Hong Kong's MTR Runs on Octopus and Stops Near 1am

One card taps into almost everything

Octopus has been Hong Kong's contactless stored-value card since 1997, and it still works the same way: top it up, tap it, walk through. It rides the MTR, the buses, the tram and the Star Ferry, and pays at most convenience stores. It's now working its way onto taxi meters too — since 1 April 2026, every licensed taxi has had to offer at least two electronic payment options alongside cash, with Octopus among the likely defaults. Buy or load one at the airport, an MTR counter or any 7-Eleven on arrival, and most of the rest of this guide stops mattering.

The MTR is the backbone, and it closes around 1am

Trains start running a little after 6am and the last ones leave sometime between roughly 12:30am and just past 1am, depending on the station, the line and the direction — Central's own last trains, for example, are spread across 00:54, 00:58 and 01:04 on different lines. There's no single citywide cut-off, so check the MTR app's last-train tool for your specific stop rather than assume a round number. Since August 2024 the light-blue fare gates also take Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay taps directly, with T-Union added in March 2025 — but the Airport Express isn't part of that yet, so Octopus or a ticket is still required there until the rollout reaches it in 2026.

The tram is a flat fare across the whole island; the ferry is a flat fare across the harbour

Hong Kong Tramways — the Ding Ding — charges one flat adult fare, HK$3.30, whether the ride is one stop or the length of the line; tap Octopus getting off, not on. Hours run roughly 5am to around midnight, varying slightly by route. The Star Ferry between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui costs HK$5.0 upper deck and HK$4.0 lower deck on weekdays, HK$6.5 and HK$5.6 on weekends and public holidays, and runs from about 6:30am to 11:30pm. Both take Octopus, and both are slower than the MTR by design — the point of either is the crossing itself, not the shortcut.

Three taxi colours, three flagfalls, one new payment rule

Red taxis work Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, green ones work the New Territories, blue ones work Lantau — cross into the wrong colour's territory and a driver can legally decline the fare. Flagfall for the first two kilometres, unchanged since 14 July 2024: HK$29 red, HK$25.5 green, HK$24 blue, with per-200-metre or per-minute-waiting charges after that. The April 2026 e-payment mandate, alongside new in-car dash cams and GPS tracking, ends years of taxis being one of the only cash-only corners of the city.

After the last train, the city slows down but doesn't stop

Once the MTR closes, KMB and other bus operators run designated overnight N-routes across the harbour and out to the New Territories, and red and green minibuses keep going on their own, thinner late-night timetables. App-hailing exists here too, but the legal ground under it is still being built: Hong Kong passed a bill in October 2025 to license ride-hailing platforms, with licensing due to start around mid-2026 and the full regulatory framework in place by the fourth quarter — worth knowing before treating an app-hailed ride as a settled, regulated option the way a red taxi already is.