✈️ Arriving
From Budapest Airport into the city
Budapest Ferenc Liszt (BUD) is 24 km south-east of the centre and has no direct metro or train into town. There are three sensible ways in and one to avoid — here they are, honestly compared.
Book a fixed-price transfer →The three real options
1. The 100E airport bus
A dedicated express straight from the terminal to Deák Ferenc tér, where all three older metro lines meet. It is the simplest public option and the one most visitors should take.
The catch, and it catches a lot of people: the 100E requires its own dedicated ticket. A normal single, a travelcard and the Budapest Card are not valid on it. Buy the airport ticket at the machine before boarding.
2. Bus 200E plus metro M3
The cheapest way in. Bus 200E runs to Kőbánya-Kispest, where you change to the M3 metro into the centre. It takes longer and involves a change with luggage, but a normal single ticket or travelcard covers it.
3. A booked transfer or taxi
Fastest door to door — roughly thirty minutes outside rush hour — and the obvious choice arriving late, with luggage, with children, or at an apartment that is not near a metro stop.
Book it in advance for a fixed price, or use the official taxi rank outside arrivals.
The one to avoid
Never accept a ride from someone approaching you inside the terminal. Use the official rank or a booking. This is the standard advice at every major airport and it applies here.
Getting back out
Allow more time than the map suggests, particularly on a weekday morning. The 100E runs frequently, but the road from the city crosses some of Budapest's worst traffic, and a fixed-price transfer that leaves early is worth more than the fare difference if you have a flight to catch.
Live arrivals and departures
Budapest Airport publishes its own live board, updated continuously and including gate changes and delays. We link to it rather than mirroring it: there is no free, reliable feed of this data, and a stale board is worse than no board when you are deciding whether to leave for the airport.
Open the official board →Flights, transfers and delayed-flight claims
Compare fares into Budapest Ferenc Liszt across airlines and agencies, book a fixed-price transfer for the 24 km into town, or — if a flight into or out of BUD was delayed more than three hours or cancelled — check whether EU261 compensation is owed on it. These are affiliate links; they cost you nothing extra and they do not change what this page recommends.