Shenzhen Metro is the most convenient way to travel in the city (and beyond). When I initially lived in Shenzhen, we often used to take the bus, sometimes a taxi. Nowadays the metro station has expanded to so many lines and such far corners of Shenzhen, that it is very convenient to use.
The metro is modern, clean, safe, cheap and fast. It is still being expanded as of 2026, but the size is impressive. It will take more than 2h to travel from one side to the other side and that is because it is so large:
The metro runs partially above ground (usually on tracks way above street level), but in the city center it runs underground. You do need to plan ahead where you want to transfer. You only checkin once and checkout once, for transfers you do not need your ticket. Trains run every couple of minutes. They start roughly at 06h and run till midnight. At night there are NO TRAINS.
Beautiful new large metro station in Shenzhen.
At the smaller / more remote metro stations, they have these barriers of about 1.50m to prevent people accidentally falling on the tracks. On the major stations, the glass walls are taller and connect to the ceiling.
Do note that the metro can become very crowded during rush hours:
All station names are in Chinese and English, where the speakers in the trains use Mandarin, Canatonese and English.
Ticket: token, card or phone-app
You can use the Shenzhen Metro in three ways:
- buy a 1-way green plastic coin for one-time usage. You buy these at the vending machines on each station. Recommended if you just travel a few times
- buy a digital (creditcard-sized) travelcard for all public transport. You can add money to these cards at the service desk at each metro station, usually you add 50 or 100RMB for example. Then you just checkin and checkout with your card and the balance is automatically updated. You simply swipe your card at the metro-gates.
- use your phone with Wechat. In this case, you need to have a digital Wallet enabled + install the Metro-mini-app. This app generates a QR-code which you show to the scanner at your metro-gate to checkin and the same to checkout. This method is convenient if you already use Wechat to pay for other things, but is a bit of a hassle to setup the first time.
The cost is the same, regardless of the method of paying. It ranges from 2RMB – 12RMB (for very long 1h+ rides) and is our preferred way of getting around.
