Four transit systems, four fare structures, and one airport that closes its rail link at midnight. Every fare and time on this site is checked against the agency that sets it — with the source on the page.
Five pages that cover the trips and questions most people arrive with. Each one carries its sources and the month it was verified.
Most confusion in the Bay Area comes from assuming one network. There are several, they don't share fares, and knowing which is which saves both money and an hour of your day.
The airport and the suburbs: SFO, the East Bay, the Peninsula, plus eight stations inside San Francisco along Market Street and the Mission. Every station pair has its own fare, from a $2.55 minimum to $11.80 out of the airport, and there are no weekly or monthly passes. Closes at midnight; opens at 8 am on Sundays. BART guide →
Buses, Metro light rail, historic streetcars, and the cable cars — everything BART doesn't reach, which is most of San Francisco. $2.85 with Clipper or MuniMobile and $3.00 cash, valid 120 minutes including transfers; cable cars are a separate $9.00. Youth 18 and under ride free, cable cars excepted.
San Francisco to San Jose and Gilroy from 4th & King, now all-electric with four trains an hour at peak. Fares count zones, $4.00 for one up to $15.25 for six, and anyone 18 or under pays $1.00 however far they go. Caltrain guide →
AC Transit to the East Bay, Golden Gate Transit to Marin and Sonoma, SamTrans down the Peninsula, WestCAT to Contra Costa — most of them from the Salesforce Transit Center. Each sets its own fares; Clipper works on all of them. Transit Center guide →
The numbers worth knowing before you arrive. Bay Area fares move often, so each of these carries a source — and if you spot one that's changed, tell us.
| Fare | Price |
|---|---|
| BART — SFO to any downtown SF station | $11.80 |
| BART — minimum fare (short in-city trip) | $2.55 |
| Muni — single ride, 120 minutes | $2.85 / $3.00 cash |
| Muni — Day Pass | $5.70 |
| Muni — monthly "M" pass / "A" pass with BART in SF | $86 / $104 |
| Cable car — single ride | $9.00 |
| Visitor Passport — 1 / 3 / 7 days | $15 / $35 / $47 |
| Caltrain — one way, 1 to 6 zones | $4.00–$15.25 |
| Caltrain — youth 18 and under, any distance | $1.00 |
| SamTrans — local or express bus | $2.05 / $2.25 cash |
| AC Transit — Transbay to the East Bay | $6.50 |
| Golden Gate Transit — SF to Marin (zones 2–3), cash | $9.00 |
| Taxi — San Francisco to SFO, metered estimate | ~$56 |
| Taxi — SFO pick-up fee (airport departures only) | $6.00 |
| Clipper — plastic card fee (free in your phone) | $3.00 |
Sources: BART fare calculator · SFMTA Muni fares · Caltrain fares · SamTrans fares · AC Transit fares · Golden Gate Transit fares · SFMTA taxi fares.
BART doesn't open until 8 am on Sunday. Weekdays it's 5 am, Saturdays 6 am, and every night it stops around midnight. Early Sunday flight out of SFO? You need a taxi, a rideshare, or the 24-hour SamTrans bus — this is the single most common planning mistake here. Options to the airport →
San Francisco has no flat-rate airport taxi. If you're arriving from a city that does, budget differently: the meter runs the whole way, roughly $56 between downtown and SFO, plus a $6 pick-up fee when you start at the airport. Taxis never surge, though, which is why they beat rideshares on a busy Friday evening. SFO guide →
A Muni fare is not a BART fare. They share four downtown stations on different levels and gates — tapping into the wrong system is a rite of passage. Clipper does take $2.85 off an adult Muni fare when you transfer from a connecting agency within two hours. How the two systems differ →
Two things travellers ask about alongside fares. These are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no cost to you, and none of it affects the transit advice anywhere on this site. How this works →
Every fare, schedule, terminal detail, and set of opening hours here comes from the operator that publishes it — BART, SFMTA, Caltrain, SamTrans, AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit, and SFO — and the source sits on the page next to the fact. Where a figure is our estimate rather than a published number, such as driving times, we say so. Fares in the Bay Area change often, so pages carry the month they were last verified and get re-checked on a schedule. Found something stale? Report it and we'll fix it.