Vienna Pass or Vienna City Card? What each costs, what they cover and the sums for 24, 48 and 72 hours

💡 The Short Version: The Vienna City Card is €19 for 24 hours, €31 for 48, €37 for 72 and €39 for 7 days, and includes public transport and discounts of €1 to €7 at the big sights. It pays only on a long stay: over 72 hours the sums below save €2 to €9, and over 24 hours the card costs €0.80 to €3.80 more. At the Kunsthistorisches Museum its €23 is above the €22 online price. The Vienna Pass starts at €109 for one day; four big entries (the Schönbrunn Palace Ticket, the Upper Belvedere, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Albertina) come to €107.90 at full price. Or book the pass: the Vienna Passad is from €109.

The Vienna City Card

The official card is sold by the Vienna Tourist Board, and the prices are from its City Card page. Search results include resellers and look-alike sites; buy from the Tourist Board or Wiener Linien.

A tram on line 1 passing the Parliament on the Ringstrasse. Photo: Peter Gugerell, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

• Add-ons. Airport transfer is +€22 (valid 7 days from activation, by CAT bus, ÖBB Railjet, S7 or the Airport Bus, with first class in the Railjet at no surcharge, and two children under 15 free). Hop-on hop-off is +€34, with Big Bus or Vienna Sightseeing Tours for the card’s period. See Vienna airport to the city for the fares you would pay without the add-on and hop-on hop-off in Vienna.
• Transport without the card. A 24 Hours VIENNA ticket is €9.70 bought online and a 7 Days VIENNA ticket is from €25.20, according to Wiener Linien. Wiener Linien no longer sells 48-hour or 72-hour tickets, so for two days you buy two 24-hour tickets (€19.40) and for three days the 7-day ticket. Vienna public transport has the single fares.

What the card knocks off

Prices are the adult rate from each operator.

The Classic Pass at the card price is booked on the Schönbrunn Group’s timeslot page (timeslot.schoenbrunn-group.com). The Sisi Museum’s price changes when it reopens on 19 November 2026: see Sisi Museum and Hofburg tickets. Under-19s are free at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Albertina, the Belvedere, the Natural History Museum and the Imperial Treasury, so a family with teenagers gets nothing from the discounts. The 20% at Café Landtmann is worth about €4 on a €20 bill and is not counted in the sums.

The garden front of Schönbrunn Palace. Photo: Karl Döringer, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

The sums

Without the card, transport is the cheapest ticket for the days: a 24 Hours VIENNA ticket for 24 hours, two for 48 and the 7 Days VIENNA ticket for 72. With the card, the sights are at the card price.

How the figures are built:

• The card’s transport is the expensive part. The 72-hour card is €37 against €25.20 for the 7-day ticket, so the card has to win €11.80 back in discounts before it saves anything. The 48-hour card is €31 against €19.40, and the 24-hour card is €19 against €9.70.
• The discounts are small. The five museums in the 72-hour plan save €13.80 between them; the Classic Pass adds €7, but is sold only until 2 November 2026.
• Two of the dearest museum tickets are worse with the card: the Kunsthistorisches Museum (€23 against €22 online) and the Imperial Treasury (€17 against €16).
• The 7-day card is €39 against €25.20 for the 7-day ticket, a €13.80 gap.

Who the City Card suits

• A stay of three days or more with four or more discounted sights. The Classic Pass, the Mozarthaus, KunstHausWien, the Leopold Museum and the Belvedere are the ones that add up.
• A traveller with a child under 15 or a dog. One travels free on each card.
• A traveller who wants the hop-on hop-off bus or the airport transfer, since the add-ons are priced against the card.

Who it does not suit

• A short stay. For 24 or 48 hours, the transport alone costs less without it.
• Someone whose list is the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Imperial Treasury, the Albertina, the State Opera and a concert. The card discounts none of them in the table above.
• A family with under-19s, who are free at the main museums.

The Vienna Pass

The Vienna Pass is a digital pass sold for 1, 2, 3 or 6 days. GetYourGuide’s listing calls it a sightseeing pass for 85+ attractions and starts at €109, which is the one-day price; the pass site loads its other prices with a script. The Vienna Flexi Pass, a different product, is €59 on GetYourGuide for 2 to 8 sights from 70+ listed, valid for 60 days.

The pass pays only if the entries you use at full price come to more than its price for the same days. At €109 for a day, the Schönbrunn Palace Ticket (€42), the Upper Belvedere (€23), the Kunsthistorisches Museum (€22) and the Albertina (€20.90) come to €107.90, so a day of four big entries still falls €1.10 short. Check the pass’s list for each sight before you count it. The operators say:

The Belvedere gardens, looking down from the Upper Belvedere. Photo: Txllxt TxllxT, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

• The Spanish Riding School: reservations and online booking are not possible with the pass; holders collect Morning Exercise tickets at the visitor centre in advance, or by 09:15 on the day (srs.at). See Spanish Riding School tickets.
• The Belvedere: Vienna Pass holders need no time slot and go straight to the entrance with an ID (belvedere.at). See Belvedere tickets.
• The Riesenrad: free with the pass (wienerriesenrad.com). See the Prater and the Riesenrad.
• Mozarthaus Vienna: accepts the pass (mozarthausvienna.at).

Free and cheap without a pass

The Prater and the MuseumsQuartier courtyards are free and open round the clock, and the Schönbrunn park is free. The Secession is free on the first Wednesday of the month (4 November and 2 December 2026). State Opera standing places cost €13 to €18, and the Hofburgkapelle’s standing places for the Sunday Mass are free from 8:30. Vienna’s museums lists the prices and closed days, and what to book before you go to Vienna puts the tickets that need a slot in one table.

For a plan that uses the days well, see 3 days in Vienna, and for sleeping near the sights, where to stay in Vienna compares the districts. Vienna Christmas markets and the best time to visit Vienna cover the dates.