By plane

1 Berlin Brandenburg International Airport (BER IATA). started operations on 31 October 2020 on the extended grounds of now-closed Schönefeld Airport. Berlin Airport does not have a "home carrier" and is not the hub of any airline but it does have a pretty comprehensive network of European destinations served by Easyjet, Ryanair, Eurowings and a bunch of legacy carriers, a good number of Mediterranean "sun" destinations (many of them seasonal) but only a handful of transatlantic routes. (updated Jan 2025)

You may also want to consider flying in to the large German airports of Hamburg (HAM IATA), Frankfurt (FRA IATA) or Hanover (HAJ IATA). From there you can take a train or intercity bus to Berlin. The nearby airports of Leipzig (LEJ IATA), Dresden (DRS IATA) and Szczecin (SZZ IATA) have fewer scheduled flights but you may just find a low-cost Europe flight from there.

Getting from the airport to central Berlin

By train

The train station is in the basement of Terminal 1; Terminal 2 is a short walk away. It is in fare zone C, so make sure you have an ABC (€4.70) ticket. An AB ticket is not valid, and you risk a €60 fine. Purchasing your ticket on board is not an option, but there are ample ticket machines throughout the airport. If there's a queue, look for another. There are 6 platforms, 2 for the S-Bahn and 4 for regional trains.

To quickly get to the city center, take any of the regional trains FEX or RE20. (The lines RB24 and RB32 serve Ostkreuz but avoid the center). At peak periods, trains depart about every 15 minutes, the journey will take about 23 minutes. The S9 and S85 are slower options, but useful in case of disruption. There are also periodic IC trains on the Dresden - Berlin - Rostock route.

By bus

Local buses don't directly serve the city center. Rather, the line X7 connects the airport with the station U7 Rudow. Unless your destination is in the far south of the city (or there's a DB strike), you're not likely to use this.

Flixbus offers long-distance bus service to Dresden and Szczecin.

By car

Should you wish to drive from the airport, use A113 and follow signposting. Berlin's traffic is becoming a major issue, so think twice before using your car.

A taxi should cost €60-€70, there is a well-served taxi stand.

By train

Wikivoyage has a guide to Rail travel in Germany

The central station 2 Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) together with 3 Südkreuz (Southern Cross, formerly Papestraße) and 4 Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station) — plus minor 5 Gesundbrunnen in the north and 6 Spandau in the west — forms the backbone of all connections. All are connected to S- or U-Bahn. All trains stop at Hauptbahnhof and a second major hub (depending on your itinerary). Regional trains stop at several stations within Berlin, almost all of them also at Hauptbahnhof and all stop at least at one major long-distance hub. The Hauptbahnhof is situated between the S-Bahn stations Friedrichstraße and Bellevue. It is an impressive feat of architecture with many shops, most of them open on Sundays. Given its size, the distances between train platforms are surprisingly short. However, try to avoid tight connections, as the multilevel layout can be confusing at first and Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a good place to kill half an hour at any rate. The new 'Hauptbahnhof' may appear as 'Lehrter Bahnhof' on older maps.

U5 connects the Hauptbahnhof to Alexanderplatz and destinations further east (older guides might state U55 instead which has been merged into the lengthened U5 in 2020). Four S-Bahn lines ( S3 , S5 , S7 , S9 ) serve the station as do three tram lines (M5, M8, M10). The tram lines serve the Main Station coming from the East and the M10 also runs west to Moabit (U Turmstraße). M10 is particularly known as a "party tram" due to its route serving several nightlife hotspots and has been the subject of many a newspaper article. In addition to these transport options mostly oriented East-West a new S-Bahn line, tentatively called "S21" is under construction serving as another north–south spine through Hauptbahnhof.

During partition Berlin had two main train stations: Zoologischer Garten (practically universally referred to in speech as Bahnhof Zoo or just Zoo) in the West, and Ostbahnhof in the East. The latter was named "Hauptbahnhof" from 1987 to 1998. Since the opening of the Hauptbahnhof, most ICE and international lines no longer stop at Zoologischer Garten, although regional DB services and S+U-Bahn services still stop there.

Berlin is served by all the train types Deutsche Bahn (DB) has on offer, including high speed ICE, somewhat slower IC, and EuroCity (EC) operated by DB and other European railway companies. Connections to the rest of Germany are excellent and most of Europe is reachable with one or two changes. While train routes to Berlin suffered during partition, they were a high federal priority following reunification and today Berlin has fast train connections to the west and south. Trains due north and east are still a bit slower. For example, the line to Dresden is slower today than it was in the 1930s when streamlined steam trains plied the route.

Domestic trains to Berlin include ICE services from Hamburg, Munich via Leipzig/Halle, Erfurt, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg with the fastest trains arriving in Berlin less than four hours after departure from Munich, IC/EC services from Dresden, and several "regional" trains, which have more intermediate stops and longer travel time than ICE. Berlin is also a stop for several "ICE Sprinter" services - ICE trains with fewer or no intermediate stops intended to lure business travellers from planes onto trains with faster travel times.

Non-stop international destinations are more limited owing to Berlin's easterly location within Germany. As of 2025, direct daytime trains serve Berlin from Amsterdam, Paris, Zürich, Interlaken, Innsbruck, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Warsaw, and Kraków.

Berlin is also served by a private competitor of DB: Flixtrain, a subsidiary of Flixbus. They run trains from Stuttgart via Wolfsburg, Frankfurt and other stops, from Cologne via Bielefeld, Hanover, and Wolfsburg, from Basel, via Frankfurt, as well as shorter distances from Dresden, and Leipzig with a stop in Wittenberg. In addition to Hauptbahnhof, some Flixtrain trains stop in some of Berlin's other major train stations; Gesundbrunen, Ostbahnhof, Südkreuz, and Spandau. Flixtrain doesn't accept any DB tickets, and the same is true vice-versa.

As of 2025, the sleeper train network is experiencing a renaissance, and Berlin is one center of the action. The Austrian railway company ÖBB (under the name Nightjet) runs between Berlin and Vienna, Graz, Zürich, Prague, Budapest, Brussels, and Paris. Swedish companies SJ and Snälltåget both run overnight trains to/from Stockholm. Upstart operator European Sleeper serves Berlin from Amsterdam, Brussels, and Prague.

By bus

7 Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof (ZOB) (Central Bus Terminal) (in Charlottenburg, Masurenallee.). Long distance buses generally arrive here. There are numerous buses to all directions and the U-Bahn stops (Theodor-Heuss-Platz or Kaiserdamm; both U2) or the S-Bahn stop (Messe Nord/ICC S41/42 and S46) is a 5-minute-walk away. Follow signposting. Some bus lines have other stops around Berlin, often including Südkreuz and/or the airport. The Sudkreuz bus stop is immediately outside the train station. The central bus station is not really close to anything. Retail services are limited and the prices as high as one might expect at a gas station. From 2016 to 2024 the station was undergoing renovation and expansion to cope with rising and changing demand - the station remained operational throughout the expansion. As part of the purpose of the works is to reduce average dwell times from half an hour to 15 minutes it will also benefit those just driving through or connecting. The bus station website lists all departures and arrivals including the company running the service so it is a good place to look for up-to-date travel options.

The rail service west from Lodz in Poland is slow. Poland has an ambitious project to improve service and travel times but for now Flixbus is cheaper and faster.

Flixbus - the biggest player in the market

Ecolines

RegioJet/Student Agency mostly serving the Hamburg - Berlin - Dresden - Prague corridor

By car

Berlin's "capital beltway", the A10 Berliner Ring, extends up to 30 km (19 mi) outside the city limits and actually only touches Berlin itself in the Northeast. It was built in the GDR era as the longest circular motorway in the world to direct traffic around West-Berlin but has since been surpassed in length by Beijing's sixth ring road and also Beijing's seventh ring road when it opens. At 196 km (122 mi) it is 8 km (5.0 mi) longer than the M25 around London, Europe's second longest orbital motorway. These motorways (enumerated in a clockwise direction) connect with the ring:

A11 from Stettin at Dreieck Schwanebeck

A12 from Frankfurt (Oder)/Warsaw at Dreieck Spreeau

A13 from Dresden/Prague at Kreuz Schönefeld

A9 from Leipzig/Munich at Dreieck Potsdam

A2 from Hanover/Dortmund at Dreieck Werder

A24 from Hamburg at Dreieck Havelland.

From the ring, these are the motorways heading towards the city:

A111 from the northwest at Kreuz Oranienburg

A114 from the north at Dreieck Pankow

A113 from the southeast at Schönefelder Kreuz

A115 from the southwest at Dreieck Nuthetal.

There are also dual carriageways:

B96 from the north and the south

B2 from the northeast

B5 from the east and west

B101 from the south.

Inside Berlin there is a heavily congested inner ring motorway (A100), which encircles the north, west and south with the northeastern section missing. Berlin driving is not for the faint-hearted, but manageable as there are wide streets and reasonably good parking conditions - at least in most parts of the city. The very existence of A100 is controversial in Berlin and its extension even more so. There are occasional demonstrations on A100 (usually with some transportation policy related aim) that shut down A100 for motorized traffic.

Berlin has a low emission zone (Umweltzone), which contains all areas within the S-Bahn ring. All vehicles moving inside this zone (including foreign vehicles) are required to bear a green emissions sticker (Feinstaubplakette). There are exceptions, e.g., for historic cars, but not for foreign number plates. The sticker can be ordered on-line.

By ship

Being some 200 km (120 mi) inland, Berlin does not have a seaport. The nearest seaport is Rostock-Warnemünde, which is 2½-3 hours away by train, though still sold by many cruise ship operators as "Berlin", so don't be surprised. There are similar distances to the seaports of Hamburg and Szczecin. The latter was "Berlin's port" until 1945, but Cold War neglect and the newly drawn German-Polish border have all but severed that connection. There have been only slow attempts in the 2010s and 2020s to re-establish the link.

Some river cruises start or end at Berlin, using the Havel, Spree and some canals for cruises to Prague or the Baltic Sea. While river cruises in this area are nowhere near as popular as those along the Rhine or the Danube, there is some charming nature (including the Spreewald) rather close to Berlin. Most cruises include a tour of Berlin as the river Spree runs close to many sights.

By bicycle

The 700-km Berlin-Copenhagen Cycle Route and the 340-km Berlin-Usedom Cycle Route both end in Berlin.