MetLife Sets $150 World Cup Fare, 40,000 Rail Seats

The New York New Jersey Host Committee and NJ Transit published the Stadium Mobility Plan for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on April 17, setting a $150 round-trip rail fare and an $80 round-trip shuttle fare for every MetLife Stadium match. The plan arrives 49 days before kickoff and defines how 78,000-plus spectators per match will reach East Rutherford across eight fixtures between June 13 and July 19, the tournament final. NJ Transit will handle 40,000 of those riders by rail, while FIFA-branded shuttle buses will move about 10,000 more from Port Authority, a midtown Manhattan stop east of Grand Central, and a Hackensack park-and-ride. Stadium property is closed to general parking, with a limited American Dream premium lot priced at $225.

For the road to 2026, this matters because host readiness is judged on the quiet details: transit on match day, security perimeters that do not strangle neighborhoods, broadcast compounds that do not overwhelm the venue. MetLife hosts the July 19 final, and the mobility plan is the operational frame through which every Eastern Region fan will experience the tournament's closing stretch. The plan answers the central question early, on the record, and in writing, which is the baseline a modern host nation is expected to clear.

What the plan locks in

Rail service will be restricted to ticket holders from four hours before kickoff, and both the $150 train fare and the $80 shuttle fare are nontransferable and nonrefundable, per the NJ Transit release. Only match-ticket holders will be able to purchase the transportation passes, with shuttle sales opening first and rail sales beginning May 13. NJ Transit projects a $62 million program cost, offset by $10.6 million in federal funding and more than $3 million from the host committee, with the remaining share recovered through match-day fares. The agency plans to run service for roughly three hours after each final whistle to clear the venue.

New York's Penn Station will partially close to non-ticket-holders for four hours before every kickoff, with only NJ Transit trains between Penn and Secaucus Junction running during the window, according to CBS New York reporting. From Secaucus, passengers will transfer to train shuttles that complete the run to Meadowlands. Amtrak, PATH, and NJ Transit bus service will continue through the closure, and the MTA has confirmed the Long Island Rail Road concourse will stay open. Anyone planning travel from Manhattan to a MetLife fixture should build the three-hour pre-match security buffer into that calendar now, rather than later.

Security rehearsal at the Meadowlands

On April 18, NJ Transit Police led a three-hour emergency drill at MetLife beginning around 7 a.m., simulating a fire aboard a train inbound to the stadium and rehearsing evacuation and triage with more than a dozen agencies, including State Police, the Federal Railroad Administration, Bergen County Emergency Management, and fire departments from Meadowlands, Carlstadt, Lyndhurst, Moonachie, Rutherford, and East Rutherford. "The scenario today is a fire on board the train," said NJ Transit Police Chief Christopher Trucillo, who added that "from a security point of view, we wanna make sure we're leaving no stone unturned." Bergen County Executive Joe Tedesco framed the drill around crowd control beyond the rail platform, saying the focus was on how responders handle fans once they leave the train.

Cost rationale and broadcast implications

NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri defended the fare structure on the grounds that "commuters in New Jersey should not carry the cost years into the future for this wonderful event, but the fans going to the game should bear the burden of the cost," per CBS New York. Governor Mikie Sherrill has directed NJ Transit to offer discounted fares for the matches on June 22 and June 30, a targeted concession inside a plan that Host Committee CEO Alex Lasry has described, in his own words, as "built with safety and responsibility at its core." For fans splitting their tournament between the stadium experience and the living room, the kickoff windows around MetLife will also shape the broadcast windows US carriers are building around the July 19 final.

Readers planning travel into the New York New Jersey region should secure a match ticket first, then purchase transportation through the official channels as they open, since the 40,000 daily rail cap closes quickly and private charters are not permitted to the stadium. A fuller tournament read-through is set out in our Cap26 US tournament dossier, which tracks the eleven host cities in one place. Venue-by-venue access information is updated at the Cap26 US venues hub as each host committee publishes its own mobility plan.

Sources

• NJ Transit press release, April 17, 2026
• CBS New York: NJ Transit $150 tickets and parking plan
• CBS New York: Penn Station four-hour partial closure
• CBS New York: NJ Transit emergency drill at MetLife