Charles de Gaulle to Paris: what your four options are actually worth

It's the question we get more than any other, usually the night before a flight: is the train worth it, or not? The honest answer comes down to three things. Your luggage, the hour you land, and how many people are with you.

Here is what the four options are really worth — including the ones that aren't ours.

The RER B — unbeatable on price, punishing on everything else

€14 for the Paris Region-Airports ticket, 35 to 40 minutes to Gare du Nord, a train every six to fifteen minutes from about 5 am to midnight. On paper nothing competes.

In practice the train leaves you at Gare du Nord or Châtelet, which is rarely where you are going. That means the métro next, with its interchanges and its stairs — and not every station has a lift. With two suitcases and a tired child it stops being a bargain fairly quickly. The line also suffers regular disruption at peak times.

Our view: excellent if you travel light, alone or as a pair, and your hotel is five minutes from a station. Otherwise you pay for the saving in exhaustion.

The Roissybus — simple, direct, slow

One bus, one terminus: Opéra. No changes, room for luggage, and a journey you can sleep through. The catch is that it shares the road with everyone else. Allow 60 minutes when traffic is kind, considerably more on a Friday evening or any time an incident closes a lane on the A1.

The right answer if you're staying near Opéra and you're not in a hurry. Anywhere else in Paris you add a métro at the end and the advantage evaporates.

The fixed-fare taxi — the price is guaranteed, the availability isn't

A prefectural order requires every licensed Paris taxi to charge a flat fare between CDG and the city: €56 to the Right Bank, €65 to the Left Bank. Same price day or night, weekends and public holidays included, luggage covered. No driver may ask for more, and that rule protects travellers properly.

Two caveats. The queue at the rank can be long when several wide-bodies land together — thirty-minute waits are not unusual at Terminal 2E in the evening. And the flat fare assumes a standard saloon: five people with luggage will not fit.

The fares are revised periodically, most recently in December 2025. The board at the rank is the authority.

A car with a driver — the journey starts before you land

The difference isn't the car. It's what happens between the aircraft doors opening and you sitting down.

Your flight is tracked, so a two-hour delay needs no phone call and changes nothing about the price. The driver waits in arrivals holding your name, which matters more than you'd think in an airport you don't know. The fare is settled when you book, not when you arrive. And if you're six people with equipment, a van comes instead of an argument about the boot.

The trade is that you have to think about it in advance. That's the one real drawback, and it is a real one.

So which?

Travelling light on a budget: the RER B, without hesitation. Landing at a civilised hour, two of you, going somewhere inside central Paris: the flat-fare taxi does the job perfectly well.

The rest of the time — a family, a night flight, a client to collect, a meeting that cannot slip, or simply not wanting to manage any of it — that's where a car booked in advance earns its price.