Getting Around Cartagena: Transcaribe, Taxis and the Airport

What the single fare costs now

The single fare is $1.24 (3,900 COP), effective Friday 23 January 2026, up from $3,400 COP ($1.08) through 2025. The increase was set by the Alcaldía de Cartagena and announced through Transcaribe's own news page.

The walled city runs about 1 kilometer end to end and the streets inside it are narrow, shaded in places by upper-floor balconies, and closed to most car traffic in the busiest stretches. A visitor staying inside or near the walls can cover the Plaza de los Coches, the Plaza de la Aduana, the Cathedral, Las Bóvedas and the walls themselves entirely on foot in a morning, and walk into Getsemaní across the Puerta del Reloj without touching a vehicle.

When walking stops making sense

Two trips push past a comfortable walk: reaching the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas hill (uphill, exposed to sun, and not part of the walled compound), and anything on the Bocagrande peninsula beyond its near end, which stretches roughly 2 kilometers of hotel towers south of the old city. Both are short taxi or Transcaribe rides rather than a long walk, especially in the middle of the day when the stone streets hold heat.

The two readings side by side

Because the primary decree could not be fetched, the table below keeps both figures intact. Treat them as a range, not a settled price.

How to protect yourself

The practical fix is simple. Confirm the fare with the driver or your hotel before riding, and ask to see the fare card if there is any doubt. Unlicensed cabs are the main risk, so read our safety and scams guide on how to spot them. For airport runs, where the fare question gets more expensive, the press-relayed zone figures and the private-transfer options below are covered in the airport transfer section.

Fares in this section rest on secondary press and a headline snippet because the decree itself was not retrievable. Figures current in Q3 2026.

Confirmed destinations

These destinations are confirmed in our sources as served from the terminal: Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Sincelejo, Montería, Valledupar, La Guajira, Bogotá and Medellín.

Getting to the terminal

The terminal is well outside the walled city, so this is a fixed-fare taxi or Transcaribe trip rather than a walk. Confirm the taxi fare before boarding, using the conflict table above as your reference range.

What to plan around

Because the address itself is not officially confirmed in our sources, the safer plan is to ask your hotel or accommodation to write out the terminal's name and drop-off instructions for a driver, rather than relying on a single map pin. Give yourself buffer time on the way there. The terminal sits outside the walled city and away from the tourist core, so it does not benefit from the density of taxis and Transcaribe stops that the historic center does.

What the airport run costs

A 2026 airport-zone taxi fare table circulates in secondary press, not in the primary decree. It cites roughly $4.06 (12,800 COP) to the historic center and about $6.92 to $8.73 (21,800 to 27,500 COP) to Bocagrande depending on zone. Present these explicitly as press-relayed figures, not the confirmed official decree, and do not treat them as settled prices.

Confirm the fare at the authorized station window before boarding. For the fuller picture, including the private options, see our airport transfer page.

Why the two stations matter

The two-station rule exists because unauthorized drivers and touts do approach arriving passengers inside and around the terminal, and the airport's own guidance is specific about using only the national and international arrivals exits. If a driver approaches you inside the terminal before you reach either station, that is your signal to keep walking. Once you reach one of the two authorized stations, staff there can point you to the current fare information for your destination zone.

Where the law stands

In 2026 a bill, Proyecto de Ley 347, would have criminalized app-based rides. It was withdrawn after pushback. There is no Cartagena-specific ban and no Cartagena-specific legalization.

We state this as unresolved rather than settled either way. In practice this means pickups sometimes happen a few meters from formal stands, and drivers may ask you to sit in front. Plan around slower pickup times at the airport, where the authorized taxi stations remain the officially endorsed option, or book one of the private transfers below.

What this means at street level

In practice, drivers using the apps tend to avoid pulling up directly in front of official taxi ranks and airport stations, since that is where the gray-zone status is most visible. Expect a pickup a short walk from where the app pin shows, especially near the airport and the cruise terminal. None of this makes the apps unsafe to use inside the city.

It means the pickup experience is less standardized than in a city where ride-hailing is fully regulated, and a first-time visitor should build in a few extra minutes rather than assume a curbside pickup every time.

A visitor who walks the walled city, takes a Transcaribe round trip to Bocagrande and back for $2.48 (a fare each way at $1.24 (3,900 COP)), and takes one taxi across town spends between roughly $5.59 and $6.37 for the day, depending on which taxi reading applies, using the confirmed Transcaribe fare and the two taxi minimum-fare readings above. That is the entire transport budget for a day built around the historic center. A traveler using the differential Transcaribe discount saves $0.32 (1,000 COP) per fare if registered, though a short-stay visitor is unlikely to qualify for that registered-user status.

Multiply the Transcaribe leg by however many crossings a day actually needs, since the fare does not change with distance the way a taxi fare can once you leave the fixed-card zones.