Yes, visitors can buy the Swiss Half Fare Card: CHF 150 for one month, half price on trains, buses, boats and most mountain railways. SBB's rules and our fares.
Checked September 20, 2026 against SBB's own pages; the fares we paid are from our Europe series.
TL;DR
The visitor version is the Swiss Half Fare Card. SBB's rule is one sentence: "You can only get a Swiss Half Fare Card if your permanent residence is outside of Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein." A tourist from anywhere else qualifies. SBB describes the purchase page as being "for foreign visitors aged over 16". Children aged 6 to 15 travel free with a parent's card through the Swiss Family Card, added at no charge when you buy. Children under 6 never need a ticket.
The one-year Half Fare Travelcard is what locals call the Halbtax. SBB's page for it does not mention residence, but it requires a SwissPass login and an identity check, and it renews every year. For a visit of a month or less, buy the visitor card.
The price is the same for 1st and 2nd class. You choose the class per ticket. Our two visitor cards appear in the series ledger as $370 for two.
SBB's own words: "The Swiss Half Fare Card halves or reduces your ticket price for journeys throughout Switzerland by train, bus and boat, as well as panorama trains, mountain railways and gondola lifts. Journeys by public transport in over 90 Swiss towns and cities are also included."
Read "halves or reduces". The purchase page says "Up to 50% discount on travels by train, bus and boat and most mountain railways". The annual card's page explains the gap: "In the case of short-distance tickets, discounted tickets or combined offers with additional services, the discount may be less than 50 per cent." Point-to-point rail tickets are half. Some short hops, city fares and bundled excursion tickets are less.
Saver products count too. During the month you "can buy all (Supersaver) tickets, (Saver) Day Passes etc. at half price / a reduced price."
What it does not cover: seat reservations and panorama train supplements, so the GoldenPass Express Prestige seat was a flat CHF 49 per person on top of the ticket. Attraction gates, so Trümmelbach Falls was CHF 18 an adult on our Jungfraujoch day. And it is not a ticket. You still buy one for every ride.
SBB: "The Swiss Half Fare Card can be purchased up to 11 months in advance online at SBB.ch or at a staffed public transport point of sale." You pick the first day when you buy. The purchase page runs a card from that date to the same date the next month, ending at 05:00.
Two ways to buy online:
No photo is needed. ID is. SBB: "The Swiss Half Fare Card is only valid together with a valid passport or an official ID card. Please always present the original document during the inspection. Copies or photos (e.g. on a smartphone) are not valid."
One thing SBB's pages do not say, and our Zermatt day found at the lift: some mountain railway apps want a SwissPass ID before they will sell a discounted ticket. The Matterhorn Bergbahnen app refused ours with "discounted tickets can only be charged onto a SwissPass." The counter sold the same Kombi at the Half Fare price. If your card came as a QR code, buy mountain railway tickets at the counter and budget the queue.
Every fare below is from the series, paid on the card, in the class and for the number of people stated. We did not record the full fares on the day, so we do not print them.
| Day | Fare on the Half Fare Card | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Day 2 | TGV Lyria Paris to Zurich, 7:22, 1st class (Lucerne day) | about €230, as the ledger lists it |
| Days 2 and 3 | Point-to-point rail tickets, both days combined (Pilatus day) | about CHF 224 |
| Day 4 | Interlaken Ost up to Jungfraujoch, per person | CHF 68.90 |
| Day 4 | Jungfraujoch down to Lauterbrunnen, per person | CHF 64.20 |
| Day 5 | Saver Day Pass, 1st class, Half Fare price, per person (GoldenPass day) | CHF 99, against CHF 118 point to point |
| Day 6 | Visp to Zermatt and back, 2nd class, two people | CHF 76 |
| Day 6 | Sunnegga funicular plus Blauherd gondola Kombi, per person, at the counter | about CHF 20 to 25 |
Two things in that table the SBB pages will not tell you. The card discounts the TGV Lyria from Paris, which our first plan had missed, so check it against every leg. And the Saver Day Pass is a price, not a product: on Day 3 it was CHF 182 per person against about CHF 110 of half-fare tickets, so we skipped it; on Day 5 it was CHF 99 against CHF 118, so we bought it.
Across the whole trip, all in 1st class, the two cards beat a Swiss Travel Pass Flex on our route. The series does not print that as a dollar figure, because the answer turns on your route, days and class. The ten days in Europe on points hub has every ledger.
Both are sold only to people living outside Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Both need the original passport at inspection. The difference is what you pay per ride afterward.
Swiss Travel Pass, adult, consecutive days, from Switzerland Tourism's price table:
| Days | 2nd class | 1st class |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | CHF 254 | CHF 405 |
| 4 | CHF 309 | CHF 492 |
| 6 | CHF 399 | CHF 634 |
| 8 | CHF 439 | CHF 697 |
| 15 | CHF 499 | CHF 778 |
With the pass, rides cost nothing more. SBB says it covers travel "by train, bus and boat, by panorama train (excl. seat reservations and/or supplement), and on the Rigi, Stanserhorn and Stoos mountains", plus transport in over 90 towns. Switzerland Tourism adds free entry to more than 500 museums. Beyond those three summits, SBB says the pass "offers a 50% discount on other mountain excursions". On most mountains the pass is a half-price card too.
With the card, you pay CHF 150 once and then half of every fare. So the pass wins when half of your full fares exceeds the pass price minus CHF 150. For the 6-day 2nd class pass, that is CHF 249 of half fares, or about CHF 498 of full fares. For the 8-day 1st class pass, it is CHF 547, or about CHF 1,094 of full fares. Below those lines the card is cheaper. Above them the pass is, before you count museums and the three included mountains.
Price your own itinerary in SBB's app at full fare, add up the francs, and answer one question: how many CHF of full fares will you buy?