What Happens If You Forget to Touch Out

Published 21 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

You keep the charge that was taken when you touched in, and it is several times your real fare. Transport for London calls this a maximum fare, it does not count towards your daily cap, and in most cases the computer puts it right within 48 hours without you doing anything.

Here is the mechanism, because understanding it removes most of the panic. When you touch a card or phone on a yellow reader at the start of a journey, TfL does not know where you are going, so it takes a deposit against the most expensive thing you might do. TfL's internal term is an entry charge. When you touch out, the system works out the real fare and adjusts the deposit up or down. If you never touch out, there is nothing to adjust, and the deposit stays.

The same thing happens in reverse. Walk through an open gateline at the start, then touch out properly at the other end, and an exit charge comes off instead. Either way the journey is recorded as incomplete.

How much a maximum fare actually is

TfL does not print the figure on its public fares pages, which is why so many visitors cannot work out what the charge on their statement is for. The last published figure we could find comes from TfL's own fares and ticketing guide of March 2025, which gives an adult entry or exit charge for Zones 1 to 9 of £10.40 at peak times and £7.00 off-peak. Pay as you go fares rose in March 2026, so treat those as the order of magnitude rather than today's exact number, and check the amount against your own account.

A separate, larger figure applies on National Rail services in London. The maximum fare for an incomplete contactless journey on National Rail is £30.40. That is the figure behind the alarming statement entries, and it is why the habit matters more at an outer-London railway station than at a Tube station in the centre. Our guide to London's main railway stations explains which services count as National Rail.

A few stations have their own entry and exit charges: those on the Elizabeth line's Reading branch, several on the Thameslink and Great Northern routes out to Luton Airport Parkway and Welwyn Garden City, Gatwick Airport, and the Gatwick Express and Heathrow Express platforms. If your trip involves any of those, the number will not match the one above.

The second way to be charged twice

Touching out late is a separate offence in the system's eyes. Every journey has a maximum journey time based on how many zones you cross, the day and the hour. Go over it and you are charged two maximum fares, one for an entry that never closed and one for an exit that came from nowhere.

TfL says these limits are set generously and are exceeded only in exceptional circumstances. That is true for a normal trip, and untrue for two visitor habits. The first is treating a station as a place to shop: enter at Liverpool Street, browse, come back and travel an hour later. The second is a long, meandering day out on one ticket with a lunch stop inside the gateline. The clock runs from your first touch, not from when you board.

The good news is that this is the case TfL is most willing to fix automatically. If a severe delay put you over the limit, it says an automatic refund is normally issued up to three times a month, and if one does not appear you can ring and ask.

Where it most often goes wrong

It is not really about particular stations. It is about particular situations, and the same ones catch people at Woolwich as at Wimbledon.

• No gates at all. TfL's instruction is blunt: if there are no gates, find the freestanding yellow reader next to the entrance, the exit or on the platform. Much of the DLR works this way, as do a great many suburban platforms on the Overground and the National Rail network. Nothing stops you walking off the platform and into the street.
• Gates standing open. TfL tells you to touch out even when the gates are open, and people do not, because there is no obstacle to remind them. At major sporting and entertainment events TfL deliberately opens gates to relieve crowding, and says it will then try to complete your journey for you automatically.
• Two devices. Touch in with a phone and out with a watch or a plastic card and you have made two separate incomplete journeys, not one complete one. TfL's conditions of use say so in those words.
• A flat battery. If the phone dies before the exit gate, the rules treat it as your problem: a maximum fare, possibly a penalty fare.
• The ticket machine reader. You cannot start or end a journey on the yellow reader attached to a self-service ticket machine. That one is for checking a balance and topping up.
• Card clash. A wallet held against the reader may charge a different card from the one you used at the other end, which again produces two half-journeys.
• Pink readers. These do not end a journey; they tell the system you avoided Zone 1 so you pay less. You still touch in and out on yellow readers as usual.
• Buses and trams. Here the rule reverses. Touch in only. If you touch a bus reader again on the way off, you may pay more than you needed to.

Our guide to how pay as you go and the daily caps work explains what you should have been charged, and the zone system explains why the fare depends on where you started.

How to see whether it happened

There are three ways, and only one of them is any use on the day.

A ticket machine. Any Tube station machine will show your recent journeys for an Oyster card. This is the fastest check and needs no account.

A TfL online account. A contactless and Oyster account shows your journey and payment history for up to 12 months, with each incomplete journey labelled as such. You need this account to claim anything back with a contactless card: an unregistered card is not eligible for a refund. Setting it up takes the card number, expiry date and security code.

The seven-day unregistered card service. If you would rather not create an account, TfL has a service that shows contactless journeys from the past seven days only. It is enough to confirm a charge, not to claim one back.

Your bank statement is the least helpful source, because TfL charges you once for everything you did that day. Travel entries appear as travel charges; a failed payment reappears later as TFL.GOV.UK/CP TFL UNPAID FA and can land up to 30 days after the journey. If you are using a card issued outside Britain, our guide to paying with a foreign bank card explains how the billing works.

Getting the money back

Do nothing for 24 hours. TfL's conditions of use tell you to leave the automated system that long to recalculate your fares, and it settles most cases on its own. Only start the clock on your own claim after two full days, because an early application simply crosses with the refund already on its way.

After that, sign in, open the journey and payment history, and choose the incomplete journey refund option. The deadline is eight weeks after the date you travelled. If you prefer to telephone TfL on 0343 222 1234, do it sooner: the published conditions give a shorter window of six weeks for a phone request. Claims take up to ten working days to review, and an unsuccessful claim can be appealed by phone.

Two limits are worth knowing before you plan your complaint. TfL says it will not normally refund at all unless something outside your control stopped you touching in or out. And the published policy is one maximum fare refund per calendar month. Forget three times in a week and you will get one of them back.

How the money reaches you depends on what you paid with. On contactless it comes back as pay as you go credit or a transfer to your bank. On an Oyster card the credit is written to the card at your next touch on a reader, so you have to still be in London, or return. Visitor Oyster card holders cannot do any of this online and have to use the Oyster contact form or ring. Our page on Oyster refunds and leftover credit deals with the separate problem of unused money at the end of a trip, and whether a Visitor Oyster card is worth buying looks at its restrictions.

If a member of staff stops you first

Not touching in is a different matter from not touching out. Revenue inspectors travel the network with portable readers, and if you cannot show a completed touch-in you may be given a penalty fare. It is £100, halved to £50 when settled inside 21 days, and there is also a revenue inspection charge. Fare evasion is a criminal offence and can be prosecuted.

You have 21 days to appeal, in writing, to the independent appeal service named on the notice. Be honest about what happened; a genuine mistake with a clear journey history is the kind of case the process exists for. Our page on the unwritten and written rules of the Underground covers the rest of what inspectors look for.

What to do in the station the moment you realise

1. If you are still inside the station, go back to a yellow reader and touch out properly. A late touch is far better than none.
2. If you have already left, do not go back in. Re-entering starts a new journey and adds a second charge.
3. Speak to a member of staff at the gateline if one is there. They cannot reverse the charge, but they can tell you whether the reader you used was working, which matters if you end up appealing.
4. Note the date, the approximate time and both stations. That is all the refund form asks for.
5. Check your account after 48 hours, not before.

How to stop it happening again

Choose one card or one device before you fly and use only that. Keep it in an outside pocket rather than a wallet full of other cards. Touch out even when nobody is stopping you, and look for the standing yellow post when there is no barrier: on the DLR and much of the Overground it is the only thing between you and a maximum fare, and our page on the DLR and the Overground lines shows how far those networks reach. The same applies on much of the Elizabeth line outside the centre.

If you are travelling as a family, watch the children's cards as well as your own, since each person needs their own card or device; see children's fares and travelling as a group. Finally, the TfL Go app will show your recent journeys on the move, which is quicker than finding a ticket machine; our list of useful London apps explains what it does. If the card itself has gone missing rather than the touch, see what to do if your phone or wallet is stolen.

Frequently asked questions

How much is the maximum fare if you forget to touch out in London?

TfL no longer publishes a single figure on its fares pages. Its March 2025 fares guide gave an adult entry or exit charge of £10.40 peak and £7.00 off-peak for Zones 1 to 9, and fares have risen since. On National Rail services the maximum contactless fare is £30.40. Check the exact amount in your own TfL account.

Will TfL refund a maximum fare automatically?

Usually, yes. Most incomplete journey charges are corrected by TfL's automated system, which is why TfL asks you to leave it 24 hours before looking and two full days before applying. If nothing has appeared, claim it yourself; the deadline is eight weeks after the date you travelled.

What happens if the ticket gates are open and I walk straight through?

You must still touch out on a yellow reader. Skip it and the maximum fare applies exactly as if the barriers had been shut. The exception is a large event where TfL has opened the gates on purpose to ease crowding; in that case it says it will try to complete your journey automatically and refund any overcharge.

Do maximum fares count towards the daily cap?

No. TfL states that maximum fares are excluded from capping, which is what makes them expensive twice over. A day that would have cost you £8.90 in Zones 1 and 2 can end up well above that, because the incomplete journey sits outside the cap entirely.

How many incomplete journey refunds can I claim?

TfL's published conditions allow one maximum fare refund per calendar month when you apply yourself. Automatic corrections are separate and are made more often, normally up to three times a month where a delay pushed you over the maximum journey time.

Sources

• Transport for London - Touching in and out (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Keep within maximum journey times (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Apply for an incomplete journey refund (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Conditions of Carriage (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Contactless cards and devices: conditions of use (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Penalty fares and how to pay them (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Book 1: Fares and Tickets, March 2025 (entry and exit charges) (checked September 2026)