Octopus cards will expire. If you don't use your Octopus card for 1,000 days, your card can no longer be used.

However, expiration does not mean invalidation. You can take your expired Octopus card to any place that sells Octopus cards, including the customer service at all subway stations in Hong Kong, to handle the following services:

(1) Reactivate and you can continue to use it. The whole journey takes about 2 minutes without paying any money.

(2) For card refunds, the balance in the expired Octopus period is still valid, and the deposit of HKD 50 is also valid.

(3) Even if your expired Octopus card is no longer recognized by the card reader due to various reasons such as improper storage for a long time, it is not a big problem. They will take away your card, check the original card swiping record to determine the cash balance in the card, and finally refund the balance to you penny-wise. Of course, it takes time to check the original records. You have to wait at least a day or two or more. After that, you can just take your receipt and exchange it for your refund.

Extended information:

Hong Kong Octopus announced that it will gradually stop the service of 1.2 million first-generation rental Octopus cards. The first batch of citizens who have not changed their cards will Hearing a "beep beep" sound reminded them that the card will lose its transaction function on January 20, 2018, but the access control function will not be affected.

The first-generation rental version of the Octopus card was issued in 1997. The last digit of the number on the back does not have brackets. Citizens who need to replace the card can do so for free at 45 Octopus service stations, or at the KMB and MTR Customer Centers. All amounts, access control, automatic value-added and other services will be transferred to the new card. Personal version cardholders need to register on the Octopus website first, and then go to an Octopus service station to transfer the old card information to the new card after receiving the new card.

It is estimated that the entire card replacement process will take two years.

Reference materials:

Hong Kong Octopus official website

People's Daily Online - Hong Kong's first-generation rental version of Octopus will be gradually phased out