Eurail Pass Guide | The Ultimate Rail Pass Guide For Train Travel in Europe

Traveling through Europe with a Eurail Pass is a tradition that stretches back to the 1960s and it’s still going strong today—it’s how I traveled on my first trip to Europe in 2006. In many cases, a Eurail rail pass is an affordable and flexible way to travel Europe but a rail pass is not always the best option for all travelers.

In this guide, I’ll cover everything you need to know about the Eurail Pass — including who should buy it, who should skip it, what quirks to look out for, and strategies for maximizing the value of your rail pass.

What Is A Eurail Pass?

The Eurail Pass is an all-in-one pass that allows unlimited train travel on almost any train (including high-speed trains) covering 33 European countries:

Other than a few exceptions, this rail pass lets you simply hop on any train just by showing your pass (a few train routes require that you reserve a seat for an extra fee — I’ll cover this later).

The beauty of a Eurail Pass is its flexibility since allows you to travel with little/no pre-planning — you can choose where to travel at a moment’s notice. If you’re not digging a city, you can jump on a train and go somewhere else. Or maybe you met some cool people and they’re going somewhere new, you can tag along without paying for an expensive last-minute ticket.

Eurail Passes are only sold outside of Europe and they’ll only ship passes to non-European countries — so you MUST buy them before you arrive.

UPDATE: Eurail now sells a digital mobile pass that is sent directly to an app on your smartphone so you can technically buy it from anywhere.

I recommend buying your rail pass directly from Eurail.com

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Types Of Eurail Passes

In 2019 Eurail simplified its rail pass options and now they have two main kinds of passes — Global and Single-Country:

Global Eurail Pass

The Global Eurail Pass is valid in all 33 participating countries and it comes in two different pass options that I’ve outlined below:

Global Continuous Pass

The Global Continuous Pass gives you unlimited travel within the length of the pass. For example, the One Month Continuous Pass gives you 30 days of unlimited travel starting on the first day you use your pass.

• 15 days
• 22 days
• One month
• Two consecutive months
• Three consecutive months

Global Flexi Pass

The Global Flexi Pass gives you a specific number of travel days to any Eurail participant country within a one or two-month period. For example, the 10 travel days within two months pass gives you 10 individual travel days within a two-month window.

• Five travel days within one month
• Four travel days within one month
• Seven travel days within one month
• 10 travel days within two months
• 15 travel days within two months

Check Eurail.com for the prices and details.

Single Country Eurail Pass

The Single Country Eurail Pass is just as it sounds — you get a single pass that allows you to travel within a single country for 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 travel days within 1 month.

There are a few countries that don’t have a Single Country Pass:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Germany
• Montenegro
• Switzerland

Check out Eurail.com to get the prices.

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Eurail Pass Prices

Each Eurail Pass is priced differently based on age:

• Youth: Anyone under 28 on the first day the pass is activated.
• Adult: Anyone 28 to 60.
• Senior: Anyone aged over 60 on the first day the pass is activated.

Note: Eurail.com often has sales so the prices could be a little cheaper than those shown below.

Eurail Global Continuous Pass Price

Pass Length	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
15 Days	$402	$536	$483
22 Days	$471	$627	$564
One Month	$609	$811	$730
Two Months	$663	$885	$796
Three Months	$819	$1091	$983

Eurail Global Flexi Pass Price

Pass Length	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
4 travel days (within one month)	$227	$289	$267
5 travel days (within one month)	$257	$341	$307
7 travel days (within one month)	$304	$405	$365
10 travel days (within two months)	$364	$485	$437
15 travel days (within two months)	$448	$597	$537

Eurail Single-Country Pass Price

The Single Country Rail Pass allows you to travel within a single country for 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 travel days within 1 month. The prices are different for every country so check out Eurail.com to get the prices — but here are a few of the most popular countries.

France Pass (Second Class)	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
3 travel days (within one month)	$189	$236	$213
4 travel days (within one month)	$223	$278	$250
5 travel days (within one month)	$254	$317	$286
6 travel days (within one month)	$289	$352	$317
7 travel days (within one month)	$307	$384	$345
8 travel days (within one month)	$337	$416	$375

Italy Pass (Second Class)	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
3 travel days (within one month)	$127	$157	$138
4 travel days (within one month)	$152	$187	$167
5 travel days (within one month)	$177	$214	$194
6 travel days (within one month)	$198	$242	$218
8 travel days (within one month)	$240	$290	$261

Spain Pass (Second Class)	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
3 travel days (within one month)	$179	$206	$185
4 travel days (within one month)	$207	$238	$214
5 travel days (within one month)	$231	$267	$241
6 travel days (within one month)	$254	$293	$269
8 travel days (within one month)	$294	$340	$306

Visit Eurail.com to see all the other One Country rail passes.

First-Class vs Second-Class Rail Passes

Second-class tickets are the standard train tickets — second-class is very comfortable so there is no need to upgrade to first unless you have money to burn.

First-class tickets are around 30%-40% more expensive than second-class tickets. In first-class, you’ll get larger seats and more legroom. It’s also generally quieter. You might get free drinks or some basic snacks on the train.

You’ll also get access to the train station’s First Class lounge (if there is one) and which typically provides free food and drink (including alcoholic beverages).

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High-Speed Trains & Seat Reservations For Eurail Pass Holders

Many high-speed trains require rail pass holders to pay an extra fee for a seat reservation—which is typically around €10 but can be as high as €40. And some trains limit the number of rail pass riders so this is where the Eurail pass loses its value.

What Countries Require A Train Reservation?

All Thalys high-speed trains (which notably travel between Amsterdam and Paris) require a reservation, and all high-speed trains in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal require reservations. You’ll also need to make a reservation on the Eurostar train that runs from Londo to Paris (and beyond).

You can make reservations for trains in other countries but they’re not required.

How Much Do Seat Reservations Cost?

Most reservations cost around €5-€10 but on some lines can cost as much as €35+.

How Do You Know If You Need a Reservation?

It’s easy. You can use the Eurail Rail Planner App and it will tell you what trains need a reservation. You can also visit Bahn.com and then enter your travel date/time. To the right, you’ll see an “R” symbol if that train requires a reservation (see the image below).

How Do You Make A Seat Reservation?

You can make reservations at just about any train station. Just go to the ticket window and tell them when and what train you want (they’ll need the time and date).

When made at the train station, reservations can be booked months in advance or up to around an hour before the train departs — I recommend making reservations a few days in advance so you don’t have to deal with it at the last minute (you never know how long the ticket line at the service window might be).

You can also make a reservation online via Eurail.com and their Eurail Rail Planner app, however, there are a few considerations:

• E-ticket reservations can be booked up to 3 hours before the train’s departure. 
• Paper ticket reservations have to be booked at least 6 days before the train’s departure. 

Note: Some trains (notably in France) have a limited number of reservations available for riders using rail passes. It is smart to make your reservations in advance to ensure you get your desired journey.

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How To Buy Eurail Passes

Eurail passes now come in either a paper ticket or the new digital ticket (introduced in 2020) — both are sold directly from Eurail.com

How To Buy A Paper Eurail Pass

IMPORTANT: Physical paper Eurail passes are not sold within Europe (they won’t even ship them to a European address).

Don’t forget that physical paper passes need to be shipped to you — which takes approximately 2 weeks for economy shipping and one week for premium shipping. Buy it from Eurail.com.

How To Buy A Digital Mobile Eurail Pass

One great thing about the digital mobile ticket is that you can buy it even if you’re already in Europe and you don’t have to wait for delivery. Buy it from Eurail.com.

NOTE: The mobile pass is good for any global pass but there are a few countries on the Single Country pass that don’t accept the mobile pass (Estonia, Greek Islands, Great Britain, Ireland, Latvia, and North Macedonia).

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Is The Eurail Pass A Good Deal? A Quick Overview

The Eurail Pass can be a good deal depending on your travel style but it’s not always the cheapest way to travel Europe by train.

On the other hand, a big draw of the Eurail pass is the convenience factor. So here are the broad strokes in determining if a rail pass is right for you:

For last-minute travel with medium/long-distance routes: A rail pass is often a good deal.

A rail pass can be a great deal if you’re traveling spur-of-the-moment and typically going medium and long distances (like hopping between big cities). That’s because (in many cases) long-distance trains are cheaper when booked early but get very expensive when booked last minute.

You’re under 28: A Rail Pass is often a good deal.

The Youth pass gives you a nice discount and this makes the rail pass an attractive option. You might be able to spend less overall if you book single tickets in advance but the difference is often minimal — personally, I think the convenience of the pass is worth the minimal extra expense.

Your plans are fixed and you can book tickets early: Point-to-point is cheaper.

If your plans are set and you can book your tickets around two months early then it’s virtually always cheaper to buy point-to-point tickets. Even being able to book a week or two before departure can give considerable savings based on buying less than a day or two early.

You’re staying regional: Point-to-point is cheaper.

Most regional trains have a fixed price based on the distance traveled so there is no need to book early.

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Eurail Pass Vs Single, Point-To-Point Train Tickets: In-Depth Analysis

Determining the value of a rail pass vs single tickets takes a little legwork and math. I’ve tried to break it all down below but it’s not an exact science.

Understanding Point-To-Point Train Ticket Pricing

Single train tickets are priced in two different ways:

Variable-Price Train Fares

Variable Fares, much like airline tickets, are always changing based on a combination of demand, departure time, and the amount of time before the departure date — essentially all high-speed trains operate on this pricing model.

Most rail companies start selling their tickets 60-90 days before departure so you’ll get the cheapest fares when booked during this time. Typically, prices gradually rise as the departure date approaches but you can still get some good fares if you book a couple of weeks in advance.

But the prices can be high if you book within a few days of departure and they’ll typically be very high if you book last minute.

IMPORTANT: The cheapest train tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable. That means your ticket is only valid for the specific date and time printed on your ticket. In short, if you miss that train then you’re out of luck.

Fixed-Price Train Fares

With Fixed-Price Fares, the price is solely determined by the distance traveled.

Fixed-price tickets are most common on regional and slower trains. With this type of ticket, it doesn’t matter when you buy it because the price never changes.

How To Find Tain Ticket Prices

There are two main ways to buy European train tickets—directly from each country’s National Rail Service (which can be a pain as I outline below) or through a third-party train booking search engine like Omio and Trainline.

To find prices, I typically simply visit Omio or Trainline and enter my estimated travel dates. If my trip is a long way away, I’ll pick a date about 2-4 weeks from today so I can get an estimate of how much the ticket would cost if I were to book a few weeks prior to departure. It’s not an exact science but it’s good for estimating purposes.

There are quite a few advantages to buying your train tickets Omio and Trainline:

• Booking Complex or Multi-Country Routes
  • The advantage of booking with a third-party booking site is that it lets you book more complex multi-country/international train routes. Many National Rail Services have trouble booking international routes (i.e. going from France to Italy) — so they can’t always find the best deals or show all available routes.
• No Credit Card Processing Issues
  • Many of Europe’s National Rail websites still have issues processing foreign credit cards so it’s common for credit cards to be declined when booking. These third-party sites won’t have these issues.
• No Weird Technical or Translation Issues
  • We’ve found that it’s common for Europe’s National Rail websites to be plagued with weird technical problems and overall poor user interfaces. Many times you’ll get kicked from the English version of the page to the local language in the middle of the booking process. These third-party booking websites take care of these issues.

MY FAVORITE TRAIN BOOKING WEBSITES

• Omio: Omio is a great train booking engine that lets you book tickets from just about every country’s rail service and they make the booking process very user-friendly.
• Trainline.com: Trainline is a new European train booking service (very similar to Omio) that sells train tickets from Austrian, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and German Railways railways (and a few others).

Calculating the Daily Price of Rail Passes

I find that it is helpful to calculate the daily cost of the rail pass to see if a pass is cheaper than single tickets.

Eurail Global Continuous Pass (Price Per Day)

Pass Length	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
15 Days	$402 ($27 per day)	$536 ($36 per day)	$483 ($32 per day)
22 Days	$471 ($22 per day)	$627 ($29 per day)	$564 ($26 per day)
One Month	$609 ($20 per day)	$811 ($27 per day)	$730 ($24 per day)
Two Months	$663 ($11 per day)	$885 ($15 per day)	$796 ($13 per day)
Three Months	$819 ($9 per day)	$1091 ($12 per day)	$983 ($11 per day)

Note: The “price per day” is a little deceiving with a Global Continuous Pass since you (probably) won’t be traveling via train every day. To get a better estimate you should estimate how often you’ll use the train.

Eurail Global Flexi Pass Price (Price Per Day)

Pass Length	Youth Pass (under 28)	Adult (28-60)	Senior (Over 60)
4 travel days (within one month)	$227 ($57 per day)	$289 ($72 per day)	$267 ($67 per day)
5 travel days (within one month)	$257 ($51 per day)	$341 ($68 per day)	$307 ($61 per day)
7 travel days (within one month)	$304 ($43 per day)	$405 ($58 per day)	$365 ($52 per day)
10 travel days (within two months)	$364 ($36 per day)	$485 ($49 per day)	$437 ($43 per day)
15 travel days (within two months)	$448 ($30 per day)	$597 ($40 per day)	$537 ($36 per day)

Example Single Train Ticket Prices

For high-speed trains, it’s best to buy tickets early to get the cheapest tickets. In most cases, train tickets can be purchased 60-90 days before the departure date but buying a few weeks early is usually fine.

Note: Ticket prices for many high-speed trains will change a lot based on departure time (i.e. busy times are more expensive) so adjusting your time by an hour or two could equal big savings — so poke around Omio to get a better idea of prices.

Let’s look at some example ticket prices:

• Paris to Nice
  • Purchased Two Days Before Departure: €77- €106 ($90-$125)
  • Purchased Two Days Before Departure: €69 ($81)
  • Purchased Three Weeks Before Departure: €55 ($65)
  • Purchased Eight Weeks Before Departure: €21 ($25)

• Paris to Amsterdam
  • Purchased Two Days Before Departure: €135 ($159)
  • Purchased Three Weeks Before Departure: €97 ($114)
  • Purchased Six Weeks Before Departure: €54 ($64)
  • Purchased Eight Weeks Before Departure: €35 ($42)

• London to Paris (Eurostar Train)
  • Purchased Two Days Before Departure: €234 ($267)
  • Purchased Three Weeks Before Departure: €124 ($146)
  • Purchased Six Weeks Before Departure: €55 ($65)

• Rome To Florence
  • Purchased For Next Day Departure Day: €35-€60 ($41-$70)
  • Purchased Eight Weeks Before Departure: €35-€63 ($45-$75)

As you can see, booking just a few weeks early can save quite a bit of money.

Doing The Math for Rail Pass Vs Single Tickets

At this point, all you have to do is compare the daily price of the pass to the cost of a single ticket.

Let’s look at the Paris to Amsterdam high-speed Thalys train for example:

• A 10 travel days Flexi Global Pass equals $36 per day. And rail pass riders have to pay around $33 for a reservation on this particular train so your total would be around $70 for this journey.
• Booking a last-minute train from Paris to Amsterdam is $120-$180 so the Eurail pass is a great deal in this case.
• But booking two months in advance is $45 so it’s a lot cheaper than a rail pass in this case.

CONCLUSION

A rail pass is great if you want a lot of flexibility or you don’t want to bother with the hassle and frustration of planning out your entire trip ahead of time.

Unfortunately, the extra seat reservation fees and the limited number of seats allocated to rail pass riders ruin/diminish the value of a Eurail pass for many riders who are traveling through France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. For example, if I need to reserve my seat 2-3 days in advance then that kind of negates a lot of flexibility.

Buying point-to-point tickets almost always make more financial sense if you can plan your journey in advance and buy your tickets a few weeks before you travel.

Read The Savvy Backpacker’s Guide on How To Buy Train Tickets In Europe to learn how to find the cheapest train tickets.

In short…

I’ve done European trips with and without a Eurail pass.

With the Eurail pass, I loved being able to hop on the train whenever I pleased. I didn’t have to worry about planning anything, and I decided where I next wanted to visit on a whim.

But these days I tend to plan my trips a little more so buying single point-to-point tickets ends up being much more affordable and it’s made even easier thanks to online train ticket booking websites like Omio and Trainline.

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How To Maximize The Value Of Your Eurail Pass

Here are a few more tips and tricks to help you make the most of your Eurail Pass.

Combine Pass With Point-To-Point Tickets

Passes are most valuable when used on longer (i.e. more expensive) train rides so it doesn’t make economic sense to use up one of the days on your pass on cheap rides that only cost $15-$30. That’s why I like to combine a Flexi Pass with cheap point-to-point tickets as a way to maximize the rail pass value.

Wait To Write In Your Travel Dates

While rare, sometimes tickets aren’t checked on the train so I wait to fill in the pass until I see the conductor checking tickets — just don’t let them see you filling it in last second.

Additionally, don’t make the mistake of filling in your entire itinerary because plans can change, and once you fill in the dates you can’t change them.

Do Some Pre-Planning To Compare The Different Passes

Plan your trip and compare different rail pass plans. You don’t want to purchase a pass that doesn’t give you enough travel days, but you also don’t want to waste left-over days from a pass that was too large. You can’t upgrade your pass after you’ve purchased it and you don’t get refunds for unused days.

The Passes Give You Unlimited Train Rides Per Day

Remember, your rail pass gives you unlimited train travel per day (i.e. midnight to midnight) so you could conceivably take multiple train rides per day.

This is a nice option if you’re doing a long-distance day trip. For example, the train from Paris to Lyon takes about 2 hours and costs around $40-$90 each way. So you could take the early train to Lyon, spend the day exploring, and be back in Paris that night — and you’d only use up one travel day on your pass.

Then again, since you’re in France, you’ll have to pay a seat reservation fee on both journeys so it might not be an amazing deal in this particular case.

The Eurail Pass Now Covers The Eurostar Train Between London & Paris

The typically expensive Eurostar train was recently added to the Eurail Pass so that’s awesome for travelers. There is an extra €30 fee but can still be a good deal for pass holders since a last-minute Eurostar ticket can be $130-$180+.

Insurance, Refunds, and Fine Print

Paper passes aren’t refundable (once used) unless you buy Pass Protection insurance. If you have a mobile pass and you lose/break your phone, you can transfer the pass to another phone.

Rail Passes Don’t Cover Subways/Suburban Metro/Trams

Rail passes don’t work on the subway or other intra-city public transportation. Some might be valid on trains to/from the airport but this is a waste of a travel day.

Learn More About Trains In Europe

If you’ve never traveled by train I suggest reading my Guide To Train Travel In Europe for general train travel advice.