Getting around Dubai: every published fare in one place
Dubai's transport charges are set by one authority, RTA, and published across pages that carry no date stamp of any kind — next to older documents that do carry one and are wrong. Every fare below is quoted from the current published source, with the date we read it. Where RTA contradicts itself, or contradicts Dubai Airports, both versions are on the page rather than one of them.
On rails and on the road
The four charges that cover almost every journey a visitor makes.
- Taxi fares by hourStreet AED 5, app AED 9–13
- Metro & nol faresAED 3–7.50 by zone
- Bus fares & zonesSame grid, no daily cap
- Salik toll chargesAED 4 or 6, free 01:00–06:00
Parking
Two completely different systems, priced by two different operators.
Arriving, and on the water
The airport, and the two ways of crossing the creek that cost AED 1 and AED 75.
- Airport to the cityThree sources, three answers
- Abra & ferry faresAED 1 cash, or AED 60–75
- What the metro reaches13 places it does not
Before you rely on a fare you found elsewhere
RTA's metro and bus brochure, stamped “Updated September 2011”, is still online and still linked from a current page. It prints Silver fares of 2.30, 4.10 and 5.80 against today's 3, 5 and 7.50, in a four-band structure that no longer exists. A legacy ferry brochure prints AED 50 and 75 against the current 25 and 35. A January 2024 Salik release still claims tolls have “remained… unchanged”, eighteen months after they changed.
All three are RTA's own documents. The full catalogue, and how to spot one yourself, is here.