How to get from BER airport to Berlin

Airport Express FEX — fastest into the centre

The FEX runs every 15 minutes between 4:00 and 1:00 and reaches Südkreuz in 14 minutes, Potsdamer Platz in 19 and Berlin Hauptbahnhof in 23. The platform sits directly beneath Terminal 1, about five minutes on foot from arrivals and ten from Terminal 2.

Nothing beats it on price or speed into the centre. The catch comes after you step off: the FEX serves three stations, so unless your hotel stands near one of them, you continue by U-Bahn, tram or taxi with your luggage in hand.

Regional trains and the S-Bahn

RE20 follows the same route as the FEX once an hour. RB22 runs to Potsdam, RB24 towards Ostkreuz and Eberswalde, RB32 to Oranienburg — useful when the city centre is not where you are going.

S-Bahn lines S9 and S85 leave every 20 minutes and stop far more often; Alexanderplatz takes roughly 50 minutes. Slower than the FEX, but they put you within walking distance of many more addresses.

Express buses and the night service

Buses X7 and X71 leave from stops A6–A7 on the arrivals level, every 5 to 10 and every 20 minutes, and connect to U Rudow on the U7 line. Once the trains stop for the night, buses N7 and N7X take over, every 30 and every 15 minutes.

Taxi

Taxis wait outside both terminals and need no booking. Expect 40 to 60 minutes to Mitte depending on traffic and roughly 60–80 € on the meter — there is no fixed airport tariff, so the figure moves with the traffic and with the time of day.

Two things catch travellers out. A taxi with room for four passengers and four suitcases has to be requested specially at the rank. And drivers are not obliged to accept cards, so carry cash or agree on payment before your luggage goes in the boot.

Private transfer with a driver

You know the price before you book: 85 € for a sedan to almost any Berlin address, whatever the traffic does afterwards. We track your flight number, so a delayed landing simply moves the pickup, and the driver waits in the arrivals hall with a name sign — no car park to find, no bus stop to identify after a long flight.

It costs more than a train ticket, and it is worth it in specific cases: when two or three of you travel together, because the price is per car and not per person; when you have real luggage; when you arrive with children or at three in the morning; or when you simply do not want to work out ticket machines in a foreign language.

So which should you take

Travelling alone with hand luggage to Hauptbahnhof, Potsdamer Platz or Südkreuz — take the FEX. We cannot beat 5.00 € and 23 minutes, and we will not pretend otherwise.

Going somewhere off the train map, carrying a suitcase each, or travelling as a family — the arithmetic flips. Three ABC tickets already cost 15.00 € before the second leg of the journey, and a transfer is one price for the whole car, door to door.

Landing late at night, or heading straight into a meeting — take the transfer. Trains thin out after midnight, and a missed connection costs more than the fare ever would.

Tickets and fares

BER lies in tariff zone C, so a journey into Berlin needs an ABC ticket. A single costs 5.00 € since 1 January 2026, up from 4.70 €. The same ticket covers the FEX, regional trains, the S-Bahn, buses and the U-Bahn for two hours in one direction — there is no separate airport surcharge.

Buy it from the machines on the platform or in the VBB and BVG apps. Validate a paper ticket in the yellow or red box before boarding: an unvalidated ticket counts as no ticket at all, and the fine is 60 €.