Travel easily and affordable with U-OV Max (month)

Do you want to travel easily and affordably on U-OV buses and trams in the province of Utrecht? With U-OV Max Month you can travel without worries. Register once for free and start travelling. You can use your free U-OV Max subscription by checking in and out with your debit card, credit card or contactless bank card on your smartphone.

What does it cost?

U-OV is free to activate. After that, you’ll:

never pay more than €100,00 per month or
never pay more than € 65,00 per month if you are between 12 and 18 years old.

If you travel less, you also pay less. If you don’t travel at all – for example because you’re ill or on holiday – you won’t be charged. Once you reach the monthly cap, you’ll travel free of charge for the rest of that month. You no longer need to take out a prepaid subscription or worry about zones and start dates.

How U-OV Max (month) works

Register once for free via your personal MyU-OV account. Once you’ve reached the monthly cap, you travel for the rest of that month for free. You’ll never pay more than € 100,00 (or € 65,00) per month if you:

Always check in and out with thesamepayment card or new OV-pas
Make complete journeys, so always check inandout
Correct any missed check-ins or check-outs yourself
Travel only with U-OV – trips with other operatorsare not part of U-OV Max.

Good to know

U-OV Max is free and not a subscription. You activate it once and you’re not tied to anything.
U-OV Max is only valid on daytime lines. Night buses are not included. For a journey on the nightbus you pay a fixed fare of € 5,00.
Want to link U-OV Max to your payment card? Then you must have made at least one journey with that particular card first. This can be done with any operator in the Netherlands.

Travel without worries – you’ll never pay more than necessary.

How do you add U-OV Max to your payment card?

Would you like to add U-OV Max to your debit card? All the steps are clearly outlined in our step-by-step plan in English or Arabic. For the U-OV Max Youth user guide we also have English and Arabic versions.

Frequently asked questions

Unfortunately, no.
Register once for free via your personal MyU-OV account and after that you automatically travel for a maximum of € 100,00 (or € 65,00) per month.
U-OV Max is valid on all U-OV daytime lines, from the start to the end of service. Night lines are not included. U-OV Max is valid on lines 90 and 395 operated by U-OV, but not on line 295 operated by Qbuzz.
Yes, you can – but do pay attention. Digital bank cards are regularly replaced by banks to prevent fraud. You won’t notice this yourself, but it may mean the product is no longer linked to your card. Check regularly whether the discount is still being applied – you’ll see this in your travel costs.
If you want to be sure you always travel with the product, link it to your physical payment card.
No, unfortunately not yet. We expect this to be possible sometime in 2026.
No. For U-OV Max, only the trips you make with the same payment card count. A physical card and a mobile card are not the same, even if they’re linked to the same bank account.
Are you under the age of 12 or over 65 and do you receive an age-based discount on your card? Then your fares are calculated including that discount, up to a maximum of € 100,00 per month.
Are you between 12 and 18 years old? Then the maximum is € 65,00 per month.
No. At the end of each day, your journeys are added up to a maximum of € 10,00 (or € 6,50) and then debited from your account.
If, in a given month, your total reaches € 100,00 (or € 65,00), you’ve hit your monthly cap and you travel free of charge for the rest of that month.
Then the amount for that month is recalculated, again up to a maximum of € 100,00 (or € 65,00).
Yes, you must always check in and out, even if you’re travelling for free for the rest of the month. Otherwise you risk receiving a fine.
To link a product to your (digital) debit card or credit card, you first need to check in and out with it at least once on public transport. This helps prevent misuse. It allows us to be sure that you are the owner of the card and that no one else is travelling at your expense.
Important: Decide whether you want to travel with your physical payment card, the card on your mobile phone or the card on your smartwatch and make your first journey with your chosen card. The product can only be linked to one card. A journey with your physical card is not the same as one with the card on your phone or smartwatch, even if they use the same bank account. These are treated as three different cards.
To link your product to your (digital) debit card or credit card, you first need to make one journey with it. The next day, the amount will appear in your bank statement with the description NLOV.
1. Open your online banking.
2. Go to the search function for your debits and type: NLOV.
  You’ll now see all payments made with your card in public transport.
3. Copy the payment reference from your transaction.
  The reference is an 18-character code, for example: NLOV28450938291876.
Tip: if you can’t copy the code directly, write it down or type it out carefully.
OVpay is the new way of checking in and out on public transport. You can travel using your debit card, credit card, mobile phone or an OV-pas. Want to know more? Visit the OVpay website.
U-OV Max (month) starts from the moment you activate it. So if you activate the product on 12 February, your month runs until 11 March.
To add an OVpay product to your (digital) debit card, first travel once with that (digital) card. Use the payment reference for that journey to validate your debit card. The next steps are as follows:
Step 1. Go to mijn.u-ov.nl and click on Request account. Do you already have a U-OV account and have you added your debit card? Then go to mijn.u-ov.nl and proceed to step 8.
Step 2. Enter your details, accept the terms and conditions and click on Next.
Step 3. Continue to enter your details. Have you filled in everything? Click on Create account.
Step 4. Your request has been confirmed. We have sent you an email. Click on the link in that email and confirm your account.
Step 5. Select Add debit card.
Step 6. Indicate whether you have already travelled with the (digital) debit card on which you want to put the travel product. To add it, you will need to use the payment reference for that journey. This will validate your debit card.
Step 7. Enter the details of the journey you made with your (digital) debit card. The journey must have taken place no more than 30 days ago. You can find the details on your bank statement. The payment reference always starts with “NLOV”. You will use this together with the journey price to validate your debit card. Have you travelled with both your physical card and your mobile card? If so, please check carefully which payment number you select. Have you filled in everything? Click on Add debit card.
Step 8. Your (digital) debit card is now in your account! You can now travel automatically for up to €10 per day on all U-OV buses and trams. If you travel less, you pay less. Would you like to add more products? Click on Products.
Step 9. Click on Order now for the product of your choice.
Step 10. Give your debit card a name and agree to the terms and conditions. Then click on Confirm order.
Step 11. Check your details and click on Confirm order.
Step 12. You will receive a thank you message for activating the product.