If you only take buses and trains now and then, the choice has been awkward: work out each transport association’s single fares, or subscribe to a Deutschlandticket that barely pays off for light users. Germany’s state transport ministers want to close that gap. According to the Rheinische Post, a draft resolution from North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg is before the transport ministers’ conference: a nationwide offer for occasional riders, designed to complement the Deutschlandticket.
How would it work?
The plan is a smartphone-based “In/Out” tariff. Passengers check in and out with an app, and the system calculates the journey. NRW Transport Minister Oliver Krischer (Greens) said the digital tariff “always picks the cheapest price per route”. The key is the cap: over a month, the ticket should never cost more than a Deutschlandticket, which is €63 now and rises to €66.80 on 1 January 2027. According to reports so far, the draft names neither a price nor a launch date. NRW is to develop the detailed design.
The model is eezy.nrw, which has run in NRW since late 2021. The state government says that since 1 January 2026 the app has automatically chosen the cheapest second-class price statewide; if it exceeds a comparable single ticket, it is lowered to that ticket’s level. The monthly cap is €63, after which further trips that month are free in NRW. Trips hit a record in 2025, with 895,000 in November alone. One example from the state’s price list: Aachen to Bielefeld costs €25.80 instead of €35.20 on a conventional ticket.
What would it really change, and when?
The Tagesspiegel notes that the financial advantage is likely to be small; the gain is mostly simplicity, since nobody would have to study tariff zones and association rules. In our view that is the strongest argument. Anyone in Munich who has tried to price trips to Augsburg, Nuremberg or a weekend in Regensburg knows the tariff maze. Whether a national system can run as smoothly as one in a single state is open: in NRW one tariff office is responsible, whereas nationwide dozens of associations would have to agree.
Nothing is decided. The ministers meet on Wednesday and Thursday, 21 and 22 October, in Schwangau, Bavaria; the main agenda items are local transport funding, rail track charges and possibly higher federal funds for the states. Even with agreement in principle, rollout would probably take months rather than weeks. That is our assessment, not a statement from the states. For now: daily commuters are still best off with the Deutschlandticket, while rare riders should wait for the outcome in Schwangau rather than take out or cancel a subscription because of these plans.
Earlier coverage: Deutschlandticket rises to €66.80 in January: what to do now.
Sources: ZDFheute, Tagesspiegel, Land NRW
