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Every 5–21 year old living in Scotland for more than 6 months of the year can travel for free by bus if they have a valid National Entitlement Card (NEC) or Young Scot NEC.
If you are 5–15 years old, your parent, guardian or carer must apply for you. If you are 16–21 years old, you must apply yourself.
Children under 5 years old do not need an NEC as they can already travel for free on buses.
You need a NEC or a Young Scot NEC with free bus travel. You will not be able to travel for free on the bus without one.
You will need to provide proof of identity (your name and age), proof of residence (where you usually stay) and a photograph if you are 11 years old or over. Find out what documents you can use to provide proof on the NEC website.
If you are aged 5 -15 years old, your parent or guardian must apply for your NEC on your behalf. If you are aged 16 -21 years old, you must apply by yourself.
If you live in Scotland for most of the year (at least 6 months), then you are eligible.
It is your choice. Some local council areas provide discounted travel on rail, tram or subway with a Disabled Persons’ NEC, but you are likely to have to renew that card more often. Currently, a Disabled Persons’ NEC is valid for up to three years. Further information can be found on the Transport Scotland website.
However, if you have a Disabled Companion NEC, allowing a companion to travel for free with you, then you should not change to the Young Persons’ scheme as this will not allow anyone to travel with you for free.
If your application has been rejected, you should be told why and given advice on how to submit a successful application by the channel through which you applied.
Check to see that your details are all correct and your photo meets all the requirements. If that doesn’t work, get in touch with your local council.
If you applied online, you should allow up to ten working days (two calendar weeks) from the date your application was submitted for it to be reviewed. During busy periods this may take slightly longer. Once approved, the card will be dispatched within two working days. You can check the status of your online application by logging into the NEC portal on getyournec.scot.
If you have applied through your school, the school can provide more information on when your card will be delivered.
If you applied through your local council, they will tell you about their timescales when you apply. If you have not received a card in this time advised, please contact your local council.
Most cardholders can update their details at getyournec.scot or get in touch with your local council to have your details amended.
If you are 5–15 years old, then a parent, guardian or carer must apply on your behalf.
This allows parents, guardians and carers to continue to exercise responsibility over their child’s wellbeing and safety. By applying on their behalf, parents, guardians and carers are agreeing for their child to receive an NEC or Young Scot NEC that allows them to travel for free on any registered bus service in Scotland, as well as a limited number of local cross border services into northern England.
This will make sure they are aware that you get to travel for free by bus, so that they can ensure you are safe and well.
If you are 16 years old and over, you must apply yourself.
Your child can only have one card. You should decide which parent, guardian or carer applies on their behalf.
Young people who are 16–21 years old must apply themselves. If your 16-21 year old needs additional support with their application, please contact your local council.
5-15 year olds cannot apply for their own card and can only receive free bus travel if a parent, guardian or carer applies on their behalf.
If you are applying on behalf of your child for a card and do not want them to have access to free bus travel, do not opt in to the free bus travel entitlement.
Once a young person is 16 years old and over, they can apply for their own card and get access to free bus travel.
You can apply for a card as early as two weeks before your child’s fifth birthday.
Your local council will let you know if they are offering to place bulk orders for cards in your area. These come in three types:
Anyone who is 16 years old or above must apply for their own card. If additional support is required, please contact your local council.
Please contact your local council to find out more and get support.
Yes it can. If you are getting a new card and would like your old one to be securely disposed of, please send it to:
Concessionary Travel and Integrated Ticketing
Transport Scotland
George House
2nd Floor
36 North Hanover Street
Glasgow
G1 2AD
If you are over 11 years old you can choose to apply for the Young Scot card or a standard NEC. If you choose a Young Scot card, you can use it to save money with in-person and online discounts – with over 500 discounts in Scotland and over 100,000 deals across Europe. It also acts as proof of age. What’s more, you can collect points by taking part in activities and exchanging these for Rewards. Find out more at young.scot/card.
In most cases, you place your card on the card reader machine next to the bus driver. Ask the driver if you have any questions.
Very occasionally, the driver will advise you that your card has been “hotlisted” or “blocked”. This usually means that it is an old card you are trying to use, and you have requested a replacement. After you’ve applied for a new card or requested a replacement, your old card will stop working. As soon as your new card arrives, you should start using it and destroy your old card.
You can contact your local council to request a replacement or visit getyournec.scot to apply for a new card online. If you live in the Glasgow city council area, you can complete an online form to request a replacement through Glasgow life.
For information on how to apply for a replacement card go to How to apply. You will need to pay any fares until the replacement arrives.
Replacements are free of charge.
You can contact your local council to request a replacement or visit getyournec.scot to apply for a new card online. If you live in the Glasgow city council area, you can complete an online form to request a replacement through Glasgow life.
For information on how to apply for a replacement card go to How to apply. You will need to pay any fares until the replacement arrives.
No. It is only for you and you should not share it with anybody else.
If your card has a photo, then please keep it up to date, as the bus driver might not let you travel if you do not look like your photo. The photo on your card also needs to be kept up to date to use it to prove your age for age restricted products or services.
You can update the photo for free by contacting your local council or visiting getyournec.scot.
Yes, if you misuse the free bus travel scheme (such as letting someone else use your card), then you might have free bus travel removed from your card.
No, you must have your card with you if you want to travel for free.
You can travel Scotland wide on local and long distance bus services, apart from a few exceptions such as premium-fare night buses, city sightseeing buses, and some airport transfer services. Check with your bus operator if in doubt.
If you are travelling to England, you will be able to travel to Carlisle or Berwick-Upon-Tweed, but it cannot be used to travel within these towns.
The free travel scheme is for bus only. However, there may be other discounts available. Please check on the Transport Scotland website for further information.
No. However, if you are in any doubt check with the bus operator before travelling. All bus operators have conditions of carriage which set out who can travel on their services and they may require younger children to be accompanied.
You must ensure that your card is in good condition and presented to the bus ticket machine or other transport ticketing equipment in good working order (e.g. it’s not damaged).
Full terms and conditions are available on our website.
We have worked on an awareness campaign with partners to support children, young people, parents and guardians, and bus operators.
Transport Scotland worked closely with Barnardo’s Scotland on how to safeguard young people travelling on the bus network, including providing training material for bus drivers. This will help drivers to recognise and respond to children or young people who need support while travelling on the bus network and help ensure that they can travel safely.
If you’re 16 or older and you’ve already applied for a new card, depending on where you are in the application process, you may be able to download free bus travel onto your current card so you can use it until your new card is issued.
However, this will only work temporarily until your application is processed. This is because your old card will automatically be set to stop working when your new card is issued. You can then recycle or dispose of your old card.
If you’ve applied for a new card and your application has now been processed but you’ve not received it yet (for example, it is in the post), then you may not have free bus travel available to download via the app. But don’t worry – this means your new card is coming.
If you have applied on getyournec.scot, you can log back in to check the status of your application.
When your new card is issued, your old card will automatically be set to stop working and you can dispose of it.
If you would like to send us your old card to be securely disposed of, you can send it to:
Concessionary Travel and Integrated Ticketing
Transport Scotland
George House
2nd Floor
36 North Hanover Street
Glasgow
G1 2AD
We recognise that there is an interest in an app based travel solution. Unfortunately, the compatible technology is not yet available to provide an app for concessionary travel, but we continue to monitor technology advancements in this area.
For young people aged 5-15, a parent, guardian or carer must apply on for free bus travel on their behalf. This is to make sure the parent, guardian or carer knows that the young person is able to travel for free by bus, and can ensure their child is safe and well.
During the application process, it is important to verify who the person making the application is, who the child is, and know that the person making the application is authorised to act on behalf of that child.
As the app cannot store personal data, this information cannot be captured or verified. This means that for anyone aged 5-15, parents, guardians or carers will need to apply for a new card either online or through their local council.
Yes, the system will be updated regularly so that free travel will be available to collect on your 16th birthday.
Remember that this only applies if your existing application has not been processed, you already have an active card, and haven’t applied for a new card since January 2022.
No – your card is unique to you. To download your free bus travel you must use your own card.
Yes – the app will check your card with the details held on the system and will download the free bus travel for you, via anyone’s Transport Scot Pass Collect app.
Yes. The app will check their card details with the system and download the bus travel for them. You can only download the free bus travel for the intended person onto their card – you cannot download it onto your card, for example.
Check your smart phone is connected to the internet with good signal and you have space on your mobile device to download the app.
If you still cannot download the app your phone may not be compatible – it needs to be Android (version 6 or newer) or iOS (version 6 or newer) and have Near Field Communication (NFC) compatibility – the same function you use for contactless payment with your phone.
If you still don’t have access to the app, you can use someone else’s Transport Scot Pass Collect app to download free bus travel onto your card.
The app will ignore these and download free bus travel onto the card as well.
In the unlikely event that your card is full (for example, you have lots of other travel products/entitlements already stored on your card) the app will tell you and you may need to remove some of the old tickets to free up space. You can do this by presenting your card to the relevant operators’ ticket or gate machine and it will clear them for you automatically, freeing up room for your bus pass.
The app doesn’t take up too much space or take long to download. It’s around 100mb on Android and only 30mb on Apple – but you do need a good signal to download it (3G + or stronger).