Monastery and Belém Tower are free with the card but need a date and time booked with your card number, only after you have collected the physical card in Lisbon, from a limited daily allocation. Both close on Mondays. Sintra’s palaces are a discount, not free, and you cannot book a Pena slot with the card. Or book a tour: the Belém walking tour with the monastery’s cloister ticketad (from £58.94, GetYourGuide, 1 October 2026) is a way into the monastery that needs no card slot.

What the card includes

Prices and rules are from the official Lisboa Card shop of Turismo de Lisboa, 1 October 2026.

• Public transport: unlimited Metro, Carris buses and trams, and the CP trains on the Sintra and Cascais lines (Carris), for the card’s hours. That covers the train to Sintra and to Cascais; Lisbon public transport has the single and day fares to compare.
• Sights: free entry to 51 museums and monuments, and discounts of 10% to 50% on other sights, tours and shows. Visit Lisboa’s page for the card lists the Castelo de São Jorge, the Royal Treasure Museum, the Jerónimos Monastery and Belém Tower among the top free sights.
• How it starts: the card is active the first time you validate it on public transport or show it at a sight. It is personal and non-transferable.
• Buying: online, then you exchange the voucher at an Ask Me Lisboa desk. The voucher is valid for six months. There are no refunds once the voucher is redeemed or the card used. GetYourGuide sells the same card at the same price: £26.48 for 24 hours on 1 October 2026, about €31 at the ECB rate of 30 September 2026 (€1 = £0.855).
• Prices are valid until 31 March 2027.

What the Belém slots mean for the card

The Jerónimos Monastery (€18) and Belém Tower (€15) are the only two sights that need booking with the card. The shop’s wording: access is subject to the daily admission capacity available for Lisboa Card holders, and advance reservations are not possible.

1. Collect the card first. The shop says to redeem the voucher before booking: you need the card number to book. The desks are listed at the end of this page.
2. Book on the operator’s ticket office. Each sight has its own free ticket for card holders: the monastery and the Tower. Choose a date and time, pick the payment option “Lisboa Card 100%” and enter the card number.
3. Validate the card on the day. The Tower’s ticket works only after the card is validated at the device there, and Visit Lisboa says the same of the monastery.
4. Plan around the slots. The Tower admits 60 visitors at a time and 960 a day at most, and card holders draw on a daily allocation the operator does not publish. You cannot book Belém from home, so do not build the only Belém day of a short stay around a card slot.

Both monuments are closed on Mondays. The Jerónimos Monastery tickets guide and the Belém Tower tickets guide have the slots and the rules.

Belém Tower, which needs a booked slot even with the card. Photo: Berthold Werner, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The sums

Sights at the operators’ adult prices: the Castelo de São Jorge €17, the Jerónimos Monastery €18, Belém Tower €15, the Ajuda National Palace €15, the National Coaches Museum €15 and the Royal Treasure Museum €11. Without the card, transport is counted as one 24-hour Carris and Metro ticket a day at €7.25 (carris.pt). The Ajuda Palace is closed on Wednesdays and the Coaches Museum on Mondays, as the monastery and the Tower are.

The card breaks even once the sights it covers cost €23.75 in 24 hours, €36.50 in 48 hours and €40.25 in 72 hours, with the transport counted as above. The longer cards cost less a day: €31, €25.50 and €20.67. If you would ride fewer than four times a day, a day’s rides cost less than €7.25, so the transport saving shrinks and the break-even rises.

Who it does not suit

• Under-25s and over-65s. The castle is €8.50 for ages 13 to 25 and €14 for ages 65 and over, and the monastery and the Tower are half price at those ages. The three sights cost a young adult €25 and a senior €30.50, so a 24-hour card barely breaks even.
• Families with young children. Children up to 12 enter the castle, the monastery and the Tower free. The child card buys them transport and little else, and ages 13 to 15 with the card still need a ticket at the castle.
• Anyone whose list is Sintra. The palaces are a discount at best, and the Pena Palace slot cannot be booked with the card.

What the card does not cover

• Sintra’s palaces. Show the card at the ticket office and pay the difference. You cannot book or buy online with it, so there is no Pena slot: see the Parques de Sintra rules before planning a day trip around it, and the Pena Palace tickets guide for the timed slot you buy instead.
• Closed for works on 1 October 2026, though listed as included: the National Tile Museum, the National Museum of Ancient Art, the National Costume Museum, the National Theatre and Dance Museum, the National Archaeology Museum and the Santa Justa Lift. The card’s transport includes the funiculars, but only the Graça funicular is running: see the tram and funicular guide.
• Mondays. The main museums and monuments close, and the national ones close on public holidays, on 25 December and on 1 January.

When it is worth it

• Buy the 48-hour or 72-hour card if you will visit three or more paid sights, including the castle and the Ajuda Palace, and use public transport most of each day.
• Buy the 24-hour card only for a day that holds at least €23.75 of sights, such as the castle with the Ajuda Palace and the Royal Treasure Museum, which are both on Largo da Ajuda.
• Skip it for one or two paid sights, for a plan built on Pena Palace, or for a stay that includes a Monday.
• Do not count the Belém slots until you have them. A card plan that depends on both is a plan that can fail on the day.

For what else to book, and the closing days, see what to book before you go in Lisbon. The São Jorge Castle tickets guide covers the sight that is free with the card without a booking.

If you do collect a card, hotels near Belém put both slotted monuments a walk away. The 24-hour sums fit Lisbon in one day and the 72-hour ones 3 days in Lisbon, and a cruise passenger on a short call can check the cruise port to city guide before buying.

Collecting the card

• Where: at an Ask Me Lisboa desk, with the order email. Visit Lisboa’s pages list desks in the airport arrivals hall (open 7:00 to 22:00 every day; airport to the city centre has the way in from there), at Praça do Comércio (10:00 to 19:00) and in the gardens of Belém Tower (9:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 18:00, closed on Mondays).
• When: the shop says to redeem the card up to 30 minutes before the desk closes.
• Then: fill in the date and time of first use, sign the card and validate it on public transport.