The first thing nobody tells you
You step onto a bus in Israel, hold out a 20 shekel note, and the driver shakes his head.
Israeli buses stopped taking cash years ago — 2019 in Jerusalem, and everywhere else since August 2022. If you don't have a Rav Kav card, you don't travel. It's that simple, and it catches almost every new arrival in their first week.
The good news: getting one takes about ten minutes and costs 5 shekels.
What a Rav Kav actually is
It's a plastic smart card, about the size of a bank card, that you load with money or with a travel pass. You tap it on the reader when you board. It works on almost everything — Egged and Dan buses, Israel Railways trains, the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv light rail.
One card, the whole country.
Two kinds of card — choose carefully
Anonymous card. 5 shekels, no paperwork, you walk out with it in minutes. But if you lose it, the money on it is gone, and you can't load most discounted passes.
Personal card. Registered to you, with your photo. If you lose it, your balance is protected and transferred to a replacement. This is the one worth having.
Where to get one
- Central bus stations — service counters in almost every city
- Israel Railways ticket offices at train stations
- Ben Gurion Airport — the Public Transport Information Center, useful on day one
- Rav Kav service centers — for personal cards with photo
- Online, or the Rav-Kav Online app — if your phone has NFC, you can register and load without going anywhere
Loading money onto it
- The Rav-Kav Online app — top up from your phone, any time
- Machines at bus and train stations
- Service counters — if you'd rather do it with a person, in cash
You can load a plain balance ("value"), or a period pass — daily, weekly, or monthly — which works out much cheaper if you travel every day.
New in 2026: paying with a credit card
From January 2026, Egged began a pilot letting you pay directly at the bus validator with a physical credit card, or with Apple Pay or Google Pay on your phone or watch — no Rav Kav needed. It started in Eilat on 11 January and reached Jerusalem and Haifa on 18 January.
It's still a pilot, and it's not everywhere. Outside those cities, and on trains and light rail, you still need the card. Get the Rav Kav anyway.
About discounts — the honest version
Israel offers generous public transport discounts, including 50% off monthly passes. Most of them are tied to residency and require a teudat zehut showing an Israeli address.
As a foreign worker, you can hold a personal Rav Kav, but you generally won't qualify for those resident discounts. We'd rather tell you that now than have you queue for an hour to hear it at a counter.
What still helps: period passes, and the daily fare cap — once you've paid a certain amount in a day, further rides in the same zone cost nothing.
Download Moovit
The card gets you on the bus. Moovit tells you which bus.
It's the app Israelis actually use — live arrival times, route planning, and alerts for when to get off. It works in English, Russian, Arabic and more, and it's far more reliable here than Google Maps.
If you lose your card
With a personal card, call the Rav Kav service line or go to a service center. Your balance is protected and moves to your new card.
With an anonymous card, there's nothing anyone can do. This is the whole reason to register a personal one.
Getting around on your own — knowing which bus, tapping your own card, arriving without asking anyone for help — is one of the first moments Israel starts to feel less foreign.
And when you're on that bus with time to spare, that's the moment to call home. Q mobile keeps you connected in Israel and to the people waiting for you back home, with support in your own language.
