I amsterdam City Card, Go City or a transport pass: which Amsterdam pass to choose?

Amsterdam passes at a glance

The table below sums up what each option includes for an adult. Children's prices are detailed further down.

Prices observed in October 2026 on the official websites of I amsterdam, Go City, GVB and NS.

The I amsterdam City Card: museums and transport together

The tourist office's City Card comes in two versions. The full version, called Total Experience, gives you, for 24 to 120 hours, entry to more than 70 museums and attractions, GVB trams, buses, metros and ferries (night buses included), one canal cruise and a day of bike rental. The hours run consecutively from first use. The Explorer version, without transport, gives a fixed number of activities chosen from the same list.

Prices observed in October 2026 on the official I amsterdam ticket shop.

At some places the card only gives a discount: this is the case at the Heineken Experience and on the guided tour of the Johan Cruijff ArenA, Ajax's stadium. The museums covered and the comparison with the Museumkaart are detailed in our guide City Card or Museumkaart.

Go City Amsterdam: three passes for attractions

Go City, a private company that sells sightseeing passes in many cities, offers three fully digital options in Amsterdam, shown on your phone. None of them includes public transport.

• All-Inclusive: every attraction on the list, as many as you like, for 1 to 5 days. These are consecutive calendar days from your first visit: activated at 4pm, a one-day pass expires at midnight. A paid option lets you spread your days over two weeks instead of using them in a row.
• Explorer: 3, 4 or 5 attractions of your choice, to be used within 30 days of your first visit.
• Essentials: three attractions, including the Rijksmuseum or the Heineken Experience, valid for 30 days.

Prices observed in October 2026 on the Go City website; occasional promotions sometimes bring them down. From age 13, the adult price applies.

The All-Inclusive list has around fifty entries: the Rijksmuseum, the Heineken Experience, the Stedelijk Museum, the Rembrandt House, ARTIS zoo, A'DAM Lookout, the Moco Museum, several canal cruises, coach trips to Zaanse Schans and Volendam, and even a day trip to Giethoorn. The Van Gogh Museum, NEMO and the Anne Frank House are not on it; Go City's "Anne Frank" offer is a guided walk around the neighbourhood, with no museum entry. The pass is valid for one year from purchase, and an unactivated pass can be refunded within 90 days of the order.

GVB transport passes

If you only want to get around, GVB sells 1- to 7-day tickets for its whole tram, bus and metro network: €10 for 24 hours (€5 for a child), €16 for 48 hours, €21.50 for 72 hours and up to €43 for 168 hours. They run in hours from your first check-in. The Amsterdam Travel Ticket (€20, €27 or €34 for 1, 2 or 3 days) adds the train between Schiphol and Amsterdam. The full fare table, the useful lines and how check-in works are in our guide to getting around Amsterdam.

Compare this with the City Card: the price gap between a 48-hour City Card (€94) and a 48-hour GVB ticket (€16) is €78. The City Card only makes sense if the visits and cruise you plan cost more than that.

Leaving Amsterdam: regional and national passes

Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket

This ticket covers GVB trams, buses and metros, regional buses (Connexxion, EBS) and 2nd-class NS trains within the Amsterdam area: Schiphol, Haarlem, Zandvoort, Zaandam, Weesp or Almere. It therefore gets you to Zaanse Schans, Volendam and, in spring, Keukenhof via Schiphol. It costs €23, €34 or €44 for 1, 2 or 3 days. Note that these are calendar days, from midnight to 4am the next morning, not 24-hour blocks. Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam are outside the zone.

Holland Travel Ticket

Sold by NS, it gives one day of unlimited travel on every train, tram, bus and metro in the country for €79, or €54 for the off-peak version, which is not valid Monday to Friday between 6:30am and 9am. It only pays off for a long journey or several cities on the same day.

Three sample trips, costed

The calculations below are for one adult and use the walk-up prices from the tables above. For the canal cruise we count €18, the price of a standard one-hour cruise; companies and options are compared in our guide to canal cruises.

Two days: Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and a canal cruise

• Individual tickets: Rijksmuseum €25, Van Gogh Museum €25, cruise €18, 48-hour GVB ticket €16, a total of €84.
• 48-hour City Card: €94, plus €25 for the Van Gogh Museum, a total of €119.
• City Card Explorer, 3 activities: €44 for the Rijksmuseum, the cruise and a third activity, plus €25 for the Van Gogh Museum and €16 for transport, a total of €85.
• Go City All-Inclusive, 2 days: €129, plus the Van Gogh Museum and transport, a total of €170.

With this programme, individual tickets win. The Explorer only becomes worthwhile if you really use the third activity: add A'DAM Lookout (€18.50 at the door) and individual tickets rise to €102.50.

A packed day with the Heineken Experience

Programme: the Rijksmuseum in the morning, the Heineken Experience, a canal cruise, A'DAM Lookout and the Moco Museum, on foot and by free ferry.

• Individual tickets: 25 + 24.95 + 18 + 18.50 + 23.95 = €110.40.
• Go City All-Inclusive, 1 day: €79, a saving of €31.40.
• 24-hour City Card: €67, which covers the Rijksmuseum, the cruise and A'DAM Lookout, but not entry to the Heineken Experience, which is only discounted.

Go City wins here, provided you keep up the pace: the Rijksmuseum and the Heineken Experience require a time slot, even with the pass.

A day outside Amsterdam

• Utrecht: the return train fare is €20 with contactless payment, far less than the Holland Travel Ticket. The plan for the day is in our guide Utrecht from Amsterdam.
• Zaanse Schans in the morning, Haarlem in the afternoon: the one-day Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket (€23) covers the train to Zaanse Schans, then on to Haarlem, and the tram back.
• Giethoorn: a single to Steenwijk costs €29, so €58 return before you even take the bus; the off-peak Holland Travel Ticket (€54) is cheaper if you leave after 9am on a weekday or at the weekend.

Without a pass: pay with your bank card

The OVpay system accepts contactless bank cards, phones and watches with mobile payment on every tram, bus, metro and train in the country. You check in when you board and check out when you get off, with the same card, one card per person. On the GVB network, a journey costs €1.16 plus €0.217 per kilometre: a 3 km journey therefore costs €1.81. Below five or six journeys a day, paying per journey is cheaper than the 24-hour GVB ticket.

Museums can be paid individually on their websites, often slightly cheaper than at the door, and some can only be booked that way. Our guide to booking tickets in Amsterdam gives the booking windows for each venue.

Pitfalls to avoid

• Counting on a pass for the Van Gogh Museum or the Anne Frank House: neither the City Card nor Go City covers them. Only the Museumkaart gives access, with a €1 booking fee at the Anne Frank House.
• Forgetting time slots: a pass gets you in, not a time. At the Rijksmuseum, the Heineken Experience and several other venues, you must book a slot with your pass.
• Mixing up hours and calendar days: the City Card and GVB tickets run in hours; Go City All-Inclusive and the Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket run in calendar days. Activate the latter in the morning.
• Buying a pass for a child without doing the maths: the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum are free for under-18s; a €40 24-hour child City Card rarely pays off.
• Looking for the Holland Pass: this pass is no longer offered by its publisher, whose address now redirects to a regular ticket shop. Be wary of sites that still advertise it.
• Assuming Go City includes transport: budget for a GVB ticket or your bank card on top.

Further reading

To fit these costs into a full budget, with accommodation and meals, see our guide to the budget for a trip to Amsterdam. If you are flying in, the guide getting from Schiphol to central Amsterdam explains when the Amsterdam Travel Ticket is worth it. For a half-day outside the city with the Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket, see our page on Zaanse Schans.