Fare

From the very beginning of the war until today, travel on the Kharkiv metro has been free and fully subsidised by the city budget. Admission is free for both travel and shelter during air raid alerts.

Travel on the Kharkiv Metro is free not for economic reasons, but due to the extreme circumstances of wartime. It is a forced humanitarian and logistical measure.

The metro is the city’s main bomb shelter. Kharkiv is located close to the Russian border, and enemy missiles or guided aerial bombs (KAB) can arrive within minutes. Above-ground transport stops during air raid alerts. The metro, however, operates as a giant shelter:

· People stay on the stations and in the tunnels for days at a time.
· Sleeping areas, heating points, and children’s zones have been set up there.
· Charging a fare for access to a shelter where people are running to save their lives would be both unethical and technically impossible.

Due to constant shelling, tram and trolleybus depots, as well as bus depots, have been destroyed or damaged in Kharkiv. The metro remains the only stable and predictable form of transport that avoids traffic jams and can move huge numbers of people. The authorities deliberately made it free for everyone (including evacuees from the region) to keep the city functioning.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov and the City Council made this decision from the very first days of the full-scale invasion. The metro is financed from the city budget as a strategic civil defence facility, not as a commercial enterprise.

Before 24 February 2022, travel was paid (8 hryvnias), with single-ride tickets, E-ticket cards, credit cards, and single-use QR-code tickets in operation. Today, the turnstiles at most stations remain permanently open, although the electronic systems have not been formally dismantled (in case of a return to peacetime life).