Madrid has two different transport cards, and the Abono only goes on one of them. The Multi card is an anonymous, rechargeable card for ordinary tickets: singles, 10-journey tickets and the Tourist Travel Pass. The Abono, the 30-day unlimited-travel pass, is personal and can only be loaded onto the personal transport card (Tarjeta Transporte Público Personal), which carries the holder’s name and photo. In short: the Multi card is for tickets anyone can use; the Abono needs a card with your name on it.
- Multi card: anonymous, €2.50, valid ten years, holds up to three non-personal tickets, and can be shared by people travelling together (CRTM).
- Personal card: €4, valid ten years, holds one personal Abono plus up to two non-personal tickets; since 15 June 2026 it requires proof of registered residence (CRTM).
- Abono: a 30-day unlimited-travel pass, valid from first use, loaded onto the personal card only.
What is the Multi card, exactly?
The Multi card (Tarjeta Transporte Público Multi) is a contactless plastic card issued under the Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM), the regional body that coordinates fares across metro, bus and suburban rail (Cercanías). It replaced the old paper metro tickets and cardboard multi-trip strips, and it is not tied to any person: according to the CRTM it can hold up to three non-personal tickets at once and be used by different people, including to pay for a companion making the same journey.
The card costs €2.50 and is valid for ten years, according to the CRTM, and it is bought and topped up at Metro and light rail ticket machines, at estancos (licensed tobacco-and-stamp shops) and other authorised shops, or in the Tarjeta Transporte app. The same card is simply recharged when its tickets run out. Full detail on how the fare zones themselves are built is covered separately in the guide to how the Madrid metro fare system works.
What is the Abono, and which card does it go on?
The Abono Transportes is CRTM’s unlimited-travel pass: 30 days from first use, according to the CRTM, during which the holder can make unlimited journeys on metro, bus, light rail and Cercanías within the zones the pass covers. The adult pass is priced by zone and by age band; the Abono Joven for under-26s is a single price for every zone. It is a subscription, not a card in itself.
To use an Abono, a traveller needs the personal transport card, not the Multi card. The personal card carries the holder’s name, identity number and photo and is non-transferable; according to the CRTM it can hold one personal Abono plus up to two non-personal tickets. It is requested online through the Comunidad de Madrid’s TTP service or at a card office by appointment, costs €4, and since 15 June 2026 requires a current certificate of empadronamiento (registration on a municipal roll) in the region. The Abono is then loaded and renewed at station machines, estancos or in the app.
How is the Multi card different from the Abono, in practice?
The distinction is between an anonymous card for pay-per-journey tickets and a personal pass. The Multi card holds whatever non-personal tickets are loaded onto it and can pass from hand to hand. The Abono is a time-limited, personal subscription that expires after 30 days and must be renewed, and it lives on a card that only its holder may use.
So the real comparison is not “Multi versus Abono” as two things to load onto one card, but pay-per-journey tickets on an anonymous card versus a monthly pass on a personal one. The personal card can also carry up to two ordinary tickets alongside the Abono, for example to pay for a companion.
- Multi card: anonymous, shareable, for singles, 10-journey tickets and the Tourist Travel Pass.
- Personal card: named and non-transferable; the only card that can hold an Abono.
- Abono: a 30-day unlimited-travel subscription, loaded onto the personal card.
What other tickets can go on a Multi card?
The Multi card is built for occasional travel. CRTM sells 10-journey tickets, most notably the Metrobús, cheaper per journey than buying singles, as well as single metro tickets and interurban bonobús tickets, and up to three of these can sit on one Multi card at once. According to the CRTM, single metro tickets loaded onto any card must be used on the day they are bought, and single tickets on city and interurban buses are still bought on board.
Because zone boundaries in Madrid roughly track the wider metropolitan geography, understanding what a “zone” actually corresponds to on the ground is easier alongside a sense of how the city itself is organised — see the explanation of how Madrid is divided into districts and barrios, which underpins how the fare zones are drawn in the first place.
Do visitors need a Multi card?
For most visitors, yes, or the Tourist Travel Pass, which comes loaded on one. A visitor cannot get the personal card, and so cannot use an Abono: since June 2026 the personal card requires registered residence in the region. What remains is a Multi card loaded with 10-journey tickets for a lighter trip, or the Tourist Travel Pass for heavy use over a few days.
CRTM’s own site sets out current issuance charges, zone maps and product prices, and is the correct place to confirm any figure before travelling, since fares and terms are revised periodically; the card charges quoted here are the CRTM’s as published in September 2026, and ticket prices are deliberately left out. The operator’s page is at crtm.es.
Is there a separate card for tourists?
Yes, although it is a ticket rather than a separate card. The Tourist Travel Pass (Abono Turístico) gives unlimited travel for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 7 consecutive days and comes loaded on a Multi card, according to the city’s official tourism site, esmadrid.com. It is sold in two zones: zone A covers the city, including the Metro airport supplement, and zone T covers the whole region. It needs no photo or residency, and it is sold at Metro and Cercanías stations, estancos and authorised shops. Per the CRTM, a tourist ticket cannot share a card with any other ticket.
Anyone weighing this option against a Multi card loaded with single tickets or a Metrobús bundle should compare the total planned number of journeys against the pass’s fixed-day cost — again, a figure to confirm directly with CRTM rather than take from any secondary source.
Does the Multi/Abono system cover the whole region, or just the city?
It covers the wider Comunidad de Madrid, not only the municipal centre. CRTM’s zone structure (commonly cited as Zone A at the centre, extending outward through B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, E1 and E2 into the wider region) means the same cards, and an adult Abono at a higher zone tier, can cover journeys well beyond the districts most visitors see. This is relevant for anyone travelling to outlying university or residential areas — the guide to Moncloa-Aravaca, Madrid’s university district, for example, sits within a zone structure that an Abono needs to match to be useful there.
It is also relevant to longer stays. Someone living in Madrid for a semester or a work contract, rather than passing through for a weekend, is the person for whom the 30-day Abono on a personal card was designed, provided they register their residence, which the personal card now requires. The pass exists to make routine, repeated commuting cheaper than paying per journey, not to serve short visits.
Which matters more for planning a visit to the sights?
For someone concentrating on the central museum and landmark districts — the kind of itinerary covered in the Landmarks & Sights archive or the Museums & Galleries archive, including the cluster of institutions described in the piece on Madrid’s Golden Triangle of Art — the practical question is usually how many journeys will actually be made in a set number of days, not which card sounds more official.
Someone based in one part of the city and exploring outward — say, from a stay near the districts profiled in the Neighbourhoods archive — will cross zone boundaries more often than someone staying within the centre, and that changes which Abono tier, if any, makes sense. The wider mechanics of how fares, zones and validators fit together are set out in full in the guide to Getting Around Madrid.
What is the simplest way to remember the difference?
The Multi card is an anonymous wallet for tickets anyone can use: singles, 10-journey tickets and the Tourist Travel Pass. The Abono is a personal 30-day pass, and it only goes on the personal card with your name and photo, which since June 2026 requires registered residence. Confirming current prices, zone maps and issuance rules directly on CRTM’s own site remains the reliable step before any of it is bought.
Access Madrid is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favourites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those.
Related reading
Living in Madrid, Madrid, Practically.
Featured image: Photo by Nan Palmero from San Antonio, TX, USA, source, BY