The colour system
Seoul's own classification divides the fleet five ways, and the descriptions are the city's:
| Colour | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Blue (파랑) | 간선버스 — trunk | Links the outskirts, the centre and the sub-centres. Built for speed and timekeeping, and the routes that use the median bus lanes |
| Green (초록) | 지선버스 — feeder | Connects into trunk buses and the subway; handles local trips and gets you the last mile |
| Red (빨강) | 광역버스 — wide-area | Runs between Gyeonggi Province and central Seoul, designed to take cars off the road |
| Yellow (노랑) | 순환버스 — circulator | Short loops inside the centre and the sub-centres, for business and shopping trips |
| Green (small) | 마을버스 — village | Backs up the feeder network; short hops from your door to the nearest subway station |
For a visitor the practical translation is: green and yellow for short hops, blue to cross town, red for wider metropolitan routes, village bus for the last uphill stretch to a guesthouse. The yellow 01A and 01B loops around Namsan are the ones tourists use most.
The system is bigger than it looks — 64 companies, 7,383 buses and 396 routes of city bus, plus 140 companies, 1,626 buses and 253 routes of village bus, calling at 6,307 kerbside stops and 379 island stops in the middle of the road.
What the numbers mean
Route numbers are not arbitrary. Seoul is divided into eight numbered zones, and a route number says where it starts and where it ends:
Gyeonggi Province gets a further seven zones, numbered on from there.
- Blue, three digits — origin zone, destination zone, serial. 101 starts
in the north-east and finishes in the centre.
- Green, four digits — origin zone, destination zone, then a two-digit
serial. 1012 runs the same corridor as the 101 but locally.
- Red, four digits starting 9 — origin outside Seoul, destination zone,
serial.
- Yellow, two digits — zone plus serial. 41 loops around Gangnam.
Once you know that, an unfamiliar number is readable at a glance: a 6xxx is working the south-west, a 7xxx the north-west.
Fares
Seoul’s price register lists the following adult base fares. Where cash is accepted, the listed cash and card fares are the same.
| Type | Card | Cash | Before 06:30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue / green (간·지선) | ₩1,500 | ₩1,500 | ₩1,200 |
| Yellow (순환) | ₩1,400 | ₩1,400 | ₩1,120 |
| Red (광역) | ₩3,000 | ₩3,000 | ₩2,400 |
| Night (심야, N routes) | ₩2,500 | ₩2,500 | — |
| Village (마을) | ₩1,200 | ₩1,200 | ₩960 |
Ride one bus and that is the whole fare, however far you go — Seoul city and village buses are flat-rate on their own. Distance only starts costing when you transfer: past 10 km the chain adds ₩100 every 5 km, and past 30 km on a red or express bus.
Tap on and tap off
Board through the front door, touch the reader, and touch the reader by the rear door again as you get off. Seoul states the rule in one line — you must touch the reader when you get off (하차 시 카드단말기에 반드시 접촉·태그 필수) — and spells out what happens if you do not: your transfer chain is cut from that bus onward, and when you next board, the base fare that went uncollected is taken then. Tap when leaving to preserve any eligible transfer discount and avoid a charge for the missing exit record.
There is a time limit too. A village bus journey may not exceed one hour, or the base fare is charged again at the exit tap; on a city bus the ceiling is five hours.
Everything else about transfers is the same as the subway side of the same system: 30 minutes to board the next service, 60 minutes between 21:00 and 07:00, a maximum of four transfers over five boardings, and the chain priced at the highest base fare among the modes used — so a red bus can raise the journey’s base fare to ₩3,000, before any applicable distance charge. The same route or the same vehicle never counts as a transfer. Getting off to buy a coffee and back onto the same bus is a new full fare.
A driver can tap several passengers onto one card by changing the count on the terminal, and the group keeps its transfer as long as the same people stay together — but a group tapped on one card cannot transfer onto the subway.
Have a transit card ready for cashless routes
This is the change that catches people who arrive expecting to feed coins into a box. Seoul publishes the list, and as of January 2026 there are 183 cash-free routes — including the Namsan loops 01A and 01B, most of the 100-, 500- and 700-series trunk routes, and every one of the 서울01 to 서울10 (Seoul 01 to Seoul 10) commuter routes. Those buses have no cash box. If you board one without a card, the driver's options are limited and none of them are quick.
Seoul is also trialling tagless boarding (태그리스), where the fare is taken by short-range radio without touching the reader: 36 routes and 592 buses as of March 2026. It is a pilot on named routes only, and it does not change the rule — you still need a transit card, and the system still needs to register you leaving.
Riding one
- The front door is for boarding, the rear for alighting. Follow the boarding line and keep the door area clear.
- Press the bell before your stop and hold on securely if standing. The bus may move or brake suddenly.
- Stops are announced in Korean and English, with a screen showing the next
two stops and the arrival displays at the shelter counting down in minutes.
- Median-lane stops are islands in the middle of the road. Blue and red
buses mostly use them; you cross to the island at the traffic lights.
- The bus does not always stop. If nobody has rung the bell and nobody is
waiting at the kerb, it will pass. Stand where the driver can see you.
