The Peninsula railway: San Francisco to San Jose and Gilroy, all-electric, priced by zone rather than by station. Fares, the electrified timetable, and how it hands off to BART and SFO at Millbrae.
Caltrain doesn't price by distance or by station pair — it counts zones, including the one you start in. San Francisco to Palo Alto touches zones 1, 2, and 3, so it's a three-zone trip. Get the zone count right and the fare table below answers everything.
Source: Caltrain stations & zone map. Stations south of Tamien have weekday commute-hour service only.
| Rider | 1 zone | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | $4.00 | $6.25 | $8.50 | $10.75 | $13.00 | $15.25 |
| Eligible discount | $2.00 | $3.00 | $4.00 | $5.00 | $6.00 | $7.00 |
| Youth (18 & under) | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 |
| Rider | 1 zone | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | $8.00 | $12.50 | $17.00 | $21.50 | $26.00 | $30.50 |
| Eligible discount | $4.00 | $6.00 | $8.00 | $10.00 | $12.00 | $14.00 |
| Youth | $2.00 | $2.00 | $2.00 | $2.00 | $2.00 | $2.00 |
| Rider | 1 zone | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | $96 | $150 | $204 | $258 | $312 | $366 |
| Eligible discount | $48 | $72 | $96 | $120 | $144 | $168 |
| Youth | $24 | $24 | $24 | $24 | $24 | $24 |
Source: Caltrain fares, checked July 2026. "Eligible discount" covers seniors 65+, riders with disabilities, and Medicare cardholders. Monthly passes cover unlimited weekend and holiday travel across all zones.
Two fare details that save money. A Zone Upgrade costs $2.25 per extra zone if your ticket doesn't reach far enough — it must accompany a valid ticket. And a Caltrain two-zone-or-greater monthly pass doubles as a SamTrans local bus pass, which is worth real money if your commute ends with a bus.
Kids ride for a dollar. Caltrain's Dollar Youth Fare is a flat $1.00 one way for anyone 18 and under, however far they go — San Francisco to Gilroy included. A family trip down the Peninsula costs far less on Caltrain than on any other Bay Area rail service.
Caltrain accepts Clipper, contactless bank cards and phone wallets at station validators, the Caltrain Mobile app, and paper tickets from station machines. San Francisco's station has eight machines in the lobby plus two Clipper add-value machines.
If you tap, you must tap twice. Tap on before boarding and tap off when you arrive. Skipping the tap-off gets you charged incorrectly, and taking your card out of your wallet before tapping stops the reader charging a different card than you intended.
Caltrain is a proof-of-purchase system: you need a valid ticket before you board, tickets aren't sold on the train, and inspectors do check. The same Clipper card works on BART →
Caltrain's electric fleet replaced diesel across the line, and the timetable was rebuilt around it: four trains an hour in each direction at weekday peak, on a clockface pattern so departures land at the same minutes past each hour. Three service types share the tracks:
San Francisco to San Jose in about an hour, calling at 11 of the busiest stations.
16 stations — the middle option, faster than a local without skipping much.
Every station, about 77 minutes end to end. Weekend locals also serve Broadway.
Weekday southbound service from San Francisco starts about 4:55 am, with roughly 85 trains through the day and last departures around 11:25 pm and 12:05 am. Weekends run less often. Timetable dates matter here: the current schedule took effect January 31, 2026, and Bay Area agencies now coordinate schedule changes each mid-August and mid-January — so re-check before a trip in those weeks.
Source: Caltrain schedules and 2026 service changes.
Weekend work south of San Jose, July–September 2026. Construction on the Guadalupe River bridge suspends weekend service between Tamien and San Jose Diridon on selected weekends across July, August, and September, and a temporary weekend timetable is in effect. If your trip runs south of Diridon at a weekend, check the current schedule first. Source: Caltrain service changes.
The station sits in Mission Bay beside Oracle Park — a walk or a short Muni ride from downtown rather than downtown itself. That's a real consideration when you're comparing Caltrain against driving: add the time to get to 4th & King at both ends.
Caltrain does not reach the Salesforce Transit Center yet. The transit centre was built with a rail level below it, but the tunnel connecting Caltrain to it — the Portal, previously called the Downtown Extension or DTX — is still a project, not a service. Until it opens, 4th & King is the northern terminus. What actually operates from the Transit Center today →
Millbrae Transit Center is the one place BART and Caltrain meet, and it's the connection that makes Caltrain useful for air travel. From Millbrae, SFO is a four-minute BART ride and $5.85. SFO's own guidance for the reverse trip is to take a Millbrae-bound BART train and change to Caltrain there.
Millbrae is a Zone 2 station, so San Francisco to Millbrae is $6.25 on Caltrain — but if you're coming from the airport it's cheaper and faster to use BART for that leg and start your Caltrain trip at Millbrae.
Check the transfer timetable around August 10, 2026. BART is changing its schedule that day, and some of the trains that currently line up with Caltrain at Millbrae shift. BART and Caltrain publish a joint transfer timetable — worth a look if your connection is tight. Source: BART schedule change notice.
Count zones, not stations. The fare jumps at zone boundaries, not evenly with distance. San Bruno is Zone 1 and Millbrae is Zone 2, one stop apart — but that one stop is the difference between $4.00 and $6.25 from San Francisco.
Check the service type before you board. An Express and a Local leaving minutes apart can arrive twenty minutes apart, and an Express will sail past the station you wanted. The clockface timetable makes this easy to learn: the same trains leave at the same minutes each hour.
Bikes are a genuine Caltrain strength. Bikes ride on board in dedicated cars, and San Francisco's station has free valet bike parking at the Caltrain Bike Station. Bike-plus-Caltrain often beats driving for a Peninsula office trip.
Weekend engineering work is normal. Caltrain runs a separate weekend timetable and adds temporary changes on top when there's track work — like the Guadalupe bridge closures through September 2026. Never assume a weekday plan works on Saturday.
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Fares and zones verified against caltrain.com in July 2026. Something outdated? Report an error →