Free Transport

• Students under 26 years of age and pensioners over 62 years with Slovak citizenship or permanent residence in Slovakia
• Students under 26 years of age and pensioners under 62 years of age who are citizens or permanent residents of EU member states
• Students studying at schools in the Slovak Republic, regardless of nationality and place of permanent residence, i.e. students of all countries, not only the EU.

• Passengers entitled to zero-fare transport services are required to register at ZSSK ticket desks (children under 6 years of age are exception, they do not need any registration).
• Upon registration, they will obtain their rail customer cards that will allow them to get zero-fare tickets for travelling by trains.
• Zero-fare tickets are passenger-specific, i.e. the tickets are non-transferable.
• Passengers with the zero-fare tickets can board any Os or REX train for the route specified on the ticket within the period of validity.
• Zero-fare tickets are bound to trains of R, Ex, EN, EC, SC category. In this case – the passengers can only board the specific train the number of which is printed on the ticket.
• If a passenger chooses to travel by a train from category SC or EC, they will pay an extra fee: 1 € for EC train and mandatory reservation fee 5 € for SC train.
• The zero-fare transport is not available on IC and Railjet xpress trains.

• Children under 16 years of age
  • Children under 6 years of age do not need any customer card or train ticket to travel for free
  • Children aged 6-16 years are required to submit their ID document (+ profile picture)
• Students
  • For full-time students under 26 years of age who are enrolled in study programs equivalent to study programs  available at schools and universities in Slovakia
  • Students are required to submit confirmation of enrolment for the current  academic year together with an official translation to Slovak language (for documents in Czech language translations are not necessary) and an ID document (+ profile picture)
• Retired persons receiving social security income under 62 years of age (excluding military service pensioners)
  • Retired persons are required to submit confirmation of social security income not older than 30 days together with an official translation to Slovak language and an ID document (+ profile picture)
• Seniors over 62 years of age
  • Seniors are required to submit their ID document (+ profile picture)

If travelling on Tatra Electric Railways and Cog Railway (routes Štrba – Štrbské Pleso, Poprad-Tatry – Štrbské Pleso and Starý Smokovec – Tatranská Lomnica) or on Žilina – Rajec, Zohor – Záhorská Ves and Kúty – Skalica na Slovensku lines, no zero-fare ticket is needed (it is sufficient to present the customer card for zero-fare transport).

Please provide a picture that is up-to-date, unused and professional (sharp and bright enough). A person has to be depicted from the front, without any headwear or background. The required picture size: 2×3 cm. Please note, that it is not possible to use the zero-fare tickets on the route segment between  the last regular station on the Slovak territory and the state border. Entitled passengers are to use the zero-fare tickets only between the stations within the territory of Slovakia. The exception are children under 6 years of age. They travel for free also in border areas.

Registration is possible upon presenting the below listed documents:

• Original: Registration form for the relevant school/academic year, certified by the foreign school.

  The registration form can be found below on this page in three versions according to your needs:
  – Slovak,
  – Slovak-English version,
  – the Slovak-German version.

• Or a certificate of attendance for the current school/academic year and its official translation into Slovak or Czech (a photocopy of the official translation is sufficient, translation is not required if the certificate is issued in Czech).

  It is important that all the required information is completed and confirmed, in particular information on the duration of the pupil/student status, i.e. the dates indicated and confirmed by the school from when and until when the applicant will be a pupil/student at their school in the school/academic year, the length of their studies in years, the year the pupil/student is attending and, in the case of a pupil/student in the final year of studies, the date of his/her final examination.

Also in the case a foreign school issues the School Attendance Certificate on their own form, this must contain all the required data. We highly recommend to have the registration form filled and confirmed by the school in any case.

• ID
• A photograph (size 2 × 3 cm, recent and unused, corresponding to the applicant’s current appearance, in colour/black and white, sufficiently clear and distinct, with the person being identifiable, taken from a frontal view, without any cover of the head and with plain background, i.e. with a neutral background without trees, buildings or other persons).

• In case ZSSK does not have information whether the study programme has an equivalent in Slovakia, also a certificate from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Slovak Republic, Centre for Recognition of Educational Documents, Stromová 1, 813 30 Bratislava.

By registering, the pupil/student receives a Pupil/Student Pass.

If it is not possible to issue the card while waiting, it will be issued within 3 working days.