For a group of fewer than ten people, the cheapest way to cross London is almost always for everyone to tap their own contactless card and let the daily cap do the work. The Group Day Travelcard, which is genuinely cheaper, only exists for parties of ten or more, and it is a paper ticket you have to queue for.
London fares are built around one card, one person. There is no family ticket, no group discount on contactless, and no way to pay for two people with one tap. That sounds unhelpful, but it works out better than visitors expect, because young children travel free in large numbers and the daily cap limits what each adult can spend.
This page is about the arithmetic of moving several people at once: what a group of six pays, when a taxi beats six single fares, which railcards are useless to a family, and how to get everyone through a ticket gate without losing anybody. For a single traveller's guide to the same system, start with Oyster and contactless compared.
Group and family fares at a glance
- Under 5
- Free on buses, trams, Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line and river services
- Ages 5 to 10
- Free, and up to four children may travel free with one fare-paying adult
- Ages 11 to 15
- Half the adult rate with the Young Visitor discount, added at a station
- Group Day Travelcard
- Ten or more people travelling together, off-peak only: £11.00 adult, £5.50 under-16 (Zones 1-6)
- Adult daily cap
- £8.90 in Zones 1-2, £16.30 in Zones 1-6, per person
- Bus daily cap
- £5.25 per person (rising to £5.55 on 1 November 2026)
Four children per adult: the rule worth building a day around
Children aged five to ten travel free on the Tube, DLR, London Overground and the Elizabeth line when they are with a fare-paying adult, and up to four of them may travel free with each adult. On buses and trams they are free anyway, with no card and no adult needed, unless they look older than ten.
The practical effect is large. Two adults can take eight children under eleven across London for the price of two adult caps. A party of one adult and five children, though, is one child too many, and the fifth will need a ticket. If you are travelling with a group of children, splitting them four to an adult at the gateline is the whole trick.
Under-fives are free everywhere, including on the river. The full detail of who pays what at which age, including the paperwork for teenagers, is in our guide to children's fares on London transport.
Take the four free children through the wide gate, not the barrier. Children travelling free have no card to tap. Ask staff at the wide gate, which is the one marked for luggage and wheelchairs, and they will let the group through together. Trying to squeeze a child through behind an adult sets off the barrier and holds up the queue behind you.
The Group Day Travelcard: worth it from ten people, useless below that
This is the one genuine group ticket in London, and most visitors who look it up do not qualify. It is sold to groups of ten or more people travelling together, as a paper ticket, and it is off-peak only: valid from 09:30 Monday to Friday and all day at weekends and on bank holidays.
| Zones | Adult, per person | Under 16, per person |
|---|---|---|
| 1-6 | £11.00 | £5.50 |
| 1-9 | £11.60 | £5.80 |
Against the Zones 1-6 daily cap of £16.30, that saves £5.30 a head, or £53 across ten adults. It is a real saving for a school party, a wedding group or a coach tour, and it is the reason the ticket exists.
There is a catch that costs families money, so it is worth stating plainly: the free travel for children aged five to ten does not apply on Group Day Travelcards. A group buying Group Day Travelcards pays the £5.50 under-16 rate for every child, including the ones who would have travelled free on contactless. A mixed party of six adults and six young children is therefore usually better off with contactless caps for the adults and free travel for the children.
Buy the tickets from a ticket machine at a Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line or National Rail station, or from a ticket office at an Overground, Elizabeth line or National Rail station. Allow time: ten people means ten tickets, and the machines are slow. Our guide to Travelcards and railcard discounts covers the paper ticket family in general.
What six adults actually pay for a day in the centre
A party of six does not reach the Group Day Travelcard threshold, so the answer is six contactless cards and six daily caps. Here is what that costs for a day of ordinary sightseeing, at September 2026 rates.
| Group | How they pay | Cost for the day |
|---|---|---|
| 6 adults, Zones 1-2 only | Six contactless cards, daily cap £8.90 each | Up to £53.40 |
| 6 adults, buses only | Bus cap £5.25 each | Up to £31.50 |
| 2 adults + 4 children aged 5-10 | Two adult caps; children free | Up to £17.80 |
| 2 adults + 2 children aged 11-15 | Two adult caps; two half-rate caps with the Young Visitor discount | Up to £26.70 |
| 10 adults, off-peak, Zones 1-6 | Group Day Travelcard | £110.00 (against £163.00 in caps) |
Two things follow from those numbers. A group that only uses buses spends a little over £5 a head however far it travels, which is why buses are the answer for a large party on a budget. And a family with young children pays almost nothing extra for the children, which is the most generous part of the London fare system.
One card per person, and the errors that cost a group money
Two people cannot use the same card for one journey, and there is no way to tap a card twice for a couple. Each traveller needs their own card or device, and each must use the same one to touch in and out all day, because the cap is calculated per card.
Groups make four expensive mistakes:
- Swapping cards mid-day. Touch in on a phone before lunch and on a plastic card afterwards, and the two totals are counted apart. Neither reaches the cap.
- Card clash. Several contactless cards held together in one wallet can mean the wrong card is charged, which quietly breaks somebody else's capping. Take the card out of the wallet.
- Assuming there is a discount. Contactless carries no child, railcard or concession rate of any kind. Discounts only work on an Oyster card or on a paper ticket.
- One person paying for everyone. Paying for a companion is allowed, provided each of you touches in with a separate card or device. There is no way round that.
If somebody in the group qualifies for a discount, the answer is an Oyster card for that person, not contactless. Our guide to the Visitor Oyster card explains whether buying one before you travel is worth the fee.
Buses: the cheapest way to move a large party
A bus journey costs £1.75 per person, whatever the distance, and the Hopper fare means further bus and tram journeys within an hour of touching in cost nothing extra on the same card. Six adults crossing central London by bus, changing once, pay £10.50 in total. The same six on the Tube would pay considerably more.
The daily bus and tram cap of £5.25 each means a group can spend the whole day on buses for about £31.50 between six, and that figure does not change however many times they get on and off. From 1 November 2026 the single rises to £1.85 and the cap to £5.55.
The practical limits are space and speed. A double-decker will not swallow six adults with suitcases at 17:30, and buses are slower than the Tube in the centre. A large group is easier to keep together upstairs on a double-decker, which is also where the views are. Our guide to London buses covers how to pay, how to signal and which routes pass the landmarks.
When a taxi beats six single fares
The arithmetic tips towards a black cab more often than visitors expect, because London taxis are licensed to carry several passengers and the meter does not rise for extra passengers or for bags. A two-mile evening journey that would cost six separate Tube fares can work out similar, and it is door to door.
The licensed passenger capacity is displayed inside every cab, so check before you pile in; the driver will also tell you. A party of six may need two cabs, at which point the sums change again. Drivers must accept any hire up to twelve miles or one hour within Greater London, so a cross-town journey with a group is a fare they cannot refuse.
Ordering by phone or through an app adds up to £2 to the fare, and a £4 surcharge applies at set hours across the Christmas and New Year period. Our guide to black cabs, minicabs and Uber compares them, and getting home late in London covers the rules on booked minicabs after dark, which matter more when a group has split up.
Railcards: the two that help families, and the two that do not
This catches out almost every family that arrives with a railcard bought online.
Five cards work: the 16-25, the 26-30, the Senior, the HM Forces and the Veterans railcard. Station staff at a Tube stop can load any of them onto an Oyster, after which off-peak journeys and off-peak caps drop by a third. The Disabled Persons Railcard does the same at every hour, peak included.
Three cards do not work: Two Together, Network and Family & Friends cannot be put on an Oyster at all. Their only London use is to cut the price of a paper Off-Peak Day Travelcard. A family that turns up holding one and expects contactless to be cheaper will be disappointed, and should price up paper tickets for the day instead.
Visitors from abroad may buy the Two Together and the 16-25 railcard online, choosing the digital format. Three station ticket offices also sell the Two Together card, at Gatwick, at Stansted and at Luton Airport Parkway, but Heathrow is not one of them. Our page on railcards worth buying as a visitor works through whether any of them pays for itself on a short trip.
A Family & Friends railcard does nothing on a contactless card. Neither it, the Network Railcard nor Two Together can be added to Oyster. If you are relying on one, buy paper Off-Peak Day Travelcards from a machine instead, and compare the total against the daily caps before you do.
Boats, the cable car and the trips outside the cap
Some journeys a group might want are deliberately outside the fare cap, which changes the sums.
- The river bus. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers takes contactless and Oyster, and pay-as-you-go is cheaper than a paper ticket at the pier, but river journeys do not count towards daily or weekly caps. Children aged five to fifteen get half price only if the child has a Zip Oyster photocard or an Oyster with the Young Visitor discount; children of four and under go free, to a limit of two for each paying passenger. See our guide to the river bus.
- The cable car. The IFS Cloud Cable Car (London Cable Car) is also outside the cap: £7.00 adult one-way, £13.50 return, £3.50 and £6.75 for children, with up to 30% off for booking online ahead. Each car holds up to ten people, which suits a group. Opening hours are in our page on the London cable car.
- The airport expresses. Heathrow Express, Gatwick Express and the Southeastern high-speed trains all sit outside the caps, so a group heading for a flight should price those journeys on their own.
If somebody in the group is pushing a pram, a group journey becomes a routing problem rather than a fares problem; our guide to getting around with a pushchair covers which lines work. If anyone is bringing a bicycle, the restrictions apply per person and per bike, and taking a bike on London transport explains them.
Keeping a group together, and the day that works
Six people move through London at the speed of the slowest gateline. A few habits save a lot of standing around.
- Agree the next stop out loud before you board, not on the platform where nobody can hear.
- Let the group board first and count them on. Tube doors close quickly and will happily separate a family.
- Stay off the network from 07:00 to 09:30, and again from 16:00 to 19:00, on a weekday. Fares are higher and a group will not sit together. Our page on avoiding rush hour has the detail.
- Pick one person to hold the paper tickets if you are using Group Day Travelcards, and photograph them in case one is lost.
A day that works for two adults and three children under eleven looks like this: bus or Tube into the centre in the middle of the morning with the children travelling free, a morning at a free museum, lunch, an afternoon on a double-decker across the bridges, and home before the evening peak. Total transport spend: up to two adult caps. The London Transport Museum in Covent Garden is the obvious pairing with a day like that, since its ticket lasts a year and children go free with an adult.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a family ticket for London transport?
No. There is no family ticket and no group discount on contactless. Instead, children under five travel free, children aged five to ten travel free with a fare-paying adult at up to four children per adult, and each adult's spending is limited by the daily cap. For most families this works out cheaper than a family ticket would.
How many people do you need for a Group Day Travelcard?
Ten or more, travelling together. It is a paper ticket and it is off-peak only. In Zones 1-6 an adult pays £11.00 and an under-16 £5.50; across Zones 1-9 the figures are £11.60 and £5.80. Note that children aged five to ten do not travel free on a Group Day Travelcard, unlike on pay as you go.
Can two people share one Oyster card in London?
Not for the same journey. Each person needs their own card or device to touch in and out, and the daily cap is worked out per card. You may lend a card that holds nothing but credit to somebody else for a separate trip, but one card will not carry two travellers at once.
What is the cheapest way to move six people across London?
By bus. A single journey is £1.75 per person, further bus journeys within an hour are free under the Hopper fare, and the daily bus cap is £5.25 each. Six adults spending a whole day on buses pay no more than about £31.50 between them, compared with up to £53.40 on the Zones 1-2 Tube cap.
Does a Family and Friends railcard work in London?
Only on paper Off-Peak Day Travelcards. It cannot be loaded onto an Oyster card and has no effect at all on contactless fares. The 16-25, 26-30, Senior, HM Forces, Veterans and Disabled Persons railcards can be added to Oyster by station staff and do reduce pay-as-you-go fares.
Sources
- Transport for London - Travelcards and group tickets (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Caps and Travelcard prices (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Bus and tram fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - National Railcard discount on Oyster (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Visitor Oyster card (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Taxi fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - River fares (checked September 2026)