On the last day of 2025, the Guangzhou Metro carried 14.093 million rides — the highest single-day figure ever recorded by any metro in China. The network behind the record: 779.9 km, 19 lines, 397 stations, and an average of 9.31 million riders a day — third-largest, busiest-per-kilometer.
Guangzhou's metro is the most intensively used in the country: 2025 delivered 3.4 billion rides (+4.5%), an average of 9.31 million a day, 49 consecutive days above 9 million by late November, and the first month ever averaging above 10 million (November, +9.3% vs pre-fair baseline). New Year's Day 2026 added an 11.68-million non-workday record.
The loop changed everything: Line 11, the 44.2-km ring opened 28 December 2024, averaged over 500,000 daily riders in its first year and carried 953,000 on the record day. 2025 then added Lines 10 and 12 (29 June) and extensions of 13, 14 and 22 — with 101 km more under construction as of mid-2026.
Line 3 links the airport to Tianhe and Canton Tower (Tiyu Xilu is the network's busiest station — 400,000+ on peak days). Line 2 runs from Guangzhou South station up through the old city. Line 8 serves the Canton Fair complex at Pazhou. The APM shuttles under Zhujiang New Town. Line 18 — the world's first 160-km/h metro — is already relieving Line 3 and pushes toward Nansha.
Fares run ¥2–20 by distance; announcements are trilingual — Mandarin, Cantonese, English. Foreign cards increasingly work at gates, but the Alipay/WeChat transit QR remains the smooth path.
Guangzhou South is the national leader in high-speed frequency: roughly 150 million passengers a year, with 1-hour reach across the Greater Bay Area, 2-hour intercity coverage of Guangdong, 5-hour linkage to the Yangtze Delta and Chengdu–Chongqing. Hong Kong West Kowloon is under an hour; Shenzhen half that.
Six intercity railways operated by the metro company blur the line between metro and rail — 616,300 trips over the April 2026 Qingming holiday alone (+21.7%). For travelers, the practical fact: Guangzhou is the one city where "airport, fair, Hong Kong, Shenzhen" all sit on the same rail map.
Ride like a local and Guangzhou compresses beautifully: stay near a Line 3/Line 1 interchange in Tianhe and the airport, the tower, the fair and the dim sum old town are all one seat or one transfer away. The Line 11 loop is your sightseeing spine — it strings together the old city gates and markets without the Line 3 crush. Two cautions: Friday evenings and Canton Fair weeks turn Tiyu Xilu into a contact sport, and Line 3 to the airport fills by 7 a.m. — for early flights, the airport bus from Tianhe or a hotel near T3 is the stress-free play.
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