Getting From Schiphol Airport to Central Amsterdam: Trains, Buses and Taxis Explained

How Do You Get From Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam City Centre?

The fastest route is the direct NS train to Amsterdam Centraal, which takes just over 17 minutes and costs from €5.50 for a one-way e-ticket. The station sits directly under the terminal, so you walk from baggage reclaim to the platform in about ten minutes. The bus 397 costs from €6.50 single, and taxis are metered with no fixed fare published by the airport.

Schiphol is one of the few major European airports where the rail link is genuinely better than every alternative. The station sits beneath the plaza between the arrivals and departures halls, and the escalators deliver you onto platforms served by trains towards Amsterdam Centraal, Amsterdam Zuid and destinations across the country. You do not need to leave the building or cross a road, which matters more than it sounds when it is raining, which in the Netherlands it frequently is.

The operator's own journey page states the headline plainly: book an e-ticket online from €5.50, and the ride to Amsterdam Centraal takes just over 17 minutes. That price is a "from" figure, not a flat fare, because NS sells a range of ticket types and the walk-up price with surcharges can come out higher. Buying through the NS app or the ticket machines in the arrivals hall keeps the cost at the standard fare.

One thing worth knowing before you land: the airport's official name in Dutch is simply "Schiphol", and the station announcement says "Amsterdam Centraal", not "Central Station" in English. If your hotel is near Amsterdam Zuid or Amsterdam Sloterdijk rather than Centraal, check whether a direct train from Schiphol serves that station instead, because changing at Centraal with luggage is the one part of this journey nobody enjoys. Our fuller Schiphol Airport planning guide covers the terminal layout, lounges and where to eat if you have hours rather than minutes to spare.

How Much Does the Train From Schiphol to Amsterdam Cost?

A one-way NS e-ticket from Schiphol to Amsterdam Centraal costs from €5.50, with the journey taking just over 17 minutes. There is no airport surcharge on top of the standard fare when you buy online or at a machine. Children aged 4 and under travel free with an adult, and contactless payment through OVpay works on NS trains with a base fare of €1.16 plus €0.217 per kilometre.

The "from €5.50" wording on the NS page is deliberate and worth respecting. The railway sells advance e-tickets at that price, while a ticket bought at the counter or with certain add-ons can cost more. For a single airport journey the difference is small, but families buying four or five tickets will notice it, so the app is the better place to buy.

Contactless payment, branded OVpay, is the other option. You tap the same bank card or phone you use at home on the platform reader at the start and end of the journey. The fare structure is a base of €1.16 plus €0.217 per kilometre, which for the Schiphol run lands close to the standard ticket price. The appeal is not saving money but skipping the ticket queue entirely, which after a delayed flight at midnight is worth more than the difference.

Here is how the three main options compare on the numbers that actually decide the choice:

A note on the bus fare: the Connexxion page for the Amsterdam Airport Express lists the single from €6.50 and a return from €11.75, and the same ticket is valid on both line 397 and the Niteliner N97, which runs the same route overnight. That detail saves you buying a second ticket if your flight lands after the daytime buses thin out.

Once you are in the city, the practical question shifts from getting there to getting around, and that is where a day ticket or a pass starts to matter. If you are still shaping the trip itself, these are the three bookings travellers most often lock in on the airport ride:

The Van Gogh Museum in particular is the one that punishes improvisation. Every visitor, without exception, must pre-book a timed entry ticket, and the museum's own pages state that tickets can sell out. Booking from the airport, before you have even dropped your bags, is the single most useful thing you can do with those 17 minutes on the train.

Is the Bus From Schiphol a Good Alternative?

The Amsterdam Airport Express bus 397 costs from €6.50 for a single and reaches the city centre around Elandsgracht in roughly 30 minutes, traffic permitting. It suits travellers staying in the western centre or the Jordaan, where the bus stops are closer than Amsterdam Centraal station. The same ticket is valid on the Niteliner N97 overnight, and a return costs from €11.75.

The bus is not the cheap option here, the price gap to the train being roughly a euro. What it sells instead is geography. The 397 terminates near Elandsgracht, on the western edge of the centre, and its stops pass through the Kinkerbuurt and along routes that the train simply does not serve. If your hotel is in the Jordaan or Oud-West, the bus can drop you a five-minute walk from your door, while the train dumps you at Centraal with a further tram ride or a fifteen-minute walk with luggage still ahead of you.

It also runs from a kerbside platform directly outside arrivals, which is easier to find than some first-time visitors expect the underground station to be. The trade-off is traffic: the 17 minutes the train takes is fixed by rails, while the bus's 30 minutes can stretch badly at rush hour on the A10 or through Sloterdijk. Anyone with a tight connection or a fixed check-in time should take the train and accept the transfer at the far end.

Overnight, the N97 covers the same corridor. The fare-sharing detail from the operator's page means a day ticket holder or a single-ticket buyer does not need to think about which line number is pulling in, which is a small mercy at 2am after a delayed landing. For everything about trams, the metro and paying once you are inside the city, our guide to getting around Amsterdam by tram and metro picks up where the airport leg ends.

One more airport-specific point: if you arrive early in the morning and your room is not ready, dragging a suitcase through the centre is miserable. The city has left-luggage options near Centraal and around the main sightseeing areas, and our page on Amsterdam luggage storage and left-luggage lists where you can drop bags for a few hours. Store first, sightsee second, check in third.

How Much Does a Taxi From Schiphol Cost?

Schiphol publishes no fixed taxi fare to the city centre, and its own guidance says you pay the price shown on the meter. That means no honest guide can quote a reliable euro figure for the ride. The journey typically takes 20 to 45 minutes depending on traffic. Use the official rank outside arrivals rather than drivers who approach you inside the terminal.

The airport's own taxi page is unusually blunt about this, and it is the reason this section gives no number. Any specific fare you read on a blog, whether €39 or €50 or a "flat rate", is either a snapshot of one particular ride or an invention. Meters, traffic and the exact address in the centre all move the price, and the one verifiable statement is that there is no published fixed fare. Everything else covered here is indexed on Things to Do in Amsterdam.

What is verifiable is the tourist tax angle, which affects your hotel bill rather than your taxi but is worth knowing before you arrive. The city's official page states a tourist tax of 12.5% of the overnight price, excluding VAT, for hotels and holiday rentals, a rate in force for 2026. Some travellers see that line on their final hotel invoice and assume it is a mistake; it is not, and it is charged on top of the room rate.

Practical taxi advice, independent of price: the rank is signed and supervised, and the drivers who approach you inside arrivals offering a "good price" are the ones to decline. If you prefer a booked transfer to hailing, arrange it in advance through a service you have chosen yourself rather than one that finds you. And if your hotel is anywhere on a tram line from Centraal, the honest answer is that the train plus a tram will usually beat a taxi on both cost and predictability.

Should You Buy a GVB Day Ticket or a Travel Ticket at the Airport?

A GVB 24-hour day ticket costs €10.00 for adults and €5.00 for children, covering trams, buses, metro and the GVB ferries. Multi-day GVB tickets run €16.00 for 48 hours, €21.50 for 72 hours, €27.50 for 96 hours and €34.00 for 120 hours. The Amsterdam Travel Ticket, which adds the airport train, costs €20.00 for one day, €27.00 for two days and €34.00 for three days.

The distinction that trips people up is what each product covers. A GVB day ticket is for transport inside the city only: it does not include the airport train, which is an NS service, and it does not include regional buses. The Amsterdam Travel Ticket is the product that bundles both, the GVB network plus the airport rail link, and for a short stay it is often the cleanest single purchase.

For most visitors the arithmetic works like this. If you will make three or more tram or metro rides in a day, the €10.00 day ticket beats the €3.40 single fare each time you board. If you are in the city for two or three days and plan museum-heavy days in the centre, you may walk more than you expect, and singles paid by OVpay contactless, with its base fare plus per-kilometre charge and daily caps, can come out cheaper than a multi-day ticket you only half use.

The GVB ferry across the IJ to Amsterdam Noord is part of the network, and a day ticket covers it, though the ferry is free for everyone regardless. The distinction matters if you are heading to the A'DAM Lookout or the NDSM wharf, both covered in our Amsterdam Noord and NDSM wharf guide.

Once transport is settled, the remaining airport-moment decision is what to book for the days themselves. The Van Gogh Museum ticket, from $31 at the operator's listing with a 4.7 rating across 57,096 reviews, is the one worth reserving before you leave the terminal, because timed slots go first. Check availability

What Should You Know Before Leaving the Airport?

Three things save the most time: buy the train ticket in the app rather than at the counter, check whether your hotel is closer to Amsterdam Zuid than Centraal, and pre-book any timed-entry museum before you land. The Anne Frank House is the extreme case, selling tickets only through its own website with no door sales and no reseller of any kind. Tourist tax of 12.5% will appear on your hotel bill.

The Anne Frank point deserves its own sentence because it is the most misunderstood booking in the city. The museum's own ticket page states that you always have to book a ticket online for a specified date and time, and that no other seller exists. If you see anything marketed as an Anne Frank House ticket from a reseller or bundled into a pass, that is not what it claims to be. Walking tours of the Jewish Quarter are a different product entirely and can be bought normally, but the house itself is official-site-only, at €16.50 for adults including the booking fee.

The Zuid point is quieter but genuinely useful. Business travellers and anyone staying in the Zuidas or near the Museum Quarter may find a direct train from Schiphol to Amsterdam Zuid, then a short tram, faster than riding to Centraal and doubling back. The NS planner in the app shows both routings side by side, and the difference on the map is larger than the difference in minutes suggests when you are hauling a suitcase.

For the rest, the airport is well signed and the walk from gate to station is under ten minutes if you do not stop for a stroopwafel, which you should, once. If your connection is tight, our piece on whether 45 minutes is enough for a connecting flight at Schiphol gives the honest answer on minimum transfer times.

Which Airport Transfer Suits Which Traveller?

Families with lots of luggage and a hotel in the Jordaan should look at the bus 397 or a taxi; solo travellers and couples heading anywhere near Centraal should take the train, full stop. Anyone arriving between roughly midnight and 5am should check the Niteliner N97 and the night train schedule before assuming a taxi is the only option. The train wins on cost, speed and predictability for the majority of visitors.

That is the compressed version. The longer version is that the "best" transfer is a function of three variables: where you are staying, how much you are carrying, and what time you land. The train dominates two of those three almost always. It is only when the third variable, geography, points west of the centre, or the second, luggage, includes a pram and two large cases, that the alternatives earn their keep.

For travellers who would rather not navigate trams with suitcases at all, there is a middle path: a sightseeing bus product that bundles hop-on-hop-off transport with a canal cruise, from the operator's live listing, rated 4.3 across 193 reviews. It is slower than a tram and not a replacement for the airport leg, but for a first visit it removes the route-learning curve from day one.

The Heineken Experience is the other booking that pairs naturally with an arrival day, from $23 at the operator's listing with a 4.6 rating across 39,581 reviews, a 90-minute attraction in the original brewery building a short walk from the centre. It is the kind of plan that works on a first afternoon when jet lag makes a museum feel ambitious but a self-guided brewery with a tasting feels exactly right.

And for the classic first-evening move, a classic saloon boat canal cruise, from $19.56 with a 4.8 rating across 33,435 reviews, is the one-hour introduction to the canal ring that most visitors end up taking anyway. Booking it for your arrival evening turns the transfer day into a full day rather than a lost one.

Before you commit to any of it, one planning note that belongs on this page and nowhere else: the tourist tax of 12.5% is charged on your accommodation, not your transport, so it should not change which transfer you pick, only what you expect on the hotel invoice. With the transfer chosen and the first day booked, the rest of the trip is ordinary Amsterdam planning, which is the pleasant kind of problem.

If you are still assembling the full stay, the three bookings below cover the museum, the brewery and the cruise, the triangle most first visits are built on:

Common Questions About Getting From Schiphol Airport to Central Amsterdam