Plain-prose answers to the questions Dubai Metro travellers ask most: how to ride, which card to buy, what the rules are, and how to get from the airport to your hotel.
A six-step ride walkthrough, from buying a Nol card to picking the right cabin and tapping out at your stop. The day-one guide for first visitors.
Read the guide → AirportCompare the Metro, taxi and pre-booked transfer from DXB Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. Fares, times, and the overnight gap when the Metro is closed.
Compare your options → Nol cardsEvery card type compared, with prices, included credit, balance caps and where to buy each one. Includes the concession card for students and seniors.
Pick a card → Nol balanceFive ways to see what is on your card: the RTA website, the nol Pay app, a ticket machine, a gate, or by SMS. Useful before a long trip.
See the methods → RulesEvery passenger fine grouped by amount, from AED 100 for eating on the train up to AED 2,000 for misusing emergency equipment. Plus how to appeal.
Stay on the right side →If you have never used the Dubai Metro before, start with the first-timer guide; it covers the whole ride end to end. If you are landing at DXB, the airport-to-city guide is the more useful first read. If you live here and already ride, the rules and fines page is the one most residents have not actually read, and the place where the most expensive mistakes hide.
Roughly one new guide per week, with smaller updates to existing pages as the RTA changes its rules or fares. New guides are listed here as soon as they are live. If you want to know when one is coming, the home page also surfaces the latest published guides at the top.
No. Dubai Metro Guide is independent and is not affiliated with the RTA. We write the guides ourselves, in plain prose, for visitors and residents who want one place that answers the question rather than several.
Fares, fines and operating hours come from the RTA's published sources: the Metro and Tram Fares, Fines and Etiquette brochure, the RTA Nol fares page, and the live S'hail timetable. For history, naming and area context we cite Gulf News, Khaleej Times, The National and WAM. Every figure in a guide either traces back to one of those, or is flagged as needing confirmation.
Yes. Drop us a line through the contact page. The most useful suggestions are specific questions you tried to find an answer to and could not, since those are usually the gaps worth filling. If we end up writing the guide, we will mention the question in the page brief.
Both. Every guide is written so a first-time visitor can follow it on day one, with detail a regular rider may also pick up something from. Where a tip is specific to one group (a Park and Ride for residents, a tourist-card recommendation for visitors), it is called out as such inside the guide.