Rail Passes

Two separate rail pass systems cover Europe by train: Interrail for European residents, Eurail for everyone else, both priced in EUR.

Choosing between Interrail and Eurail

European rail passes let you travel across multiple countries on a single ticket, without booking each train separately. The right starting point is knowing which system you qualify for, then deciding how many travel days you actually need.

Your country of residence determines which system you can buy from. The train network, coverage, and pass formats are nearly identical between them.

Interrail is for people with official residency in a European country, all EU member states, plus the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland. EU citizens living outside Europe do not qualify.

Eurail is for everyone else: travellers from the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and any country outside Europe.

Both cover 33 countries and come in global or one-country formats.

The Interrail home country rule

One restriction catches many European travellers off guard. With an Interrail Global Pass, you can travel in your own country of residence on exactly one outbound journey and one inbound journey during travel days. That is it: two journeys total in your home country across the entire validity of the pass.

A French resident heading from Paris to Barcelona can use the pass for the Paris to the French border leg as their outbound journey. But they cannot also take a domestic train at the start of the return leg: that one inbound journey has to serve the whole trip. If your itinerary involves multiple domestic train legs at home (arriving in one city, leaving from another), the pass will not cover them.

For additional domestic travel, you need point-to-point tickets from your national rail carrier, or a separate One Country Pass. Plan this before you buy if your trip starts and ends at home with more than one leg in your country.

Eurail has no equivalent restriction, so non-European visitors can use their pass freely on domestic legs from the first train.

Pass formats and travel days

Both the Interrail Global Pass and the Eurail Global Pass come in two formats.

Flexi passes give you a fixed number of travel days within a set period:

• 5 travel days within 1 month

• 7 travel days within 1 month

• 10 travel days within 2 months

• 15 travel days within 2 months

Continuous passes cover every consecutive day:

• 15 days

• 22 days

• 1 month

• 2 months

• 3 months

Each flexi travel day runs from midnight to midnight local time, not a single Europe-wide clock. Crossing into a different time zone shifts how many hours of the day you actually get, gaining an hour heading east into a later zone and losing one heading west. Multiple trains on the same calendar day still count as one day, so a busy travel day with three connections uses the same single day as one short hop.

Night trains follow their own version of that rule. A night train that leaves before midnight and that you stay on without changing trains only uses the travel day it departed on, however late it arrives the next morning. Change onto a different train after midnight and that connection uses a second travel day. Older advice sometimes describes a fixed evening cutoff for this; the current rule from Interrail and Eurail turns on whether you change trains after midnight, not on the departure time itself.

Prices and age discounts

Both Interrail and Eurail price passes in EUR. Exact prices vary by number of travel days, pass format, and class. Check interrail.eu or eurail.com for current prices before buying.

Age tiers apply to both systems:

• Youth (aged 12 to 27): discounted rates on all pass types

• Adult (aged 28 to 59): standard rate

• Senior (aged 60+): Interrail offers a Senior Pass at a lower rate than the adult price. Eurail does not have a specific senior category.

• Children (aged 4 to 11): travel free when accompanied by an adult pass holder

Both Interrail and Eurail issue passes primarily as digital passes through the Rail Planner app. You activate your pass in the app on the day you want to start, and the app produces a QR code for conductors to scan. Always carry your passport or ID alongside it.

Single-country rail passes

A global pass is not always the right tool. If your whole trip stays inside one country, a one-country pass usually costs less and skips the multi-country restrictions above.

Both systems sell one-country passes for most of Europe, but the two rosters are not identical. Eurail covers 29 countries this way; Interrail covers 31, and only Interrail's list includes Switzerland and Great Britain, since Eurail sells cross-border access to those through the Global Pass instead. Most one-country passes give you 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 travel days to use within a one-month window.

Two of the most-booked single-country passes work differently enough from the standard format to call out.

Switzerland: Swiss Travel Pass

The Swiss Travel Pass is not part of the Interrail or Eurail family. It is a separate product from Swiss public transport operators, and it is only sold to travellers whose permanent residence is outside Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Swiss and Liechtenstein residents use different domestic products.

It covers unlimited travel on trains, buses, and boats across the country, plus local transit in more than 90 towns and cities, free entry to over 500 museums, and reduced rates on several mountain railways. You choose either a fixed run of 3, 4, 6, 8, or 15 consecutive days, or a Flex version that lets you spread the same number of days over a one-month window. Check the current price for your dates and class at sbb.ch before buying, since pricing depends on age tier and validity length.

Germany: German Rail Pass

The German Rail Pass exists in two versions with different eligibility, so check you are buying the right one. The Eurail version is for non-European residents. The Interrail version is for European residents, but not for people who live in Germany, and it cannot be used to start or end a journey inside Germany itself; residents of Germany travelling at home need a domestic Deutsche Bahn ticket instead.

Both versions cover Deutsche Bahn's network within Germany. Most high-speed ICE and long-distance IC services accept a reservation but do not require one on every departure; night trains typically do require a reservation, at an extra cost on top of the pass. Check reservation requirements for your exact train when you book, since they can differ by route and operator.

Other single-country passes

Beyond Switzerland and Germany, both systems sell one-country passes for the rest of the countries on their rosters above, generally on the same 3-to-8-day, one-month-window structure. Coverage, reservation rules, and prices differ by country, so check the pass page for the specific country before assuming it matches the Swiss or German pattern.

Reservation fees by country

Reservation fees vary by country, operator, and train type. Use the rail pass country guides on this page for country-specific fee guidance; those fee tables are stored with each country guide and are not repeated in this hub.

A global pass earns its cost when you take several long-distance journeys across multiple countries with dates that are not yet fixed. The comparison works in the pass's favour when you:

• cross three or more countries

• want the flexibility to change your itinerary without rebooking

• take longer corridors where individual tickets are expensive

• travel mainly through countries where reservations are low or not required

If your itinerary is already decided and you are mainly in one or two countries, check individual ticket prices first. On many routes, advance tickets booked directly with operators cost significantly less than a pass plus reservation fees.

The practical check: list your planned journeys, look up current point-to-point fares at each operator's website, add the reservation fees you would pay on the same trains with a pass, and compare the two totals.

Run that check before you decide between a global pass and a one-country pass, too. A short trip confined to Switzerland or Germany rarely needs the wider pass at all.

How to book seat reservations

When a reservation is required, you book it separately from the pass. Options include:

• the operator's own website (DB, SNCF, Trenitalia, ÖBB, Renfe, etc.)

• the Rail Planner app, which integrates booking for some operators

• staffed ticket offices at major stations

For night trains, book as soon as your dates are confirmed. The lowest-price sleeper categories go first. On popular Nightjet routes, the difference between booking early and booking late can mean the difference between a comfortable sleeper and no availability at all.

Activate your pass in the Rail Planner app before boarding your first train. For flexi passes, activate each travel day in the app before your first departure that day. The app produces a QR code that conductors scan. Always carry your passport or national ID, conductors check it alongside the pass.

Your pass covers mainline trains operated by national rail companies in each participating country. It does not cover urban metros, most airport rail links, private tourist trains, or bus replacements.

In Italy, always confirm whether your train is Trenitalia or Italo before you board. Only Trenitalia accepts passes.

Digital pass or paper pass

Interrail and Eurail sell both a mobile pass in the Rail Planner app and a traditional paper pass; you choose the format when you buy. Most travellers now pick the mobile pass, but the paper pass remains a fully supported option, not a legacy fallback, for anyone who prefers it or whose device or connectivity makes a mobile pass impractical.

The mobile pass activates in the app and shows a QR code that conductors scan; there is nothing to lose and no travel-day diary to keep current. A paper pass instead needs a physical travel-day box filled in by hand, in ink, before boarding each travel day, and conductors check it against the printed dates. Losing a paper pass is harder to recover from than losing a phone with the app installed, since the mobile pass is tied to your account rather than a single physical document.

Either format needs your passport or national ID alongside it at every check. For most travellers, the mobile pass is the easier choice: nothing to lose, no travel-day diary to fill in by hand. Choose the paper pass instead if you would rather not depend on a phone for something you need at every border.