Services for the OV-chipkaart

If your OV-chipkaart is stolen, lost or damaged, NS will be pleased to give you a helping hand, of course. Exactly what you have to do and what you are entitled to will depends on your season ticket and type of OV-chipkaart.

If your personalised OV-chipkaart is stolen or lost, you must get your card blocked as soon as possible to prevent misuse. If your card is damaged or defective, your remaining balance will always be reimbursed.  If you have an NS season ticket, the costs of any tickets that you have to buy in the period when you cannot use the card will be reimbursed too in many cases.

Card has almost expired
An OV-chipkaart has to be replaced after five years. You can see the validity date on the front of your OV-chipkaart at the bottom right. If your card has expired, you no longer have a valid ticket. Not even if the NS season ticket on your OV-chipkaart is still valid! You should therefore make sure that you get a new card in time

Personalised OV-chipkaart with an NS season ticket
If you have an NS season ticket, you will receive a message from OV-chipkaart Customer Services in plenty of time. You will be asked to apply for a new card using the enclosed form. On ov-chipkaart.nl you can find out when your new card will be delivered.

Anonymous OV-chipkaart
When your anonymous OV-chipkaart expires, you will not receive a message from OV-chipkaart Customer Services. After all, they do not have your personal details. You must therefore keep an eye on the validity date of your card yourself.

Forgotten to check out?

If you have forgotten to check out, the full boarding fee will be charged (this is like a deposit that is repaid when you check out). You can check out at the arrival station on the same day up to 6 hours after checking in.

If you realise later on that you have forgotten to check out, please contact NS Customer Services on 0900–2021163 (€0.10 per minute, when calling from within the Netherlands, Monday to Friday 08:00-22:00 and Saturday 09:00-17:00).

Refunds for delays

You are entitled to a refund if you are delayed by 30 minutes or more, and this also applies if you were travelling with an OV-chipkaart. You simply to go to the NS service desk, pick up the usual form and follow the instructions. You can also request the form online.

Please note: before you can get a refund, you must have checked in and out, of course.

If you want to be sure that you always have enough of a credit balance to travel with NS, you can choose the automatic top-up.

When the balance on your card drops below €5, it will automatically be topped up from your bank account by a fixed amount. You can determine for yourself how high that amount should be: €10, €20 or €50. If you choose the boarding fee that applies to you, you will always have enough of a balance on the card to travel with NS. Even if the balance on your card ends up as less than the boarding fee that applies in your case (where that is above the limit of €5). In that case, a temporary negative balance is allowed when checking out. After all, it is going to be reloaded immediately. If necessary, this is allowed several times in succession.

A list of frequently asked questions can be found below and on ov-chipkaart.nl.

When you applied for pre-paid travel with NS using an e-purse, you chose either first or second class. If you would prefer to travel in a different class in future, you can arrange that at an NS ticket machine. Select 'Change Class' and then indicate that you would like to travel in a different class in future.

One-off change

If you only want to travel in a different class as a one-off, you can indicate that at the NS ticket machine for that specific day:

• Hold your OV-chipkaart in front of the card reader, which is under the screen at the right
• Choose 'Change Class' on the screen
• Choose the desired ticket class for that day.
• Then hold your OV-chipkaart in front of the card reader again
• Your ticket class has now been changed until 04:00 that night.

View journey details

Details of your travel will be stored for 18 months. We will assume that any travel details recorded more than three months ago are correct. If you do not agree with the amounts deducted from your account, you therefore have a period of 3 months to register any objections.

There are various options to let you view your travel details and balance transactions with NS. It does not matter whether you have a personalised OV-chipkaart or an anonymous one.

• With a Mijn NS account, you can view your journey details online
• You can view your 10 most recent transactions via 'Show transactions' at an NS ticket machine.
• You can ask for a printout of your NS transactions at an NS service desk

When you check out, the card reader screen always displays the journey price and the remaining balance on your OV-chipkaart.
If you have a personalised OV-chipkaart, you can use My OV-chipkaart.

Viewing journey details through Mijn NS
When you create your Mijn NS account, you can add the details of your personalsied OV-chipkaart. You can then view all journeys that you checked in and out for with NS. This lets you see the cost of a journey. You can also see if you checked in and out incorrectly or whether you forgot to. Finally, you can view, print out or store a list of the journeys that you made in a specific period, with details of the associated costs.