Tbilisi metro, buses and the Metromoney card

A small system that covers more than it looks like it should

Tbilisi’s public transport network is modest by the standards of a national capital — two metro lines and a bus network that most first-time visitors underestimate — but it is cheap, dense enough in the centre to be genuinely useful, and simple enough to learn in a single ride. The entire system runs on one card, the Metromoney, and one flat fare of 1 lari (around €0.30-0.35 depending on the exchange rate) no matter how far you go or how many stops you pass through. For a visitor staying in or near the Old Town, Rustaveli Avenue or Vera, the metro alone can realistically replace taxis for most of a stay; for anyone based further out in Saburtalo, Vake or the newer eastern districts, buses fill in the gaps the two metro lines don’t reach.

This guide covers how the metro and city buses actually work day to day — buying and loading a card, the two lines and where they do and don’t go, how buses layer on top of that, and what changes when snow arrives in December and January. It does not cover marshrutkas, the shared minibuses that handle both some city routes and every intercity journey out of Tbilisi — those get their own explanation in how marshrutkas actually work, because the rules, the stations and the etiquette are different enough to confuse the two systems.

The Metromoney card: buying it, loading it, using it

Every ride on the metro or a city bus goes through a single rechargeable card, sold and topped up at ticket counters and vending machines inside metro station entrances, and at some bus-stop kiosks around the city. The card itself costs a small one-off amount on top of whatever credit you load, and that credit is then debited 1 lari at a time as you tap in. There is no need to register the card or show identification to buy one, and a single card can be shared between two or more people travelling together, tapping once per person as they pass through.

Loading enough credit for a short stay — a handful of lari covers several days of regular use given how low the flat fare is — avoids repeated queueing at machines that can be slow during rush hour. Machines generally accept both cash and card payment for top-ups, though carrying some small denomination lari notes is sensible in case a particular machine or kiosk is cash-only or its card reader is out of service, which happens occasionally on older machines.

One point worth being clear about: the 1 lari fare applies per tap, not per journey in the sense of a connected trip. If you ride the metro and then change onto a bus to finish the journey, that is two separate taps and two separate lari, since Tbilisi’s system does not currently offer a time-limited free transfer between a metro ride and a bus ride the way some larger networks do. For most visitors this barely registers given how low each individual fare already is, but it is worth knowing rather than assuming a transfer is included.

The two metro lines and where they actually go

Tbilisi’s metro opened in 1966, the first in the South Caucasus, and today consists of two lines that meet at a single interchange station. The Akhmeteli-Varketili line runs roughly north-west to south-east, passing through the centre near Rustaveli Avenue and continuing out to residential districts on the eastern edge of the city.

The Saburtalo line runs from the centre out to Saburtalo, the university and business district on higher ground to the north-west, useful for anyone staying near Vake or working out of the newer office developments along that corridor. The two lines cross at Station Square (Sadguris Moedani), directly beside Tbilisi’s central railway station, which makes that stop the natural hub for changing lines or connecting onward to a train covered in our Georgian trains guide.

For a first-time visitor, the practical reach of the metro is narrower than the map suggests. Stations serve the Old Town area, Rustaveli Avenue, the Station Square hub and Saburtalo well, but large parts of the city that visitors also spend time in — the hillside neighbourhoods above the centre, most of Vake proper away from its lower edge, and almost anywhere south of the river beyond the immediate Old Town — sit outside comfortable walking distance of a station.

Checking a station’s actual distance from where you’re staying, rather than assuming metro coverage matches a European capital’s density, avoids a longer walk than expected at the end of a journey. Our where to stay in Tbilisi guide notes metro proximity neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Trains run reasonably frequently through the day, with noticeably longer gaps between trains late in the evening and first thing in the morning. The system operates from early morning until close to midnight, which is comfortably enough for most sightseeing days but not for a late night out — anyone leaving a bar or restaurant after the last trains have stopped will need a taxi or Bolt rather than the metro to get home.

City buses: the network that fills in the gaps

Where the metro’s two lines leave large parts of Tbilisi uncovered, the bus network makes up the difference, with routes running across the city on a mix of modern low-floor buses and older vehicles still being phased out. The same Metromoney card works for boarding, tapped on a reader near the driver’s cabin as you get on — there is no separate bus ticket to buy, and no need to tell the driver a destination, since the fare is the same flat 1 lari regardless of distance.

Bus stops are marked but not always obviously signed in English, and route numbers rather than destination names are the more reliable way to navigate, since a single route can pass through several neighbourhoods with names that mean little to a first-time visitor. A transit app or an offline map with the route number for your destination saves real time over guessing from a paper timetable, particularly since buses share Tbilisi’s often congested streets with private traffic and can run noticeably behind schedule during rush hour, roughly 08:00-10:00 and 17:00-19:30 on weekdays.

A separate note on the funicular: the short cable railway up to Mtatsminda Park is a different, standalone system rather than part of the main metro or bus network, with its own way of paying — treat it as a one-off attraction ride rather than a transport link, and see that guide for current details.

Buses versus marshrutkas: a distinction worth understanding

Visitors often lump “bus” and “marshrutka” together, but in Tbilisi they are functionally different systems that happen to share some of the same roads. City buses run on the Metromoney card, follow fixed routes and a rough timetable, and stop only at marked stops.

Marshrutkas — the shared minibuses that handle both some in-city routes and every intercity connection out of Tbilisi — are usually cash-only, depart when full rather than on a schedule for intercity routes, and can often be flagged down or asked to stop somewhere along their route rather than only at fixed points. If you’re planning to leave Tbilisi for Kazbegi, Kutaisi or Kakheti, the metro and city bus network described here won’t get you there — that’s covered separately in how marshrutkas actually work.

Winter: what changes and what doesn’t

The metro, running underground for almost its entire length, is essentially immune to Tbilisi’s winter weather, which makes it the more dependable option on the handful of days each year when snow settles on the city’s steep central streets. Surface transport is a different story: buses on routes through Sololaki, Mtatsminda’s lower slopes and parts of Vake can slow considerably or bunch up when snow or ice makes drivers cautious on gradients that are already tight for a full-size vehicle.

This is rarely a multi-day disruption — Tbilisi’s winters are cold rather than snow-heavy most years, and the city clears main routes reasonably quickly — but it’s worth building in extra time for a bus journey on a snowy morning rather than assuming normal schedules will hold. For a broader look at what winter changes across the country beyond city transport, see Georgia in winter.

Soviet-era stations worth a second look

A handful of Tbilisi’s metro stations are minor attractions in their own right, built in the 1960s and 1970s with the marble, mosaics and chandeliers typical of Soviet-era metro architecture, when underground stations were treated as public showcases rather than purely functional spaces. Station interiors along the older sections of both lines still carry decorative panels, patterned ceilings and the occasional mosaic mural, worn but largely intact, and riding a few stops out of your way specifically to look at one costs nothing beyond the flat 1 lari fare.

This is a minor, easily missed layer of Tbilisi’s Soviet history that most visitors walk straight past on their way somewhere else, and it pairs naturally with the wider survey of the city’s Soviet architecture and monuments covered in our brutalist Tbilisi guide, even though the metro stations themselves lean more decorative than brutalist.

Accessibility: what to expect if mobility is a concern

Tbilisi’s metro was not built with modern accessibility standards in mind, and it shows: many stations rely on long, steep escalators to reach platforms far below street level, with elevators either absent or, where they exist, not always in reliable working order. Anyone using a wheelchair, travelling with a large pushchair, or simply uneasy on long fast-moving escalators should treat the metro as a system to check station by station rather than assume uniform accessibility, and should default to buses or a taxi for any journey where that uncertainty is a real problem rather than a minor inconvenience.

Buses are a more mixed picture too — newer low-floor vehicles on some routes are considerably easier to board than the older stock still running elsewhere in the fleet, and there is no reliable way to know in advance which type will turn up at a given stop. Our accessible travel in Georgia guide goes into this in more depth across the wider country, including where the gaps are most likely to affect a trip built around public transport rather than a private driver.

What it costs against the alternatives

Set against Tbilisi’s other transport options, the metro and bus network is difficult to beat on price. A Bolt or Yandex Go ride across the centre typically costs several times a single metro fare, and a private airport transfer or half-day driver hire costs

an order of magnitude more again. For a visitor moving between two or three fixed points a day — a hotel, the Old Town, a museum, a restaurant for dinner — the maths clearly favours the card: even ten taps in a single day, an unusually heavy amount of movement for most itineraries, comes to a fraction of what the equivalent number of short taxi rides would cost.

The trade-off is convenience and door-to-door comfort rather than price, which is why most visitors end up using a mix of both: the metro and buses for the bulk of daily movement, and a Bolt when carrying luggage, travelling late at night, or heading somewhere the network simply doesn’t reach. Our what a week in Georgia actually costs guide breaks down where transport sits in a typical trip budget alongside food, accommodation and activities.

Practical tips for a first ride

Tap in as you enter a metro station’s turnstile and again when boarding a bus — there’s no tap-out required on either system, since the flat fare doesn’t depend on distance travelled. Keep the card somewhere you can reach it without digging through a bag at a crowded turnstile, since Tbilisi’s metro can get genuinely packed during rush hour on the more central stretches of both lines. Carry a small amount of loaded credit as a buffer rather than topping up to the exact lari you expect to need, since running out mid-trip means finding a working machine before you can continue, and not every station has more than one or two in service at a given moment.

For anyone arriving with heavy luggage, note again that the metro does not serve the airport directly — see Tbilisi airport to the city centre for the realistic options on that specific leg, since attempting the metro-plus-bus combination described online for budget travellers is genuinely awkward with suitcases and rarely worth the saving over a short taxi ride at Tbilisi’s low fares.

How this fits into a longer stay

For a visitor spending three days in Tbilisi or a weekend break, the metro plus occasional bus or short Bolt ride is usually enough to cover everything on a typical itinerary without renting a car or relying on taxis for every trip.

It’s also, simply, one of the cheapest ways to experience a working part of the city rather than only the tourist-facing centre — riding a packed rush-hour train between Station Square and Saburtalo says more about how Tbilisi actually functions day to day than most guided tours do. Combined with walking in the compact centre and the occasional Bolt for anything outside comfortable coverage, it is a genuinely sufficient way to get around for most stays, and one that costs a fraction of what taxis alone would add up to over a week.

Longer trips built around a base in Tbilisi with day trips out to Mtskheta, Kazbegi or Kakheti, such as our seven-day Georgia itinerary, still rely on the metro and buses for getting around the capital itself on the days spent in the city, even though the day trips out use marshrutkas, a private driver or a rental car instead. Thinking of the two systems as separate layers — metro and buses for Tbilisi itself, everything else for getting beyond the city — avoids the confusion that sometimes leads visitors to assume the metro can somehow substitute for an intercity connection it was never built to provide.

A note on tourist confusion at unstaffed stations

A small but recurring source of frustration is arriving at a quieter metro station outside the centre and finding the ticket counter unstaffed, with only a card-reading vending machine available and its instructions in Georgian script first, English second in smaller text. Slowing down and reading the machine’s screen carefully rather than assuming it works like a familiar system elsewhere avoids most of the confusion; nearly all machines do eventually offer an English-language option once you find the right button. Carrying a pre-loaded card from a more central, better-staffed station before heading out to quieter parts of the network is the simplest way to sidestep the issue altogether.

Frequently asked questions about Tbilisi’s metro and buses

How much does the Tbilisi metro cost?

A flat 1 lari per journey, tapped with a Metromoney card, regardless of distance or number of stops.

Where do you buy a Metromoney card?

At the ticket counter or a vending machine inside any metro station entrance, and at some bus-stop kiosks around the city.

Does the Tbilisi metro reach the airport?

No. The nearest station is still several kilometres away with an awkward bus connection — see Tbilisi airport to the city centre for realistic options.

How many metro lines does Tbilisi have?

Two, the Akhmeteli-Varketili line and the Saburtalo line, crossing at Station Square beside the central railway station.

Is the Tbilisi metro safe to use late at night?

Generally yes by regional standards, though it thins out and feels less comfortable in the final hour before the system closes for the night.

Do city buses in Tbilisi use the same card as the metro?

Yes, the same Metromoney card works on both, tapped when boarding.

What happens to Tbilisi’s buses in snow?

They slow down, particularly on steep streets in Sololaki, Mtatsminda and Vake. The underground metro is largely unaffected and becomes the more reliable option on snowy days.