This guide is written by an editorial team based in Chongqing — the editor has lived in mainland China since 2018 and visits Chengdu 30+ times via the 1 h 20 min G-train, riding the Chengdu Metro first-hand on essentially every trip: Line 2 out of Chengdu East, Line 3 to the Panda Base, Line 4 to Wide-Narrow Alley. First-hand for the riding experience, the tourist-line knowledge, and Alipay ride-code payment (the editor uses Alipay across mainland China). aggregated editorial coverage for exact current fares and last-train times, which vary by line and shift — those draw on official Chengdu Metro information and 2026-05-22 Amap (高德地图) routing. Confirm last-train times at the platform if you are travelling late.
Paying as a foreigner — the Alipay ride-code
The Chengdu Metro does not sell a foreigner-friendly paper ticket worth bothering with. The path that works for almost every foreign visitor in 2026 is the Alipay transit ride-code (乘车码):
- Before you travel, link a foreign Visa or Mastercard to Alipay — see our Alipay for foreigners setup guide. WeChat Pay works too (WeChat Pay setup guide).
- In Alipay, open the Transport / 出行 section and add the Chengdu Metro ride code. You now have a QR code that scans you in at the entry gate and out at the exit gate; the fare is deducted automatically.
- Backup options: the local Tianfu Tong (天府通) card, sold at station service counters for a refundable deposit plus a cash top-up — useful if your phone battery dies.
Or skip all of that and tap your own card. Since 28 July 2025 Chengdu has accepted foreign-issued contactless cards at every station, and in June 2026 it widened the list again: UnionPay plus Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club and Discover — six schemes. Tap going in, tap going out, no app. The operator names two conditions and both sit with your bank rather than with the metro: the card needs contactless payment enabled, and it needs enough balance or credit at the moment you tap out. Neither can be fixed at the gate, so settle them before you fly.
The Alipay ride-code is still worth setting up — it pays for taxis, food and tickets a bank card cannot, and it is the fallback if a gate refuses your card. It is the same mechanism used on the Beijing and Shanghai metros, so if you set it up in another Chinese city it already works here.
Fares + operating hours
Chengdu Metro fares are distance-based and cheap. The starting fare is ¥2, covering the first few kilometers, and it rises in steps with distance. Practical ranges:
- Most central-Chengdu tourist trips: ¥2-5. Chengdu East → Chunxi Road, Chunxi Road → Wide-Narrow Alley, Tianfu Square → the Panda Base line transfer — all in this band.
- Long cross-city rides: ¥6-8. Chengdu East to the far southern Tianfu New Area, or city-center to Shuangliu Airport (CTU) on Line 10.
- Tianfu Airport (TFU) via Line 18: ~¥10. The airport run costs more than a city hop but is paid exactly the same way — there is no separate airport ticket and no premium fare product, on either the express or the local.
Operating hours run roughly 6:20am to 11:00pm, varying by line. First trains from suburban terminals leave around 6:00-6:30am; last trains pass central stations between about 10:30pm and 11:30pm — the exact last-train time is posted on every platform. After the metro closes, Chengdu taxis and DiDi are inexpensive (most central trips ¥15-40), so a late night out is not a logistics problem.
The lines foreign tourists actually use
Chengdu Metro had around 15 operating lines in 2026, but a foreign visitor realistically needs only a handful. Two interchanges carry most trips — Tianfu Square where Line 1 crosses Line 2, and Chunxi Road where Line 2 meets the Panda Base line. The airports are the exception to that tidiness, and the shape of it is easier to see than to describe:
Look at the two corners. The airports are the one thing this shape makes obvious: they sit on opposite sides of the city, each on a line of its own, so no single line runs between them and the centre — Line 18 lands you at Chengdu South, Line 10 at Wuhou Temple, and Line 19 joins the two airports to each other rather than to town.
These are the lines worth knowing, row by row:
| Line | Color | What it's for | Key transfers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line 1 | Blue | North-south spine: 火车北站 (Chengdu Railway Stn) → 文殊院 → Tianfu Square → 锦江宾馆 → 华西坝 → Chengdu South Station → 孵化园 → Tianfu New Area | Line 2 at Tianfu Square; Line 7 + Line 18 at Chengdu South (火车南站) |
| Line 2 | Orange | East-west tourist spine: Chengdu East Railway Station → 春熙路 (Chunxi Road / Taikoo Li) → Tianfu Square → 人民公园 (Renmin Park) → 中医大·省医院 | Line 7 at Chengdu East; Line 3 at Chunxi Road; Line 1 at Tianfu Square; Line 4 + 5 at 中医大·省医院 |
| Line 3 | Pink | The Panda Base line: 红牌楼 → 高升桥 → 省体育馆 → 春熙路 → 军区总医院 (Panda Base West Gate) → 动物园 → 熊猫大道 | Line 10 near 红牌楼 area; Line 2 at Chunxi Road; Line 7 at 省体育馆-area |
| Line 4 | Green | Qingyang cultural line: 中医大·省医院 → 宽窄巷子 (Wide-Narrow Alley) → 骡马市 → 太升南路 — the line for Kuanzhai-area hotels | Line 2 + 5 at 中医大·省医院; Line 1 at 骡马市 |
| Line 7 | Lavender | Orbital ring connecting the rail stations: Chengdu East ↔ 太平园 ↔ Chengdu South ↔ 神仙树 ↔ 火车北站 | Line 2 at Chengdu East; Line 3 + 10 at 太平园; Line 1 at Chengdu South |
| Line 10 | Teal | Shuangliu Airport (CTU) line: 双流机场2航站楼 → 双流机场1航站楼 → 太平园 → 武侯祠（锦里） (Wuhou Temple terminus, ~37 min from the airport) | Line 3 + 7 at 太平园; Line 19 at 双流机场2航站楼东 |
| Line 18 | Dark Green | Tianfu Airport (TFU) HSR-grade line: 天府机场1号2号航站楼 → 天府站 → Chengdu South Railway Station — 33–34 min on the express, ~50 min on the local | Line 1 + Line 7 at Chengdu South (火车南站) |
| Line 19 | Purple | Cross-airport + southwest: Tianfu Airport (TFU) → 双流机场2航站楼东 (CTU) → 龙港 — the line that connects the two airports | Line 10 at 双流机场2航站楼东; Line 8 at 龙港 |
The mental model that makes Chengdu simple: Line 2 is the tourist spine (it links Chengdu East Railway Station, Chunxi Road, Tianfu Square and Renmin Park in one ride), Line 3 is the Panda Base line (ride it to 军区总医院 station for the West Gate), Line 4 is the Wide-Narrow Alley line, and Line 1 is the north-south spine through Chengdu South Station. If your hotel is in one of the five central neighborhoods, those four lines plus the airport lines cover your whole trip.
The Panda Base by metro
The most-asked Chengdu Metro question from foreign visitors is how to get to the pandas, and the answer has two stops in it, not one. Line 3 carries a station for each gate of the base, the gates are 2.35 km apart, and getting off at the wrong one is not a short correction.
Both of these are “the panda station”. The order is the part that reads like a typo until you see it drawn: heading north, the stop for the west gate arrives two stops before the stop for the south one. Which gate you want, and what each costs you, is below.
军区总医院 (Junqu Zongyiyuan) is the west gate, and it comes first travelling north. The base directs public-transport arrivals here, for a reason worth knowing: there is no car park on this side, so no coaches queue at it. Roughly 35 minutes from the centre, ¥4-5.
熊猫大道 (Xiongmao Avenue) is the south gate, two stops further on past 动物园 (the zoo). It is not a walk from the station — leave by exit A and take bus D025, 198 or 198A to the Panda Base stop, about 10-15 minutes for ¥2 on top of the ¥4-5 metro fare. This is the side with the car park and the coaches, so it carries the queue; the trade is that it opens nearest the museum and the older panda houses, which are the ones in the photographs.
Timing matters more than the gate. Pandas are active for roughly the first two and a half hours of the day — 07:30 to about 10:00, with the keeper feed around 09:00 — and by 10:30 nearly all of them are asleep or indoors. Be at a gate for opening, which on Line 3 means leaving central Chengdu around 06:45. The base sells a morning and an afternoon ticket at the same price; only one of them shows you animals that are awake. Our where to see pandas in China guide has the booking rules and the four bases compared.
Airport lines — TFU and CTU
Chengdu's two airports each have their own metro connection, and knowing which is which avoids a serious planning error:
- Tianfu Airport (TFU) — Line 18. The HSR-grade airport metro runs from 天府机场1号2号航站楼 station to Chengdu South Railway Station in 33–34 minutes on the express, or about 50 minutes and 9 stops on the local — around ¥10 either way, so read the platform screen before you board. At Chengdu South you transfer to Line 1 for the central neighborhoods. See the Tianfu Airport (TFU) guide.
- Shuangliu Airport (CTU) — Line 10. Line 10 runs directly under both CTU terminals and into the city, terminating at Wuhou Temple — so a Wuhou-area hotel is a no-transfer ~30-minute ride. For Chunxi Road, transfer to Line 3. See the Shuangliu Airport (CTU) guide.
- Line 19 connects the two airports directly (TFU ↔ CTU, ~63 minutes) — relevant only if your itinerary mixes the two.
Reading the map without Chinese
The Chengdu Metro is genuinely foreigner-navigable. Station names on signage, in-car route strips, and platform maps are all bilingual — Chinese characters plus Hanyu Pinyin (春熙路 = “Chunxi Road”, 武侯祠 = “Wuhou Temple”). Announcements run in Chinese then English on the tourist lines. The reliable anchors:
- Line color + number — every transfer sign and platform marker uses it. You don't need to read the station name to follow “Line 3”.
- Terminus direction — platforms are labelled by the terminus the train heads toward, not “northbound/southbound”. Match the terminus name on the line map to your destination's direction.
- Lettered exits — big stations have exits A/B/C/D leading to different street corners. Picking the right exit saves a long detour; the station wall map shows what each exit serves.
For routing, Amap (高德地图) is the most accurate inside China but Chinese-only; Google Maps is fine for rough pre-trip planning. Most travelers just use the Alipay or the Chengdu Metro app route planner once on the ground.
Security check + what to expect at the gate
Like every mainland Chinese metro, each Chengdu Metro station has an airport-style security scan at the entrance — bags and luggage through an X-ray belt, an occasional drink-bottle sip-check, knives and oversized lighters confiscated. It adds 1-5 minutes per entry, longer at rush hour (roughly 7:30-9am and 5:30-7:30pm on Lines 1 and 2). Normal travel suitcases are fine — if it fits the X-ray belt, it is accepted.
The metro gates do not check your passport — the subway is not real-name (that is the high-speed-rail system). You simply scan your Alipay/WeChat QR or tap your Tianfu Tong card. The HSR-style passport-and-face gate does not apply on the metro.
Related Chengdu planning
- Tapping a foreign card on China's metros — which cities take a contactless Visa or Mastercard at the gate.
- Where to stay in Chengdu: 5 areas for foreigners — each neighborhood's metro access compared.
- Chengdu East Railway Station guide — the Line 2 + Line 7 HSR hub.
- Chengdu Tianfu Airport (TFU) guide + Chengdu Shuangliu Airport (CTU) guide — the Line 18 and Line 10 airport connections.
- Where to see pandas in China — Line 3 to the Panda Base West Gate.
- Chengdu itinerary: 3, 5, or 7 days — day-by-day plans built around the metro network.
- Chengdu city guide — all Chengdu guides, attractions, neighborhoods.
Line assignments and routing verified via Amap (高德地图) on 2026-05-22, accurate to the May 2026 Chengdu Metro network (~15 operating lines). Fares and last-train times vary by line and change over time — confirm at the station. The Alipay transit ride-code is the standard foreigner payment method and is the editor's first-hand path; the exact in-app navigation labels may shift with Alipay updates. Corrections welcomed — contact details on the about page.