Paris doesn’t have one airport, and the three that serve it aren’t interchangeable. Charles de Gaulle is the big international hub to the north-east, with two separate railway stations for its terminals. Orly is smaller and closer in, to the south. Beauvais-Tillé, on the other hand, is Parisian in name only: it sits about 85 kilometres away, already in another region, and handles almost nothing but low-cost flights.
If you’ve already booked your flight, the first thing to know is that the Roissybus, the shuttle that linked Charles de Gaulle to Opéra for over thirty years, no longer runs as of 1 March 2026: plenty of guides online still list it, and you’re better off finding that out before you go hunting for its stop. A year earlier the Orlybus had met the same fate: a direct metro line had taken its passengers. New options have replaced both, though not always more convenient ones than before.
Which airport are you flying into, and what’s the quickest way to reach the centre without buying the wrong ticket?
Let’s go!
Charles de Gaulle: two stations, not one
The first hurdle at Charles de Gaulle isn’t the mode of transport but the right station. The RER B stops at two different points of the airport: Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1, which serves terminals 1 and 3 and is linked to terminal 2 by the CDGVAL, the airport’s free automatic shuttle; and Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 2 TGV, right under terminal 2. Check your flight’s terminal, whether you’re landing or taking off, before you pick a station, because the two stations aren’t a few steps from each other.
The RER B takes 30 to 35 minutes to Gare du Nord, with a train every 10-20 minutes depending on the time of day. It’s the fastest and most predictable option, because it’s a train and isn’t affected by road traffic.
In the Roissybus’s place, line 9517 has run since 1 March 2026, operated by Transdev with biomethane buses. It links the airport to Saint-Denis-Pleyel in 50-55 minutes, and there you have to change onto metro line 14 to actually reach the centre. It isn’t a direct service like the old Roissybus, which is why so many travellers, change and all, still prefer the RER B. If you really want to avoid the transfer, buses 350 (to Porte de la Chapelle, 60-80 minutes) and 351 (to Nation, 70-90 minutes) are still running: slower, but direct.
If you want nothing to do with trains and changes, a taxi has a flat fare set by law: 56 euros to the right bank and 65 to the left bank, with no supplement for luggage, valid in both directions for a direct trip with no stops. The figures come from the ministerial order (arrêté) published in the official gazette on 31 December 2025 and in force throughout 2026, and they’re the same ones you’d pay to go back to the airport at the end of your trip. If you see a different price anywhere, be wary: private-hire (VTC) companies often advertise fares of their own, which aren’t the regulated flat rate. There used to be a private shuttle on the same route, Le Bus Direct (the former Air France coaches). It suspended service in April 2020 when air traffic collapsed, and its permanent closure was announced that August. It never came back, and today there is no private alternative of that kind at Charles de Gaulle.
Orly: three ways to cover a few kilometres
Orly is closer to the centre than Charles de Gaulle, and since metro line 14 reached the airport itself, in June 2024, it has become the simplest choice: 25 minutes from Châtelet-Les Halles, a train every 85 seconds at peak times, with either a Navigo valid in all zones or the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket, because an ordinary metro ticket doesn’t work here. The line was such a success that the Orlybus lost 80% of its passengers and, after 62 years of service, closed on 3 March 2025.
The traditional alternative remains Orlyval plus RER B: an automatic rubber-tyred shuttle that takes you to Antony station in a few minutes, where you board the RER B to Paris, for a total of about 35-40 minutes to Denfert-Rochereau or Châtelet. Here, though, there’s a surprise that overturns a common assumption: your weekly or monthly Navigo, valid across the whole Paris network, isn’t enough. Orlyval has a separate ticket that ordinary passes don’t cover, with a single exception available since 9 June 2026 to holders of a Navigo Liberté+. If you only have an ordinary Navigo, you still need the dedicated ticket.
There’s also a third route, useful if you’re staying in the south of the city: tram T7 links the airport’s terminal 4 to Villejuif-Louis Aragon, the southern terminus of metro line 7, in about 45 minutes, with a tram every 8-15 minutes and the ordinary bus-tram ticket.
For a taxi, the flat fare is lower than at Charles de Gaulle, because the distance is shorter: 45 euros to the right bank and 36 to the left bank, set by the same arrêté, in force for 2026.
Beauvais-Tillé: the low-cost airport that isn’t in Paris
Beauvais-Tillé is the base for low-cost flights, mostly Ryanair, and its distance from central Paris, about 85 kilometres, is why a ticket that looks like a bargain should always be weighed against the cost and the time of getting into the city. It isn’t a matter of a few minutes: even with traffic flowing, the trip takes more than an hour.
The only official connection is the Aerobus shuttle, line A01, which leaves from Porte Maillot (22-24 Boulevard Pershing, in the 17th arrondissement) and arrives in front of the terminal. An online ticket costs 17.90 euros one way or 29.90 return for an adult, with a reduced fare for children between 4 and 11 (9.90 euros one way) and free travel for children under 4. If you buy on the spot, without booking, the price goes up to 18 euros one way or 35 return, with no discount for the little ones. The journey takes from 1 hour 15 minutes, but the real time depends on traffic on the A16 and the périphérique. Departures are every 15-30 minutes, from Paris between about 3:00 and 19:30: book a departure that leaves at least 3 and a half hours before your flight. There’s also a secondary line, the A04, to Paris La Villette, with less frequent runs.
Is a Navigo or a Paris transport ticket any use to you here?
No, and this is the second thing many travellers find out too late: Beauvais-Tillé is near Tillé, in the Oise, outside the Île-de-France region, and therefore outside the Île-de-France Mobilités network. No Navigo, no RATP or SNCF ticket for the Paris zone covers this trip: the only valid ticket is the Aerobus’s own. The taxi, unlike those at Charles de Gaulle and Orly, has no flat fare published by any official source: Paris’s taxi regulation stops at CDG and Orly and doesn’t apply here. Expect a ride on the ordinary meter over about 85 kilometres, so a cost clearly higher than the shuttle. I’m not giving you a figure, because no reliable source publishes one, and any amount you read elsewhere is a commercial estimate, not a regulated fare.
Which ticket you need, airport by airport
Why isn’t an ordinary metro ticket enough to get to the airport?
Because the Île-de-France Mobilités network has had two flat fares since 1 January 2025, designed for the rest of the network and not for the airports: 2.55 euros for a metro-train-RER ticket and 2.05 euros for a bus-tram one, valid everywhere except in one specific case. The RER B stations inside Charles de Gaulle, the metro line 14 station at Orly and the Orlyval line sit outside this flat fare, and to use them you need the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket, currently 14 euros full fare and 7 euros reduced for children under 10. It’s the same ticket at the same price whether you take the RER B to Charles de Gaulle or metro line 14 or Orlyval to Orly.
If you have a weekly or monthly Navigo, which has covered all the zones of the region since 2015, the RER B as far as Charles de Gaulle and metro line 14 as far as Orly are included at no extra charge: you validate it as you would anywhere else. Orlyval, as you read above, is the exception and asks for its own ticket. And one last practical point: paper tickets are no longer sold, so before you set off get a Navigo Easy card (you’ll find them at the ticket offices and the machines in stations and airports) or download the Île-de-France Mobilités app, where you can buy any ticket, the airport one included.
Practical information
Figures checked on 9 October 2026 on the official websites of parisaeroport.fr (the Aéroports de Paris group, for Charles de Gaulle and Orly), aeroportparisbeauvais.com, RATP, SNCF Connect and Île-de-France Mobilités, and on the ministerial arrêté on taxis published in the official gazette (JORF) on 31 December 2025. Prices and timetables change: check again before you leave.
From Charles de Gaulle. The RER B takes 30 to 35 minutes to Gare du Nord, with a train every 10-20 minutes; without a Navigo you need the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket, 14 euros full fare and 7 reduced. Bus 9517, which has replaced the Roissybus since 1 March 2026, reaches Saint-Denis-Pleyel in 50-55 minutes, where you change onto metro line 14. The taxi has a flat fare of 56 euros to the right bank and 65 to the left bank. From Orly. Metro line 14, which has served the airport since 2024, takes 25 minutes from Châtelet-Les Halles on the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket or a Navigo valid in all zones. Orlyval plus RER B costs 14 euros full fare and 7 reduced and doesn’t accept an ordinary Navigo. Tram T7 links terminal 4 to Villejuif-Louis Aragon in about 45 minutes. The taxi costs 45 euros to the right bank and 36 to the left bank. From Beauvais-Tillé. The Aerobus shuttle links the airport to Porte Maillot in about an hour and a quarter, for 17.90 euros one way online (18 euros on the spot) and with departures every 15-30 minutes. No Paris transport ticket covers this trip, and the taxi has no published flat fare: expect a metered ride over about 85 kilometres. Tickets. Since 2025 the Île-de-France Mobilités network has had two flat fares, 2.55 euros for metro-train-RER and 2.05 for bus-tram, but the airport stations of the RER B, the metro line 14 station at Orly and Orlyval sit outside them and ask for the Paris Région-Aéroports ticket. Paper tickets are no longer sold: you need a Navigo Easy card or the Île-de-France Mobilités app.
Which route to take
If you’re arriving at Charles de Gaulle or Orly, the train or the metro is almost always the quickest and most predictable choice: road traffic, whatever time you land, is the variable that a timetable written on a website can’t guarantee you. A taxi makes sense when you’re travelling as a group and the cost per head comes close to the price of single tickets, or when your luggage makes a change of transport awkward. From Beauvais-Tillé, on the other hand, the shuttle isn’t one option among many: it is, in practice, the only sensible way into the city.
Once you’ve got off the train or the bus, if you want to understand how the Navigo and Paris tickets really work for the rest of your stay, I explain it in Metro and Navigo in Paris. For up-to-date timetables and any service disruptions, the official sites remain the most reliable source: parisaeroport.fr for Charles de Gaulle and Orly, aeroportparisbeauvais.com for Beauvais-Tillé, and iledefrance-mobilites.fr for fares and lines across the whole region.
Photographs: the Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1 station by Skililipappa, CC BY-SA 4.0; the RER B train at the same station by Ravik, public domain; the boarding hall of Beauvais-Tillé airport by Kevin.B, CC BY-SA 4.0, from Wikimedia Commons.
