Review: Is the Helsinki card worth it?

How expensive is Helsinki? As someone used to London prices, I winced at the cost of everything from taxis to the price of a small biscuit in the Moomin cafe (especially compared to the first part of our trip in Tallinn). But there is one way to save money in Helsinki – with a Helsinki Card.

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At least that’s the promise. Having tried city passes in various European cities, from Copenhagen to Amsterdam, Paris and Porto, there’s a big variety on offer, from the ones which make it easy to cost up your exploring to the ones where you need to visit 20 attractions a day or find only a few discounts are worth it.

It’s worth pointing out that there are several different options, including a Helsinki card and a Helsinki city card, if you’re hoping for a cheap Helsinki city break. But is the Helsinki card worth it? And if so, which one? Here’s what I thought in my Helsinki card review.

Which Helsinki card to get?

First, the basics – you can buy cards to cover three different time periods, for 24, 48 or 72 hours. Plus you can get two different versions if you want public transport you to be included – the Helsinki Card City, which covers the Helsinki metropolitan area but not travel from Helsinki airport to Helsinki.

Or you can get the Helsinki Card Region, which also includes Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, travel to/from Helsinki airport from Helsinki using the Ring Rail Line, various ferries and commuter trains.

There’s a separate option which doesn’t include any public transport, and which is 11 Euros less – a 24-hour zones AB transport pass costs 9 Euros, so unless you’re certain you won’t take a single tram, train, bus or ferry, there’s not much in it.

A standard train ticket between the airport and the city costs 4.60 Euros, so as long as your card is still valid when you travel, it’s worth having: the biggest difference between the city and region cards is a similar amount.

There are also child cards for ages seven to 16, kids under 7 can travel free on public transport and often free or with discounts on entry to attractions

Plus there’s free entry to over 30 attractions, tours and museums including my own highlight, Suomenlinna Fortress as well as Temppeliaukio Church (the rock church) and family-friendly options such as the free hop on hop off bus tour (only from April to October) and Sealife aquarium.

On top of that, there’s discounted entry for 25 more attractions and experiences, including Helsinki Zoo and the Skywheel. And a bonus guidebook.

If you’re wondering how much there really is to do on a Helsinki city break, check out my top reasons to visit…

How does the Helsinki card work?

The cards are valid for a year from the date when you buy them – so if you know you’re visiting in a few months’ time and spot a special offer online, snap it up now…

If you buy it directly online or from discount travel websites like Tiqets and Get Your Guide, you can have it sent to you or pick it up for free at various locations around the city including the airport, as well as the Stromma booths in the city centre at Market Square during the summer season.

These also sell the cards if you haven’t ordered in advance, as do various other locations in the city. If you buy a card excluding public transport, it will be sent to you digitally.

They’ll only start from the moment you first use them. So if you first activate yours at 5pm on a Friday, a 24-hour card will be valid until 5pm on a Saturday, or 5pm on a Sunday for a 48-hour card, rather than for a single day.

On public transport, touch it on the reader to validate it the first time, and it’ll then show the amount of time you have remaining on any future trips. If you’re using it first in an attraction, just show the card and write the time/date on the back. Actually, makes sense to do that anyway…

Is the Helsinki card worth it?

So far, so straightforward. But will it save you money? You’ll need to work that out yourself as sadly the the website no longer has a list of the standard entry charges or a calculator to help you can cost up what you’d spend without the card.

But it quickly mounts up the hop-on hop-off bus tour is 35 Euros, for example, while if you wanted to visit all the museums at the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, it’s around 30 Euros. Even entry into the rock church is 8 Euros if you’re looking at cheaper attractions.

A 24-hour Helsinki card costs from 51 Euros excluding any public transport. A 24-hour Helsinki Card City costs from 62 Euros, so you can quickly break even, especially if you come across discounts on the card – finding 10% off isn’t uncommon.

As ever, it pays to look at the details. The full price option for Suomenlinna does assume that you take the guided tour (travelling with a five-year-old, we didn’t) and visit all the museums with entry costs which are included – we did go into the Suomenlinna museum and the Submarine Vesikko (very cool!) but not the other two.

Two of the museums also close during the winter months, so if you’re visiting out of season, that cost wouldn’t apply.

But does the Helsinki card save you money? The short answer…

Really, this isn’t a tough one to debate. With a 48h card at 78 Euros, we saved around 60 Euros on two museums on Suomenlinna, entry to the National Museum of Finland and the rock church, plus the hop-on hop-off bus tour alone.

That’s before you count the cost of the ferry to and from Suomenlinna, a discount on the toy museum (now closed) – and we ended up spending a chunk of our time chilling out at Allas sea pools (not included) rather than jumping on the canal cruise (which would have saved another 25 Euros) as we’d originally intended.

Any one of the art and design museums would have added 10-15 Euros to the savings tally and I had been tempted by Seurasaari open air museum as well. If you haven’t just come from Tallinn, like us, you can use it to get discounts on a day trip to Estonia and on a Tallinn card.

Happily buying public transport tickets is now a lot less complicated than during our visit when prices varied depending whether you have a mobile ticket, were using the app, bought it from a machine etc – at which point, I decided would definitely pay money not to have to wrap my head around it for a short stay.

But looking at single tickets for the trams alone – now 3.30 Euros for a single journey in zones AB – it adds up quickly if you’re not staying somewhere very central.

We were only in the Design district but even a few journeys with a tired small girl or with lots of luggage on the way to the airport, meant the option to hop on the trams was priceless.

If you don’t have the Helsinki card, you can also pick up a Helsinki travel card, costing from 10.60 Euros for a day – buy these in various places around the city or on public transport. There’s no Helsinki tourist travel card as such – the Helsinki city card or the standard day travel cards are the only equivalent alternatives.

As ever, the more you pack in, the more you save. But as ever, the savings depend what you’re planning to do – and there’s one last word of warning with Helsinki.

Unlike most other cities I’ve visited, where the advice applies year-round, if you’re travelling between October and April, it’s worth doublechecking if any attractions are closed – not least to make your plans, but also to factor in to your calculations.

*First published 2018, last updated 2026*

PIN FOR LATER: IS THE HELSINKI CARD WORTH IT?

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission. All opinions on whether the Helsinki card is worth it are my own and based on my own experience of using it.

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