Changing Toei buses: no transfer discount, so pick by ride count

There is no transfer discount on Toei Bus: the fare applies to every ride

When you change from one Toei bus to another on the way to where you are going, what happens to the fare? The answer is refreshingly simple: transferring brings no discount, and the fare applies to every ride. Inside Tokyo's 23 wards the buses charge a flat fare, and as of September 2026 a standard route costs 210 yen for an adult, the same 210 yen whether you pay by IC card or in cash. Two rides therefore come to 420 yen and three rides to 630 yen, adding up exactly in step with the number of times you board. No arrangement survives whereby a word to the driver at the stop makes your second bus cheaper.

There was once a transfer discount that cut the fare on the second ride when you paid by IC card, but it ended on 30 September 2021. Some readers may instead be hunting for a paper transfer ticket, known in Japanese as a noritsugiken; that scheme closed much earlier, in 2010. When those words turn up in search suggestions, it is fair to read them as the memory of arrangements that no longer exist.

So how do you handle a day with several transfers? To put the conclusion first, the choice comes down to three options: pay per ride with an IC card if you board no more than twice in a day, buy a one-day pass once you expect three rides or more, and weigh up a commuter pass if you ride every day. On days when you combine the bus with the Toei subway or the tram, ToKoPo points come on top. The sections below clear away the closed schemes first, then work through that choice one option at a time.

Three schemes that have gone: transfer cards, coupon tickets and the IC transfer discount

Fare reductions on Toei Bus vanished in three stages. Knowing which one closed in which year keeps you from being led astray when an out of date explanation surfaces in a search.

The oldest of the three was the paper transfer discount card. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, sales of the Toei Bus transfer discount card ended on 31 March 2010, and the cards could no longer be used after 31 July of that year. Search suggestions such as noritsugiken and how to use a transfer ticket persist because people are looking for the arrangement of that era. Plan your day on the assumption that you can collect a transfer ticket on board, and you will come unstuck on the day.

The second was coupon tickets. In an announcement in December 2019 the bureau said it would stop selling the 4,500 yen book (twenty-five 210 yen tickets), the 1,000 yen book (ten 110 yen tickets) and the 1,000 yen book (twelve 90 yen tickets) on 31 March 2020. The reason given was that the great majority of passengers pay by IC card, leaving coupon tickets little used. The same announcement states plainly that books already sold could go on being used from 1 April 2020 onward.

The third was the IC card transfer discount, together with the bus point service known as Bus-toku, the bus point service (バス利用特典サービス). Both finished on 30 September 2021, and from 1 October they were folded into ToKoPo, the points service of the Bureau of Transportation. In explaining the merger the bureau said it would extend points to journeys made by bus alone, raise the basic points on the Tokyo Sakura Tram (Toden Arakawa Line), and sharply raise the transfer bonus points for journeys such as subway to bus. The reduction, in short, came off the fare itself and was rebuilt as a points return.

Choose how you pay by the number of rides in the day

With no transfer discount in play, the only axis for the decision is how many times you will board that day. Set the adult fare of 210 yen as of September 2026 alongside the 500 yen Toei Bus one-day pass, and the dividing line falls on the third ride.

On a day of two rides, out and back, or two rides because you change buses once along the way, simply paying with an IC card comes to the least. The gap between 420 yen and 500 yen is 80 yen, so once you add in the trouble of going to buy a ticket there is nothing left to weigh up. Children work out the same way: three rides at the child IC fare of 105 yen come to 315 yen, above the 250 yen child one-day pass. For adults and children alike, remembering that the line falls on the third ride is enough.

From three rides upward the one-day pass has the edge. It allows as many rides as you like in a single day on Toei buses inside the 23 wards, with the one exception that route 江東 01 is not covered. The kinds of pass, how to buy them and the extras that come with them are set out in the article on the Toei Bus one-day pass, so start there if you want the buying side first. On a day of sightseeing or shopping that strings several routes together, or a day when you ride the same route both ways and then add an errand, switching to a one-day pass in the morning spares you from checking your balance at every farebox.

If your transfers belong to a daily commute to work or school, the unit to think in is not the number of rides but the validity period of a commuter pass. A pass lowers the cost per day the more days you travel, so where transferring is part of the routine it matches reality better to base your sums on the price of a pass rather than on the fare table. The area covered and the price differ by type, so check the information published by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation before you buy.

The reward for transferring moved to points: the ToKoPo scheme

Once the transfer discount and Bus-toku had ended, the role they played passed to ToKoPo. It is a membership points service for Toei transport, running as of September 2026, with no joining fee and no annual fee. Points build up each time you ride on the stored value of a named PASMO, and they can be loaded back onto the PASMO in units of 10 points for 10 yen. The fare itself does not come down; the money returns to you afterwards, and that is what separates ToKoPo from the transfer discount it replaced.

The element that bears on transfers is the transfer bonus. By the bureau's account, if within a single day you ride two or more of the four Toei transport services, such as the Toei subway, Toei Bus, the Tokyo Sakura Tram (Toden Arakawa Line) and the Nippori-Toneri Liner, points are awarded according to the number of days traveled. The catch that is easy to miss is that changing from one Toei bus to another does not satisfy the condition. What qualifies is a day on which you cross between types of vehicle, subway to bus, or bus to tram.

A few things to know before you start. Points are awarded for rides made on a PASMO registered in advance. A named PASMO here means a named PASMO or a PASMO commuter pass, so anyone traveling on a Suica will need to obtain a PASMO in order to use ToKoPo. Rides inside the section covered by a commuter pass earn no points as a rule, though campaigns can make them eligible. The awarding is not immediate either: it draws on a month of travel and lands on the 15th of the following month.

The point charge machines that move points onto a PASMO are installed at every station on the Toei subway and every station on the Nippori-Toneri Liner. Within the Toei subway, though, there are none at Oshiage, Meguro, Shirokanedai, Shirokane-takanawa or Shinjuku Station on the Shinjuku Line. Because the machines sit only in stations, a life spent on buses alone leaves few chances to draw the points out. For the details of the scheme, and for any revision of the conditions of award, see the ToKoPo page of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation.

What happens to coupon tickets and bonus bus tickets you already hold

A scheme coming to an end does not turn what you hold into waste paper. Coupon tickets asleep in a drawer can still be used after the close of sales, as the Bureau of Transportation states plainly. If you are unsure how to feed a ticket in, or what happens when the ticket is worth less than the fare, the quickest route is to show it to the driver as you board and ask. If you have a large number left, it is worth checking with the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation customer center how they will be handled.

The other thing that gets overlooked is the bonus bus tickets from Bus-toku. The granting of them stopped on 30 September 2021, but bonus bus tickets already granted remain valid for 10 years from the day they were granted. Since the final grant fell on 30 September 2021, whatever landed that day holds good until 10 years later. An IC card you have not touched for a long time may well be carrying some.

The way bonus bus tickets are spent has a feature worth knowing, because it explains a puzzle. By the bureau's explanation, they go toward the fare automatically in units of 10 yen, up to the amount of the IC fare, and ahead of your stored balance. Nothing about it is operated by you, so if the sum deducted as you board comes to less than the fare, nothing has gone wrong. The bureau also states that neither the accumulated amount of bonus bus tickets nor the amount used is displayed or printed in the usage history. That is usually the reason a history reads as though the balance does not add up, so if you want the basics of paying by IC card alongside this, see the article on Toei Bus fares and how to pay.

Practical habits that keep a transfer from costing you more

With the fare question settled, what is left is the preparation that keeps the day itself calm. What drains time and patience on a transfer gathers less around the fare than around these three things.

• Where the boarding point is. Even where two bus stops carry the same name, the noriba can sit on the far side of the road, or a short walk away, depending on the direction and the route. Working out in advance where the stop for your connecting route lies lets you judge the few minutes the change will take. How to go about it is gathered in the article on finding the right bus stop.
• How long until the next one. Buses do not always arrive as printed, so being able to see the approach information at the point where you change takes the worry out of waiting. On the top page of Busdoko (/) you can see on a map where buses are running and the expected arrival at each noriba.
• The balance on your IC card. Each ride you make takes its own fare, so on a day of two or three rides leave yourself some slack. Rather than counting on points, a top-up before you set out settles the matter.

To close, here is the way to decide, once more. As of September 2026 there is no transfer discount on Toei Bus. For up to two rides in the day, pay with an IC card as you go. If by the morning you expect three rides or more, switch to a one-day pass. On a day when the Toei subway or the Tokyo Sakura Tram is in the plan as well, travel on a named PASMO registered with ToKoPo and take the points. And if you ride every day, set the figures against the price of a commuter pass.

The fares and charges given in this article are those current at the time of writing and do not reflect any later revisions.