From Berlin airport to the centre
1 h route4 stopsBest: All yearUpdated July 2026
Berlin transport tickets are sold by zone: A is the centre, B reaches the city limit and C covers the surroundings, Potsdam included. Almost everybody buys the AB, which covers the whole city and is what you need to get around… except for one thing: the airport is in zone C.
Which means the ticket you’ll be sold by default does NOT work to or from BER. You need an ABC, and in Berlin the inspectors are in plain clothes and board the trains often. It’s the silliest way to start a trip paying a fine.
The route, stop by stop
4 STOPS- 01
The FEX, the express
The Flughafen-Express wins on speed: about twenty-three minutes to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, calling only at Südkreuz and Potsdamer Platz, and leaving every quarter of an hour. The station is directly beneath Terminal 1, on level U2, so you take the lift down from arrivals. It isn’t a special-fare train as in other cities: it runs on the ordinary transport ticket, as long as that ticket is ABC. That’s the whole of the small print.
- 02
The S-Bahn, if you’re heading east
Lines S9 and S85 leave the same station every twenty minutes. They’re slower because they stop everywhere, but they have one concrete advantage: the S9 runs via Ostkreuz and Alexanderplatz, so if your hotel is in Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg or the east generally, you arrive without changing. Here too you need the ABC ticket. The price difference from the AB is small. The fine for not having it isn’t.
- 03
The regional trains, and the lines that no longer call
Besides the FEX and the S-Bahn, several regional trains call at BER (RE20, RB22, RB24 and RB32) roughly hourly each, and the RE20 takes the same time as the FEX to the main station. If one happens to be leaving, it’s as good as the express.
And a warning for anyone searching online: the lines have changed since the airport opened, and half the internet still quotes the RE7 and the S45, which today don’t serve BER.
Better to check the station boards or the VBB app than to trust a blog.
- 04
Neither Tegel nor Schönefeld: there’s one airport
Berlin had two airports for decades and today has one. Tegel (TXL), the western one, closed in November 2020 when BER opened, and its site is being turned into a new quarter. Schönefeld (SXF) became BER’s Terminal 5 and was closed for good in 2022. The plot is being converted into a business park. All flights today operate from Terminals 1 and 2, adjacent and connected on foot. If an old booking or a search engine mentions SXF or TXL, it’s the same out-of-date information still going round: only BER exists.
Frequently asked
Which ticket do you need from Berlin airport to the centre?
An ABC one. BER airport is in fare zone C and the AB ticket, Berlin’s standard one covering the whole city, isn’t valid for the airport. The same ticket works on the FEX, the S-Bahn and the regional trains. The train has no special fare.
Do Tegel and Schönefeld airports still exist?
No. Tegel closed in November 2020 and Schönefeld, turned into BER’s Terminal 5, closed for good in 2022. All Berlin flights use BER, Terminals 1 and 2. References to TXL and SXF still circulating are out of date.