Trains are one of the most convenient and comfortable ways to travel medium distances between towns and cities in Germany. For more general travel advice, including other means of transport, see the general travel advice page.

Train companies

99% of all long distance trains in Germany are operated by Deutsche Bahn (DB).

There are a few private railway companies which operate on a few routes, but they make up only a very small part of the railway system. The private long-distance trains (e.g. Flixtrain and Thalys) require specific tickets; Deutsche Bahn tickets will not be valid and vice-versa. If you want to travel on a route operated by a private long-distance railway company, then you have to buy your ticket through them. Note that some regional trains are also operated by private companies (e.g. Metronom, Abellio, HLB, Eurobahn), however, they use the same tickets as Deutsche Bahn, and hence you use them just like a DB train.

The rest of this guide will be about travelling with Deutsche Bahn (and private regional train companies which use the DB fare system) trains.

Train types

There are, broadly speaking, three types of trains:

High-speed trains

  • Inter-City Express (ICE): These are the fastest and most comfortable trains, and serve the major cities with few intermediate stops. On certain routes they travel up to 300 km/h, although typical speeds are 200-330 km/h.

Long-distance trains

One step below the ICE trains, they are a bit slower and stop more frequently, but serve most towns in Germany.

Regional trains

  • Interregio-Express (IRE)
  • Regional-Express (RE)
  • Regionalbahn (RB)
  • Stadt-Bahn (S)

These trains travel between smaller towns, or connect a city to its surrounding towns and villages. IRE and RE trains have fewer stops, while RB trains stop at nearly every station. Stadt-Bahn (“S-Bahn”) trains are commuter trains, which are used for travelling within cities and to/from satellite towns.

Tickets

You can see connections and buy tickets directly from the Deutsche Bahn website or the DB Navigator smartphone app. Tickets can be printed at home, sent to a smartphone/laptop, or can be delivered by mail (at extra cost). Note that tickets should always be purchased in advance of travelling, even if it’s at the departure station (it’s only possible to buy tickets on board the train in certain circumstances).

When looking for a connection on the Deutsche Bahn website, the “product” column indicates which type of train you’ll be travelling on, using the short codes explained above.

Standard tickets

There are two types of standard tickets (valid for a specific journey)

  • SparPreis (“saver”) tickets. These tickets are valid only for a specific train (or series of trains, if your route includes a transfer), at a specific time on a specific day. They must be booked in advance (at latest a few days before the travel time, although they can sell out earlier), and are cheaper the further in advance you book them. There are a limited number of saver tickets per train (so if they’ve all been sold, then you may only have the option of buying a flexible ticket for a specific train). SparPreis tickets are refundable and changeable for a fee; the even cheaper SuperSparPreis tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable.
  • FlexPreis (“flexible” or “standard”) tickets. These tickets are valid for any train(s) between two points on a given day, and are completely refundable - but are more expensive than saver tickets. They can be bought at any time (including at the station right before departure), and they never run out.

Therefore, if you want to save money on train travel, you should absolutely buy your tickets in advance. For example, a flexible ticket between Berlin and Hamburg costs 85 €, while a saver ticket can be as little as 20 €.

Children under 6 don’t need a ticket, and children under 15 travel for free as long as they are accompanied by an adult.

You can buy 1st or 2nd class tickets. The former are more expensive, but allow you to sit in the 1st class sections of the trains, which are nicer, often quieter, and may offer some additional amenities (e.g. a free newspaper or a coffee). For the vast majority of people, 2nd class is fine.

Note that Deutsche Bahn sells far more tickets for a train than there are seats, because unlike on an aircraft or a bus, train passengers don’t need to sit in a seat (they can stand in the aisle or sit on the floor etc). While on many trains you’ll be able to find a spare seat, it may be worth paying extra to reserve a specific seat (see below) when travelling on ICE or IC/EC trains.

Reserving seats

If at least one leg of your journey is by ICE, IC, or EC train, then you have the option to reserve a seat for that leg of the journey. This guarantees you a specific seat on the train (if you’re reserving a seat with a flexible ticket, then the seat reservation is only valid for one specific train). If you don’t reserve a seat, then you will have to sit in one of the unreserved seats, or, in the worst case (if the train is very full), stand. Reserving a seat costs about 5 €, and is a good idea for travel on busy routes around rush hour, but may be less important for travel during the middle of a weekday, for example.

Whether or not a seat is reserved is marked on the display above the seat on the train itself.

You cannot reserve seats on regional trains.

BahnCard

The BahnCard is a card which lasts for a year, and gives you a discount on any train ticket you buy. It’s an auto-renewing subscription, which means that if you don’t cancel it in time, it will auto-renew for another year - so if you no longer need it, make sure you cancel it in time! There are two types:

  • BahnCard 25, which gives you a 25% discount on all train tickets. It costs 62 € / year (or 39 € if you’re under 27 years old).
  • BahnCard 50, which gives you a 50% discount on flexible tickets, and a 25% discount on saver (SparPreis; see above) tickets. It costs 255 € / year (or 69 € / year if you’re under 27 years old).

The BahnCard 25 can be worth it even if you only intend to travel by train a handful of times - just make sure to cancel it in time! The BahnCard 50 is almost never worth it unless you have to (for whatever reason) use flexible tickets a lot.

When buying a ticket, you can specify “I have a BahnCard”, and the discount will be automatically applied. When the conductor comes to check your ticket on the train, you must show your BahnCard with your ticket; if you don’t, it’s treated as if you didn’t have a valid ticket, and you’ll be fined accordingly. BahnCards can be bought electronically (so they show up in the Deutsche Bahn smartphone app), as physical cards, or can be printed on a piece of paper at home. This means that you can buy a BahnCard just before buying your ticket, and it will be valid.

The Deutschlandticket

Starting in May 2023, there is a nationwide ticket (the Deutschlandticket), which gives a month of unlimited travel on regional trains (2nd class only) and urban public transport (e.g. Bus, S-Bahn, and U-Bahn) all over Germany.

The Deutschlandticket is not valid on long-distance trains (ICE, IC, or EC trains), and thus you are restricted to using local trains only (select the “use local transport only” checkbox on the Deutsche Bahn website/app when planning your trip). It’s also not valid on private long-distance trains (e.g. Flixtrain) or long-distance buses (e.g. Flixbus).

For the avoidance of doubt, there is a very small number (less than 0.2%) of train routes with an RE train number, but which are actually run by IC trains, and on which the Deutschlandticket is therefore not valid (see here). However, if, as described above, you select “regional transport only” in the route planner, then you’re safe.

While it’s possible to travel longer distances using only regional trains, your trip will likely take considerably longer and involve more train changes. For example, you can travel from Berlin to Munich in four hours on a direct ICE (long-distance) train. If you use only regional trains, the same trip involves three train changes and takes over nine hours.

You can also use the Deutschlandticket on some routes which cross international borders into neighbouring countries - here is a map. As usual, when crossing international borders (even inside the EU), make sure to have some kind of official ID (e.g. your passport) with you - just because the connection is by “regional train” doesn’t mean there won’t be checks at the border.

The ticket costs 49 € per month, runs from the first to the last day of a calendar month, and is a recurring subscription (so you need to cancel it in time - usually before the 10th of the month - to avoid paying for a month more than you need). The ticket is not transferable (you buy it for a specific person, and the ticket inspectors will check ID to make sure the name matches).

The ticket is sold by every transport association (Verkehrsverbund) in Germany, as well as Deutsche Bahn itself. You don’t necessarily need to live in the city where you buy it (e.g. you could buy it from the Berlin transport association (BVG) even though you live in Munich). While the main conditions (including the cost and which trains are included) are the same no matter where you buy it, it can still be worth it to “shop around”, as, for example:

  • Some transport associations (e.g. Transdev) don’t check your Schufa score when selling you the ticket.
  • Some transport associations only sell you an electronic ticket, while others give you the option of a physical card.
  • Some transport associations (notably Hamburg and Munich) let you use a credit card (instead of a direct debit from a German or European bank account) to pay for the ticket.

Here is a crowdsourced list of all the “specificities” offered by the various transport associations.

Tourists can buy the Deutschlandticket, but to be honest, it’s not really designed with tourists in mind. Mopla seems to be one of the easier providers for tourists to use. They also allow you to cancel your ticket right up to the end of the month (making it easier to avoid paying for a month you don’t need).

The Deutschlandticket doesn’t let you take your bike or (large) dog with you by default. If you want to do this, you have to check the specific conditions for the train(s) you’re travelling on, and buy the appropriate additional ticket (e.g. Hundekarte). There is no nationwide single ticket for bikes or dogs; each transport association has its own ticket.

Starting in July 2023, a Deutschlandticket for 1st class travel is planned, but there are no further details as of yet.

Other ticket types

In addition to the standard tickets above, there are some other ticket types which may be interesting for people who want to make many journeys in a short period of time, or who are travelling as a group.

  • Regional tickets, which offer unlimited travel for one day, but only on regional trains (so no IC, EC, or ICE trains). They are either valid for the whole of Germany (Quer-Durchs-Land Ticket and Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket), or for a specific German state (e.g. Bayern-Ticket, Sachsen-Ticket, etc). These tickets can be particularly attractive if you’re travelling as a group, as they often allow up to five adults to travel on a single ticket.
  • Rail passes, which offer unlimited travel on either consecutive days, or a set number of days in a month. They include the German Rail Pass (for non-Europeans travelling in Germany), the Interrail Pass (for Europeans travelling through Europe), and the Eurail pass (for non-Europeans travelling through Europe).
  • BahnCard 100, a special version of the BahnCard (see above) which allows unlimited travel on any train for an entire year. As you may expect, this is ludicrously expensive (around 4000 €), and is thus very rarely worth it.

Bicycles

You can carry bicycles on

  • Only select ICE trains, and you must make a specific reservation for them
  • On all IC/EC trains, and you must make a specific reservation for them
  • On all regional trains. Depending on the carrier and region you’re in it will either be free of charge, subject to a small fee (e.g. FahrradTagesKarte NRW for 5 €), or you need to make a reservation for them. Note that in some areas there are times where you are not allowed to take a bike on the train, mostly during rush-hour.

Route maps

The Bahnguru website shows you which destinations you can travel to directly (i.e. without changing trains) from any point in Germany. Using the options menu (button on the right) you can also choose to only show regional train connections (e.g. if you want to use your Deutschlandticket).

  • Seat61 has an excellent overview of travelling by train in Germany