Andalusia Without a Car: 0.49 Euros a Ride With the Consortium Card

You have landed in Málaga and you are weighing up a hire car. Public transport in Andalusia covers more ground than its reputation suggests: metro, Cercanías, tram and intercity coach. With the Tarjeta del Consorcio a metro ride costs €0.49. Without it, €1.35.

This guide names the operators, the fares, the frequencies and the cards worth buying. With currency and date. Every figure was checked in September 2026 against the transport consortia, Renfe and the Ministerio de Transportes. Where no official figure exists, none is quoted here.

Getting there and the practical bits

Almost every trip through Andalusia starts at an airport or a mainline station, and that is where the hire car question gets decided. The two points below settle it. Both topics have their own guides, so what follows is only the part that matters for onward travel by bus and train.

From the airport into town

At Málaga airport the Cercanías line C-1 stops directly beneath the terminal. The Aeropuerto station sits in zone 2. What a taxi or a private shuttle charges instead is worked out in our guide to the Málaga airport transfer.

Málaga is not the right arrival point for everyone. That depends on where you are heading. Seville, Jerez, Granada and Almería all have their own airports, and our comparison of airports in Andalusia says which one suits which region.

Long-distance trains, tolls and hire cars

Between the provincial capitals you have long-distance trains and intercity coaches. How to buy Renfe tickets and where the discounts sit is covered in our guide to Renfe tickets in Spain. This article stays local. Anything from regional trains upwards belongs there.

Take a car and you will pay tolls on some stretches. Which routes those are is listed under Spain toll roads. In the old quarters of Seville, Granada and Córdoba parking is the real obstacle. The walk starts there anyway.

Public transport in Andalusia: every network at a glance

Eight transport consortia, three metro systems, one tram, two Cercanías networks and two intercity coach operators cover the region. The table gives the operator, the card fare, the single fare and the frequency for each one. Every row jumps to its section. The date each tariff applies from is named alongside.

1. Málaga metro: two lines, 21 stations

Metro de Málaga runs two lines. Line 1 has 13 stations from Andalucía Tech to Atarazanas, line 2 has 8. Ride it once and you pay €1.35, or €0.49 with the Tarjeta del Consorcio. Trains come every 7 minutes by day, service starts at 6:25 and runs to roughly 2:00 on Friday and Saturday.

2. Seville metro: line 1 and the Bono Plus 45

Seville still has only one metro line. A single fare costs €1.35 with no zone hop, €1.60 with one and €1.80 with two. Travel more often and the Bono Plus 45 starts to pay: €18 buys 45 rides, which works out at €0.40 per ride. Trains run 6:30 to 23:00 Monday to Thursday, and until 2:00 on Friday and Saturday.

3. Granada metro: Albolote to Armilla

The Metropolitano de Granada links Albolote in the north with Armilla in the south. The single fare is called Univiaje: €1.35. With the monedero or the consortium card you pay €0.49, and the Bono 30 días monthly pass costs €24. Between 7:30 and 15:00 a train comes every 8 minutes, on Saturdays every 10 minutes.

4. Trambahía: Chiclana, San Fernando and Cádiz

Renfe operates the Trambahía. From San Fernando to Cádiz the card fare is €1.35, from Chiclana to Cádiz €2.18. Without a card the single fare sits between €1.80 and €2.60. Line T1 takes around 30 minutes for 21 stops across 24 km, and the next tram follows every 30 minutes.

5. Cercanías: the Renfe commuter trains

Renfe runs two Cercanías networks in Andalusia. In Málaga these are the C-1 to Fuengirola and the C-2 to Álora, in Seville the lines C-1 to C-5. One zone hop in the Málaga consortium costs €0.71 with the card and €1.75 without. Entry and exit validation must be up to 180 minutes apart.

No card? Cronos is the contactless option at the gate. From your fifth journey in a calendar month the single fare drops by 40%, and the count restarts each month. Validate on the way in and out, or you are charged the maximum fare across all zones.

6. The Tarjeta del Consorcio and its zones

Eight consortia issue the Tarjeta del Consorcio: Seville, Granada, Málaga, Bahía de Cádiz, Córdoba, Jaén, Almería and Campo de Gibraltar. Billing works in zone hops (Spanish: saltos), not in kilometres. In the Málaga consortium two zone hops cost €0.95 with the card and €2.50 without. Each transfer adds €0.39.

In Málaga the card scale runs from €0.62 at zero zone hops to €4.65 at five. Without a card that same scale is €1.60 to €6.25, and €7.75 for a Cercanías-only trip at zone 5. Granada charges €0.63 with the card and €1.55 without, with a 40% reduction held until 31 December 2026. The card itself costs a €1.50 deposit.

7. City buses: Aucorsa, Tussam and EMT

Córdoba is served by Aucorsa. One ride is €1.30, or €0.43 with the card, and the city network gives you 60 minutes of free transfers onto a different line. Tussam in Seville charges €1.40 and €0.76 with the card, the Granada city bus €0.63. EMT in Málaga sits at €0.83 with the card, where transfers are free for an hour from the second leg onwards.

8. Alsa: the intercity coach network

Alsa runs where no railway does. Between Seville and Granada it offers more than 30 departures a day. The first Comfort coach leaves at 8:00 and arrives at 11:00, so around 3 hours. There is no published tariff table: the fare set at booking is what you pay.

9. Damas: the west between Huelva and Seville

Damas covers western Andalusia. Two lines link Huelva and Seville, one via the A-49 and one via the C.N.-431. The first departure 8:00 from Huelva is followed by services through to 21:30. Again the fare set at booking applies, but you get 40% off with the Tarjeta Monedero and another 40% with the Bono Comparte.

What a week without a car costs

The sum depends on how many times a day you board and whether you carry the card. Four rides a day is realistic for a city break. Budget the card fare rather than the single fare, then add the deposit once. These items apply everywhere.

• Card: a €1.50 deposit in Seville and Córdoba; at the Granada metro €0.30 for the flexible card and €1.80 for the rigid one.
• City rides: €0.43 in Córdoba, €0.49 on the Málaga and Granada metros, €0.76 on Tussam in Seville.
• Transfers: €0.39 in the Málaga consortium, €0.43 in Córdoba, €0.40 in Granada and free there when one leg runs on an intercity bus.
• Monthly passes: €24 for the Bono 30 días in Granada, €18 for 45 rides with the Bono Plus 45 in Seville.
• Discounts: under-14s travel free, young people get 50% off multi-journey passes, other regular users 20%.

The legal basis is Real Decreto-ley 17/2025 of 23 December 2025. For 2026 the Ministerio de Transportes lists: under-14s free on urban and metropolitan services, 50% for young people on multi-journey passes, 20% for other regular users. On state-run intercity coach routes it is 40% on the 10-journey pass, 50% on the monthly pass and 70% for 15 to 26-year-olds. Avant regulars get 50%.

Regional schemes stack on top. The Málaga consortium cut card fares by 40% on 1 January 2026 and tops up free of charge for children born between 2012 and 2026. Under-30s get another 25% there. Granada holds its 40% reduction until 31 December 2026.

Can you really go car-free? The reality check

Not every route works. The consortia cover the built-up areas well, the white villages and the natural parks often not at all. The two columns below set out where public transport carries you and where it stops. Decide from that whether the hire car goes entirely or only for two days.

More routes and tips sit in our travel section. The individual provinces and cities have their own guides there. This article stays with fares and cards.

Wheelchairs, pushchairs and bikes

Accessibility and bike carriage are set operator by operator, not uniformly across Andalusia. Three rules are documented and hold wherever you travel. They decide whether your bike can come along at all and how far in advance a wheelchair space has to be booked. The rest depends on the individual station.

On Renfe a bike travels free on Cercanías and regional trains with no reservation required. A folding bike counts as hand luggage as long as its combined dimensions stay under 180 cm. A dismantled bike must go in a bag of no more than 140x90x40 cm. That is the whole rule.

The Málaga metro takes a maximum of two bikes per carriage, and one vehicle per person. At every lift, reduced-mobility passengers come first, pushchairs too. With Alsa a wheelchair space must be booked at least 36 hours ahead, occasionally 24 hours. Plan for it.

Between the provincial capitals, that tariff ends. From there you are on an intercity coach, and those fares appear on no tariff page at all: they are generated at the booking step. Seeing departures, journey times and prices from several operators side by side takes a search that queries them all at once.

Frequently asked questions

Some trips through Andalusia end with a different question: what would living here without a car actually feel like? Public transport answers only half of that. The other half is province, budget and paperwork.

Verdict

What does the Tarjeta del Consorcio actually buy? A metro ride in Málaga or Granada for €0.49 instead of €1.35. The card asks for a €1.50 deposit. Stay a week in one Andalusian city and day one pays that back.

Buy per consortium, not per country. One card does not stretch across Spain. A single ticket will not carry you through a transfer either; that is written into the consortium card alone. The other trap waits at the Renfe exit gate, where a missed validation charges the maximum fare across every zone.