New York City’s subway system is about to make commuting a lot easier for iPhone users. The MTA is working to let riders add their OMNY transit cards directly to Apple Wallet by the end of 2025.
Apple has slowly added support for transit cards over the years. Cities like San Francisco (Clipper card), Washington, D.C. (SmarTrip), and Los Angeles (TAP) already let users tap their iPhone or Apple Watch to ride. New York is finally catching up.
The city has spent the last few years moving from the old MetroCard system to OMNY, which uses tap-to-pay technology. At first, you could only tap a debit or credit card, but now there are physical OMNY cards too. They let riders load money upfront and avoid cluttering their bank statements with tons of $2.90 charges.
The MetroCard is being fully retired soon. To make this switch smoother, the MTA plans to introduce a mobile OMNY card for both regular riders and students. They’ll also update the MTA app so you can manage your OMNY account from your phone. Both features should launch by December 2025.
If all goes to plan, you’ll soon be able to preload your OMNY card in Apple Wallet, making it faster and simpler to get around the city — just like riders can already do in other cities.
This will be a big improvement, especially for students, who now rely on flimsy paper cards for their free rides.
