TfL have just announced that the price of Oyster photocards is rising from this Tuesday, July 22nd. This is the first increase in price for ten years, and in most cases it’s just £1.
Zip card for 5-10 year olds: was £10, will now be £11.
Zip card for 11-15 year olds: was £15, will now be £16.
16+ Zip card, 18+ Student Oyster, Apprentice Oyster, 18-15 Care Leaver Oyster: all were £20, will now be £21.
60+ Oyster: was £20, will now be £35; and the yearly address check fee was £10, will now be £18.
These prices will in future be reviewed every year. Additionally the price of a replacement card also rises from £10 to £11 (or £18 for a 60+ Oyster). The 60+ increases are a bit of a shock, but the value of the card giving free travel after the morning peak is exceptional. The new price point puts it on a par with the senior railcard which offers 1/3 off many fares.
Also in the announcement is further bad news for buying an Oyster card. From 7th September 2025 the price of a new Oyster card or a visitors Oyster card will rise from £7 to £10. This increase has been delayed until after the main summer holidays.
As part of these changes, TfL has carried out equality impact assessments to assess the potential impact and will continue to engage with stakeholders. Alex Williams, Chief Customer and Strategy Officer at TfL, said:
We are fully committed to keeping travel in London affordable and accessible to everyone. Our fees for photocards haven’t increased in 10 years, and these changes will mean that we can continue to provide these concessions while ensuring that the fees better reflect our costs for operating the schemes.
Finally, there are no changes to the arrangements or costs of the Freedom Pass scheme which is administered by London Councils.
The Oyster card increase is pretty poor given that it only increased and was made non-refundable recently. I don’t believe it costs £10 incrementally to issue a blue Oyster card from a vending machine. I’m sure they would argue people should use contactless but that isn’t an option for a small but significant number of people.
It will be 3 years when the increase goes through. I do agree that it’s a bit disappointing, but as you say, they do want to push people to use contactless. If only they’d hurry up and sort associating railcards with bank cards then the use case for Oyster cards reduces to pretty much zero.