Book Uzbek Trains Online: eticket.uzrailpass.uz Step by Step
Book Uzbek trains online at eticket.uzrailpass.uz: account setup, passport details, which foreign cards clear 3-D Secure, and what to do if payment fails.
You've found the Afrosiyob you want, picked a window seat, typed in your passport details twice because the form didn't like the first attempt, and reached the payment screen. Then it shows you two logos, HUMO and UZCARD, and nothing else. Both are Uzbek domestic card networks. Your Visa isn't going to work there, and there's no button that says so. That's where many foreigners give up on booking Uzbek trains online. It's usually fixable.
This walkthrough covers the official booking site, eticket.uzrailpass.uz (the address eticket.railway.uz now forwards to), from creating an account to standing at the gate with a QR code. It also covers what to do when payment fails anyway, because sometimes it does. It was checked against the railway's own terms page, Seat61 (updated June 2026), Caravanistan's forum and recent traveller reports (last checked: September 2026).
Before you start: what has changed on the booking site
One thing will look odd the first time. If you type eticket.railway.uz into a browser today, it forwards you to eticket.uzrailpass.uz. We checked on 27 September 2026: it's a permanent redirect from the railway's own domain to a page carrying the O'zbekiston Temir Yo'llari name. So it's the same official system under a new address, not a copycat. Just never start from an ad in search results.
The second change matters more. Foreign card payments on the official site now go through Stripe, and the railway's terms name Trainhub.io (AI Analytics And Integrations Limited) as the merchant of record for international cards and digital wallets. The same terms list Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, JCB, American Express, UnionPay and MIR, plus Google Pay and Apple Pay (last checked: September 2026). Your bank statement will say TRAINHUB.IO, not "Uzbek Railways".
Older blogs saying foreign cards don't work are describing the 2019 launch, when only national cards were accepted. That changed. The options just don't always appear straight away.
When booking opens (45 or 60 days?)
Sources disagree, and they've disagreed for a while. Seat61 says booking opens 60 days ahead, "sometimes less". Caravanistan's train page, updated in June 2026, still says 45 days (last checked: September 2026). Journal of Nomads, updated in August 2026, splits the difference at 45 to 60 days. The railway's own terms settle it: sales open 60 days before departure from the train's starting station, at 10:00 Tashkent time, though the carrier can change this. Caravanistan's 45 days is out of date.
The practical answer is simple. Search your date on the site. If trains appear with seats, sale is open; if the calendar won't let you pick the date, it isn't yet. For an April, May, September or October Afrosiyob, check again every day or two from about 60 days out, and book the moment it opens. Our overview of Uzbek trains and classes explains why the high-speed departures go first.
Step by step: booking on the official site
1. Switch the language
The site opens in Uzbek. The language switch is at the top right, labelled O'zbek tili; change it to English. Seat61 warns that the system sometimes slips back into Russian partway through. Browser translate gets you through.
2. Create an account
You need an account to pay and to see your tickets later. You can register with an email address or sign in through Google, Facebook or Telegram. Here's our advice: use Google or email, not a phone number. Registration by phone can trigger a one-time SMS code, and if your home SIM isn't roaming (or you're on an eSIM with data only), that code won't arrive. Travellers on Journal of Nomads report the social login as the more reliable route.
Do this a day before you actually need to book. In March 2025, several users on Caravanistan's forum found that the international card option only appeared some hours after the account was created; one waited about 24 hours before a Revolut card showed up as a choice. We can't say whether that delay still applies in 2026, but creating the account early costs nothing.
3. Search by station
Pick the departure and arrival stations and the date. Watch Tashkent: there's the main station and Tashkent South, and some southbound sleepers use the latter. Bukhara's trains run to Kagan, about 10 to 12 kilometres from the old town, so whatever name the site shows, budget the taxi ride. Results show times, travel time and the lowest fare per class, in som.
4. Choose train, class and seat
Tap a class and you'll get a seat map, carriage by carriage. The class names follow the Russian system: SV is a two-berth first-class compartment, Kupe a four-berth one, and Sleeper the open-plan platskart bunks. On the Afrosiyob you'll see Economy, Business and VIP instead.
Book a group in one order. Splitting it across two bookings is how couples end up three carriages apart.
5. Enter passenger details exactly as in the passport
This is the step that trips people up. The form asks for surname, first name, passport number, citizenship, date of birth and gender. Type the names in Latin letters exactly as they appear on the photo page of your passport, including a middle name if it's printed there. Use the passport you'll actually carry: the number goes on the ticket and gets checked against the document at the station entrance and again at the carriage door.
A strange but documented quirk: sometimes the form accepts everything but the next step won't go through, as if the server hasn't registered your entries. A Caravanistan user in March 2025 got past it by deleting and retyping the last letter or digit of each field, and a second user confirmed it worked. It sounds like superstition, but it's worth trying before you start over.
6. Pay, and pick the right box
You'll be asked to pay straight after confirming the order. Seats are held only briefly. On the payment screen you're looking for an option showing Visa, Mastercard or American Express logos (the Stripe route). If you only see HUMO and UZCARD, stop: those are for Uzbek cards only. Refresh the page, or try the app, or come back in a few hours. In July 2025 one traveller found the foreign card option missing on the website but present in the phone app the same day, and it returned to the website the next morning.
Then comes 3-D Secure, your bank's own check. The railway's terms say that if your card supports it, you'll have to complete that extra authentication. This is where a second wave of failures happens, and it's rarely the railway's fault:
- The code goes by SMS to your home number. If roaming is off, it never arrives. Banks that approve payments inside their own app (over data) avoid this, so switch on app approvals before you fly if your bank offers them.
- Your bank blocks the charge as unusual. A foreign merchant plus a new country can trip fraud filters. Approve it in your banking app, or call, then retry.
- The first attempt bounces for no visible reason. One commenter on Journal of Nomads reported exactly this and had to restart the booking. A second card, or Google Pay or Apple Pay, often goes through where the first didn't.
Travel-focused cards such as Revolut have worked for forum users, and a French Visa card went through in March 2025. If you're offered a choice of currency, paying in som and letting your own bank convert is normally the cheaper option, although what Stripe shows you can vary. Which foreign cards behave well there is covered in our cards-and-cash page.
7. Download the ticket
After a successful payment the ticket appears in your account under your orders, and it is usually emailed to you as well. Download the PDF and save it to your phone offline.
The Uzrailways tickets app
The official app is listed in the App Store as Uzrailways tickets (УзЖД Билет in Cyrillic), published by Axon Logic, and it's also on Android. You log in with the same account as the website. Seat61 confirms you can book in the app and show tickets on your phone. Is it better than the website? For a foreign card, it sometimes is, because the foreign card option has appeared there first at least once (July 2025). It's the same system with a different front end, and when one fails, the other is worth a try.
What the e-ticket looks like, and do you need to print it?
It's a PDF with a QR code, your name and passport number, the train number, carriage and seat, and the departure time. Seat61 notes that tickets are printed in Cyrillic, so the station names may look unfamiliar: Samarkand becomes Самарканд, Bukhara Бухара. If Cyrillic is new to you, our short guide to the two Uzbek alphabets will help you read the essentials. Check the station and date the night before.
On printing, the sources have moved. When the system launched in 2019, the railway described e-tickets as printable A4 documents. Caravanistan's train page (June 2026) now says there's no need to print, and Journal of Nomads (August 2026) says the QR code on your phone plus your passport is enough. One reseller's FAQ still insists on an A4 printout, though it carries no date. We'd go with the phone, and keep a paper copy in your bag if your guesthouse has a printer. It covers a dead battery at a security desk.
You don't collect anything at the station. There's no ticket to pick up. You go to the entrance, show the QR code and passport at security, then show them again to the attendant at your carriage door.
When payment simply won't work
Say you've tried two cards, the app and a different day, and nothing gets through. You still have options.
Resellers. 12Go and Bookaway both sell Uzbek train seats, and Seat61 says both handle overseas cards without trouble. The trade-off is a service fee on top of the railway fare, and a Caravanistan user noted that 12Go tickets arrive by email but don't show up in the official app. Not every train is listed, and refunds follow the reseller's own terms too.
A station or city ticket office. Bring your passport and cash in som. Caravanistan recommends the city ticket offices over station counters because queues are shorter. Fine for a Sharq a few days out; a poor bet for a high-season Afrosiyob tomorrow.
Your guesthouse or a local agency. Many will book with a local card for a small fee. They'll need your passport details, so use a business you've actually booked with.
Should you just use a reseller from the start? Our take: no, not for most people. The official site is cheaper, the ticket lands in your account, and refunds are cleaner. But if you're booking from home with a card you already know is fussy about foreign merchants, paying a reseller's fee is a reasonable price for not spending an evening refreshing a payment page.
A local SIM helps with most of these fixes; our SIM and mobile data guide covers the airport counters.
If your plans change after booking
Cancel in your account on the same site or app you booked through; that's the route that reliably returns money to the original card. The fee tiers, the six-hour cut-off and how long refunds take are in our separate guide to Uzbek train refunds and cancellations, so we won't repeat them here.
The most useful thing left to say is about timing. Create your account a day early, and on the day sale opens have two cards ready, one of them in Google Pay or Apple Pay. Keep your passport open on the table. One of the commonest ways an Uzbek train booking fails has nothing to do with the site: a seat hold expiring while someone hunts for a card or waits on a text message that was never going to reach a phone without roaming.