How Much Does It Cost to Get Around Cape Town?
MyCiTi · 0–5 km peak
R15.00 off-peak
MyCiTi · 60 km+ peak
R46.00 off-peak
Monthly pass
up 50% on 1 July
Driving, fuel only
per 10 km at 8L/100km
Four real commutes, mode by mode
Where a cell says a mode is not served or its fare is not published, that is the finding — not a gap waiting to be filled. Driving is fuel only, at the live regulated coastal petrol price.
| Corridor | Distance | MyCiTi | Minibus taxi | Golden Arrow | Rail | Driving (fuel) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Khayelitsha → CBD | ~33 km | under construction | R20–R25 | operates · fare not published | operates · fare not published | R65.23 |
| Mitchells Plain → Century City | ~26 km | under construction | R15–R25 | operates · fare not published | unknown | R51.40 |
| Table View → CBD | ~19 km | R32.50 | R15–R20 | operates · fare not published | not served | R37.56 |
| Fish Hoek → CBD | ~34 km | not served | R20–R25 | operates · fare not published | operates · fare not published | R67.21 |
MyCiTi fares are the City's gazetted peak rates for the matching distance band verified. Taxi figures are observed ranges, not published fares triangulated. Driving is one-way fuel at 8L/100km and R24.71 a litre — it excludes insurance, maintenance, parking and the car itself. Distances are approximate road distances.
The cost of living far away
Cape Town was planned to put people far from work, and the bill for that arrives every month in transport fares.
Apartheid-era spatial planning placed the townships on the sandy Cape Flats, well outside the city, and the geography has barely moved since. The consequence is an inversion of how cities usually work: here the cheapest housing carries the highest transport cost. A household that saves on rent by living in Khayelitsha pays for it in a 33-kilometre commute, twice a day, for the working life of everyone in the house.
Look at the corridor table above and the pattern is stark. The two longest commutes on it — Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain — are the two the MyCiTi network does not reach. Phase 2A, which will finally link them to Claremont and Wynberg, is under construction; ground was broken in Claremont in March 2026 and the work packages run beyond this year. Until it opens, the corridors with the greatest need for a fast, fare-capped, gazetted service are served by the modes with no published fares at all.
That is why this page cannot show you a clean comparison for the routes where a clean comparison would matter most, and it is worth being explicit that the gap in the table is not a gap in the research. It is the network.
There is a compounding effect worth naming. Rent, electricity and food are all costs you can shave at the margin — a smaller place, fewer units, a cheaper basket. A commute is close to fixed. The distance does not change, the number of working days does not change, and a fare increase lands in full. When MyCiTi's monthly pass went from R1 000 to R1 500 on 1 July, that was a R500-a-month decision made for every household that depends on it, with no version of the month in which they use less of it.
What your commute costs a month
Every assumption in here is adjustable and stated. The petrol price is read live from this site's fuel page.
- MyCiTicheapestR1,494a monthR34.50 a trip in the 20–30 km band, peak26.9% of a minimum wage
- MyCiTi monthly passR1,500a monthflat, regardless of how far or how often you travel27.0% of a minimum wage
- Driving (fuel only)R1,712a month8L/100km at R24.71 a litre30.8% of a minimum wage
A month is taken as 4.33 weeks, not four. MyCiTi fares are the City's gazetted rates and assume the route is actually served — check the corridor table above, because much of the metro south-east is not on the network yet. Driving is fuel only, at the live regulated coastal petrol price, against the consumption figure you set above; it excludes insurance, maintenance, tyres, parking, tolls and the cost of owning the car, all of which are substantial. Golden Arrow, taxi and rail are not priced here because no current published fare table for them could be sourced.
Every MyCiTi fare
| Distance | Peak | Saver (off-peak) | Saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 km | R19.50 | R15.00 | R4.50 |
| 5–10 km | R25.50 | R19.50 | R6.00 |
| 10–20 km | R32.50 | R25.50 | R7.00 |
| 20–30 km | R34.50 | R29.50 | R5.00 |
| 30–40 km | R37.50 | R32.00 | R5.50 |
| 40–50 km | R42.50 | R38.50 | R4.00 |
| 50–60 km | R48.50 | R43.50 | R5.00 |
| 60 km+ | R52.50 | R46.00 | R6.50 |
myconnect card
R40
Once-off. R30 to replace a lost card.
Monthly pass
R1,500
Up 50% on the previous year — the largest single increase in the 2026 adjustment.
One day pass
R130
Three day pass
R290
Seven day pass
R420
Effective 1 July 2026. Peak is weekdays 06:45–08:00 and 16:15–17:30; everything else, including weekends and public holidays, is charged at the saver rate. You need a myconnect card (R40 once off) — cash is not accepted on board.
How most of the city actually moves
The minibus taxi carries more Cape Town commuters than every other mode combined, and it is the one this page can say the least about with precision. Both of those facts deserve stating plainly.
Fares are set route by route by the taxi association that operates that route. There is no central schedule, no publication requirement and no notice period. A fare is what the association has agreed and what the queue marshal collects, and it can change between one week and the next. This is not disorder — it is a functioning system that moves millions of people without subsidy — but it does mean any figure on this page is a range someone observed, not a price anyone published.
So the taxi rows here are badged triangulated, and they are ranges. A short trip within a suburb runs about R10 to R15; a long cross-city route such as Khayelitsha to the CBD runs about R20 to R25, with after-hours trips often costing more. Where a journey needs a transfer — and many do, because taxis run along routes rather than between arbitrary points — you pay each leg, so the door-to-door cost is the sum, not the single fare.
Two practical notes that no fare table conveys. The taxi is usually the fastest option on corridors it serves, because it does not stop at fixed stations and will use whatever route is moving. And it is generally the only option that runs at the frequencies and hours shift workers actually need, which is a large part of why it carries the load it does.
What a fuel adjustment does to a taxi fare
This site tracks the petrol price on its own page, and it changes on the first Wednesday of every month. Transport fares do not work that way, and the difference in how each mode absorbs a fuel move is worth understanding.
MyCiTi is the slowest to react and the most predictable. Fares are gazetted by the City and revise once a year, on 1 July. A fuel increase in September is absorbed by the operating budget and shows up, if at all, in the following July's adjustment — which is exactly what the City said when it raised fares this year, describing the increase as a response to fuel costs it had previously shielded passengers from. One adjustment a year, announced in advance.
Minibus taxis sit at the opposite end. There is no fare regulator, no gazette and no notice period. Fares are set per route by the association that operates it, and because fuel is the largest single input to an owner-driver's costs, a sustained fuel increase transmits into fares within weeks rather than months. It typically arrives as a round-number step — a rand or two on a route — rather than as a percentage, because fares have to be payable in coins and notes at the door of a moving vehicle.
Golden Arrow sits between the two, adjusting periodically rather than annually or continuously.
The pattern, then: petrol moves monthly, taxi fares follow it within weeks in round steps, buses follow on their own schedule and sometimes not at all. We are not going to tell you what any fare does next — that depends on decisions by associations and a City budget, not on arithmetic. What the pattern gives you is a way to read a fuel adjustment: a big diesel increase is a leading indicator for taxi fares in a way it simply is not for MyCiTi.
Common questions
How much is a MyCiTi trip in Cape Town?
Between R19.50 and R52.50 at peak, depending on distance, under the fares that took effect on 1 July 2026. A trip under 5km is R19.50 at peak and R15.00 off-peak; anything over 60km is R52.50 peak and R46.00 off-peak. Peak means weekdays 06:45–08:00 and 16:15–17:30; everything else, including all weekend, is charged at the cheaper saver rate.
Does MyCiTi go to Khayelitsha or Mitchells Plain?
Not yet. Both are part of MyCiTi Phase 2A, which will link them to Claremont and Wynberg, and it is still under construction — the Mayor broke ground in Claremont in March 2026 and work packages run beyond the end of the year. This is the single most consequential gap in the network, because those are among the longest commutes in the city.
What is the cheapest way to get to the CBD?
It depends where from, and on many corridors the honest answer is a minibus taxi at roughly R20–R25 from the far south-east. Where MyCiTi runs — Table View to the CBD, for instance — a peak trip in the 10–20km band is R32.50, or R25.50 off-peak. Driving is almost never cheapest once you count more than fuel, and this page only counts fuel.
How much do minibus taxis cost in Cape Town?
Roughly R10–R15 for a short trip within a suburb and about R20–R25 for a long cross-city route such as Khayelitsha to the CBD, with after-hours trips often more. These are ranges rather than prices because taxi fares are set per route by the association operating it and are not published anywhere — so treat them as observed, not quoted.
Is driving cheaper than taking the bus?
On this site's numbers, no — and the margin is wider than people expect. A 20km each-way commute five days a week is about R1 712 a month in petrol alone at the current coastal price and 8L/100km, against roughly R1 494 a month in peak MyCiTi fares. Driving loses before you have counted insurance, maintenance, tyres, parking or the cost of the car, all of which this page deliberately excludes. What driving buys is time and flexibility, not money.
What is a myconnect card?
The reloadable card you need to travel on MyCiTi — you cannot pay cash on the bus. It costs R40 once off, R30 to replace, and you load value onto it in set denominations from R20 upward. Loaded value stays valid for three years from the last top-up.
How much should I budget monthly for transport?
Work it out on the calculator above, but for scale: a 20km each-way commute five days a week comes to about R1 494 a month at peak MyCiTi fares — roughly 27% of a full monthly minimum wage. The MyCiTi monthly pass is R1 500 flat, so at that distance and frequency the pass and pay-as-you-go come out within a few rand of each other; the pass only wins on longer or more frequent journeys.
Are the trains running in Cape Town?
Partly. The Central Line was suspended from 2019 and is being restored in phases; trains now reach Khayelitsha again, though the service is not what it was before the closure. The Southern Line through Fish Hoek continued operating throughout. We do not publish rail fares because no current schedule could be sourced.
Methodology and sources
MyCiTi is the one mode on this page with a complete, current, official fare table, and it anchors everything. The figures come from the City of Cape Town's own fare-adjustment media release for 1 July 2026, and were confirmed against the City's pay-as-you-go fare page — two City sources carrying identical numbers. Those figures are badged verified.
Everything else is thinner, in specific ways:
Golden Arrow operates most of the corridors on this page, but its fare tables could not be retrieved — the operator's site refuses non-browser requests — so no per-route fares are published here. What is known and seeded is that fares did not increase in 2026 and that the Gold Card costs R40. The absence of a fare is recorded as an absence, not filled with an estimate.
Minibus taxi fares are ranges, badged triangulated, for the reasons set out above: they are set per route by associations and are not published anywhere.
Rail is a live situation. Central Line services were suspended from 2019 and are being restored in phases; trains reach Khayelitsha again, but no current fare schedule could be sourced, so no rail fares appear here.
Driving is not a fare at all. It is computed at render time from the regulated coastal petrol price on this site's own fuel page, multiplied by a consumption assumption you can change, and it counts fuel only. Insurance, maintenance, tyres, parking and the capital cost of the car are all excluded and all real — a driving figure here is a floor, not a total.
Corridor distances are approximate road distances and are labelled as such. They are used to pick the MyCiTi fare band and to compute fuel, both of which are band-based or linear, so small differences do not change the picture.
- City of Cape Town MyCiTi fare adjustment, 1 July 2026 — the source we follow
- MyCiTi Phase 2A — the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain extension, still in construction
- Driving cost composed live from the regulated coastal petrol price at 8L/100km — fuel only
Read next
fuel
The price behind every fare
Coastal 95 is R24.71 a litre, and it moves on the first Wednesday of each month.
Read →rent
Why the commute is long
The cheapest housing sits furthest from the work — and the full cost of a month now includes getting there.
Read →groceries
The same wage, again
Food already takes 96.5% of a minimum wage before a single fare is paid.
Read →