Choosing city transit tickets in Bergen, Norway

Bergen, Norway is an absolutely lovely city, and getting around it is made quite easy with its excellent public transportation network of busses, light rail, and boats, all operated by Skyss. A valid Skyss ticket is required for and will work on all of these modes of transport (no need for different tickets for each).

Full details on the boarding process are outlined here, but, in short, within the Bergen area you do not need to present/validate/scan your ticket to board transit but should be prepared to present your valid ticket to an inspector in the event of a ticket inspection, where you will face a fine if without a valid ticket. (Outside of the Bergen area, you must present your ticket when boarding.) Skyss tickets can be purchased in a number of ways, though using the Skyss Billet app is the most common and convenient; note that tickets are activated at the moment of purchase, starting the timer on their validity period. Skyss also provides a separate travel/route planning app Skyss Reise, which displays information about any expected delays or route changes owing to tunnel closures, extreme weather, traffic, or anything else.

Skyss operates throughout Vestland, the Norwegian county containing Bergen, and has divided it into a number of price zones, where Zone A contains all of Bergen and a large area around it—including the airport and its major nearby islands Askøy and Sotra (among others). Skyss sells tickets encompassing 1, 2, 3, or 4+ zones; however, most people visiting Bergen and using public transit are likely to remain within just Zone A. Thus, this article only covers single-zone ticket prices. Furthermore, the contents of this article reflect the Skyss policies and prices as of the time of writing (12 January 2025), which may have changed in time.

Skyss sells the following types of tickets (current ticket prices):

• Single ticket (90-minute validity): †47 kr
• 24-hour ticket: 115 kr
• 7-day season ticket: 255 kr
• 30-day season ticket: 795 kr
• 180-day season ticket: 3975 kr

Note that the season tickets last exactly their stated duration (e.g., the 7-day ticket is valid for 168 hours from its moment of purchase). Here are some Google search links for converting various currencies to Norwegian kroner (kr / NOK): USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, AUD, NZD, JPY.

†The single ticket pricing is complicated by the travel discount system, which decreases the cost of each additional single ticket purchased within the last 30 days, to a maximum discount of 40%.

While circumstances usually make it easy to predict whether a 24-hour ticket is more sensible than single tickets, over longer periods it can be less obvious whether it makes more sense to buy single tickets, one or more 7-day season tickets (or “passes”, for brevity), or a 30-day pass. Thus, I have done the math here.

The below plot shows horizontal lines indicating the prices of the 30-day pass and one to four 7-day passes, and its curves show the cumulative cost of purchasing some number of single tickets “N”. The darker black curve assumes all single ticket purchases are made within a 30-day window and that the first single ticket is bought at full price (which should be the case for most visiting tourists); meanwhile, the lighter gray curve assumes all single ticket purchases are made with the maximum 40% discount (representing the theoretical minimum cost of that number of single tickets).

From this, we see that the pricing breakpoints making passes cheaper than single tickets—for most visitors without any pre-existing travel discount accumulated—as a function of the number of “rides” (uses of public transit more than 90 minutes apart, thus requiring separate single ticket purchases) are as follows:

• For 6 or more rides, the 7-day pass (255 kr) is cheaper.
• For 13 or more rides, two 7-day passes (510 kr) are cheaper.
• For 21 or more rides, a 30-day pass (795 kr) is cheaper.

For visitors intending to make frequent use of the public transportation, buying passes (season tickets) covering the duration of their stay is very likely to be the most economical (and convenient) option.

For locals and frequent visitors to Bergen buying the single tickets regularly who do have some travel discount already accumulated, these breakpoints will be a bit different. However, this plot is hopefully still a helpful tool in determining under what circumstances each combination of tickets/passes makes the most sense.

While this article does not seek to be a comprehensive guide to transportation in Bergen, the dedicated airport express bus service Flybussen should be mentioned. It is not operated by Skyss (though appears in the Skyss Reise app travel route suggestions) and requires purchase of its own tickets though Flybussen, either in advance online or at the bus (slightly more expensive). If needing to get to the Bergen airport very early in the morning (e.g., for a 6 am flight) or if arriving at the airport late at night (particularly on weekdays) and needing to get into the city, Flybussen may be your only option aside from taxis/Uber, which are considerably more expensive. More information on the travel times and stops serviced by Flybussen can be found here.