The EA line from Seville airport charges €6.00 for a single, and the ordinary TUSSAM bus waiting two streets from it charges €1.40. Same municipal company, more than four times the fare, and it is the first ticket almost every visitor buys.
A TUSSAM single ticket costs €1.40 and is valid only inside the city, because the Metro and the Consorcio each run their own fare system.
Does one ticket cover bus and metro in Seville?
No. TUSSAM, Metro de Sevilla and the Consorcio are three separate issuers and no ticket works across them. A TUSSAM single costs €1.40 and drops to €0.76 with the multiviaje card, which takes a €1.50 deposit and tops up from €7 to €50.
Three issuers and no card that works across them
Holding a TUSSAM card gets a visitor nowhere on the Metro and nowhere on a Consorcio bus to the villages. These are three separate authorities, each issuing its own tickets, and the assumption that one card covers the city is where most of the money gets wasted.
TUSSAM is the municipal company, Transportes Urbanos de Sevilla, and it runs the city buses and the Metrocentro tram. Metro de Sevilla runs the single metro line. The Consorcio runs the metropolitan network out to the province, with its own fare band of €0.61 to €1.88 on card. Three networks, three price lists, and no ticket that crosses between them.
The TUSSAM card takes a €1.50 deposit, or €2.00 for special editions, and tops up between €7 and €50. The stored-value card of Metro de Sevilla tops up from €10 to €50, a different floor for a different network. The card of the Consorcio de Transporte Metropolitano del Área de Sevilla also takes a €1.50 deposit, and that identical figure is the detail that misleads: same price, different card, no interchange.
The word salto means two different things
Two of the three issuers charge by saltos and they do not mean the same thing by it. Nobody explains this because each authority assumes its own vocabulary is the only one in use.
The three ticket types that the Metro de Sevilla establishes run by salto: 0, 1 or 2 within its own line. It is an internal division of the metro and has nothing to do with leaving the city, so a 2-salto ticket still ends inside the municipality.
The Consorcio also charges by saltos, but its own are the metropolitan rings crossed on the way to a village. The fare the Consorcio publishes runs from €1.55 to €3.80 for a single and from €0.61 to €1.88 with its card, as set out in the guide to day trips from Seville by bus.
The transfer window is one hour, and only to a different line
The fare TUSSAM publishes brings a journey with a transfer down to €0.76 on the multiviaje card, and that transfer carries two conditions worth knowing before stepping off a bus.
The first is time: it is valid for one hour from validation. The second is route: it has to be a line different from the one boarded, so doubling back on the same line is not a transfer and is charged again.
Under those conditions a cross-city journey with one change costs €0.76 against the €2.80 that two singles would cost. That difference of €2.04 on a single crossing is the whole case for the card, and it repeats on every journey that involves a change of line.
The hour is generous enough to cover a stop in between, so a transfer used well can absorb a short errand rather than only a change of platform. What it cannot absorb is a return leg on the same line, which is charged in full at €0.76 again.
Where the break-even sits
The arithmetic is short enough to do at the ticket machine. A single is €1.40 and a card journey with transfer is €0.76, so each trip saves €0.64 against a deposit of €1.50.
Three journeys is one ordinary day of getting about, which is why the card pays for almost any stay longer than an afternoon. The deposit is refundable when the card is handed back, so the threshold in practice is closer to the second journey than the third.
Over three days of moderate use, say two bus journeys a day, the card side comes to €4.56 in fares plus a €1.50 deposit that returns, against €8.40 in singles. The gap is small in absolute terms and it grows with every change of line.
What to buy for a three-day stay
Arriving by plane, the EA line costs €6.00 single or €8.00 return and no travel card covers it, with its terminal at Plaza de Armas. The full comparison with the taxi is in the guide to getting from Seville airport to the centre.
Inside the city, a TUSSAM multiviaje card handles everything beyond walking distance, and a compact centre needs a bus less often than most itineraries assume. For a day out to a village, add the Consorcio card, which is a separate purchase with its own separate €1.50 deposit and its own fare band of €0.61 to €1.88.
None of this is expensive relative to the rest of a trip. Against the three-day Seville budget, the entire transport line stays below a single admission to the Real Alcázar, which is €15.50, and the airport leg is the largest item in it.
Put concretely, an €8.00 return on the EA line plus €4.56 of card journeys over three days comes to €12.56, still under that one admission. Everything after the airport is small change, which is the opposite of what the first ticket suggests.
Contactless exists, but not as one scheme
Paying with a bank card directly is possible on TUSSAM buses and trams, according to TUSSAM itself, and Metro de Sevilla runs its own tap-and-go service on its line. Two schemes, two operators, no single tap that covers the city.
That matters for anyone expecting the London or Madrid pattern, where one contactless tap works across modes and caps automatically. Here the tap is per operator, so a bus leg and a metro leg are two separate transactions with two separate fare rules behind them.
The practical consequence is that contactless removes the queue but not the decision. A visitor still has to know which of the three issuers runs the vehicle, and the €1.50 deposit of a physical multiviaje card still buys the €0.76 transfer fare that a casual tap does not.
Frequently asked questions about Seville transport fares
How much is a bus ticket in Seville?
A TUSSAM single costs €1.40, bought on board or at the machines at Metrocentro tram stops. With the multiviaje travel card a journey including a transfer drops to €0.76, and the transfer is valid for one hour on a line different from the original.
Does a TUSSAM card work on the Seville metro?
No. TUSSAM, Metro de Sevilla and the metropolitan transport consortium are three separate issuers with their own tickets. Each has its own card, its own deposit and its own minimum top-up, and none of the three covers the services of the other two.
What is a salto on Seville transport?
It depends who is using the word. Metro de Sevilla sets three ticket types by salto, of 0, 1 or 2 within its own line. The Consorcio charges by saltos between metropolitan rings, for journeys out to the villages. Two different systems share one word.
Is the airport bus covered by a Seville travel card?
No. The EA line is run by TUSSAM but priced separately at €6.00 single and €8.00 return, with its terminal at Plaza de Armas. That is more than four times the €1.40 urban single sold by the same municipal company.
Is the TUSSAM travel card worth buying?
From the third journey onwards. The card carries a €1.50 refundable deposit and brings each trip with a transfer down from €1.40 to €0.76, a saving of €0.64 per trip, so the deposit is covered on the third one and returned when the card is handed back.
Check who runs the vehicle before validating anything. That is the question that decides which ticket is valid.