Milan Airport Transfers: Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo

Milan has three airports and they behave completely differently. Malpensa is a 50 km hike north-west with its own railway; Linate is 8 km east and now sits on the metro; Milan Bergamo is 50 km north-east and is served by coaches, not trains. Getting the Milan airport transfer right saves an hour and about €80 against the default of grabbing whatever is outside the door.

Below: every option per airport with times and prices, what happens on a night arrival, and a short primer on the ATM metro and Milano Centrale so you know what to do once you are in town.

The 30-second version

Partner prices are per person.

Milano Malpensa (MXP)

Malpensa has two terminals: Terminal 1 for most full-service and long-haul carriers, Terminal 2 for low-cost, primarily easyJet. A free inter-terminal shuttle bus links them, and the railway station serves both. Check which terminal is on your ticket before you choose a transfer, because getting it wrong costs 20 minutes.

Malpensa Express train

The Malpensa Express is the fast, traffic-proof option, running from the airport to Milano Cadorna and to Milano Centrale via Porta Garibaldi, in about 50 minutes. Our partner sells the Centrale legs with a stated journey time of 57 minutes, first-class seating and no luggage limit, from €15 each way.

The official fare is the same €15. According to malpensaexpress.it, a ticket to or from any Milano station costs €15 for adults and €7.50 for children aged 4 to 13, with under-4s free when accompanied by a paying adult — so the partner product is charging no premium at all, and buying direct is fine. Trains leave Milano Centrale and Milano Cadorna about every 30 minutes, from 04:57 to 23:27, every day. Coming the other way there are four trains an hour out of Terminal 2 via Terminal 1 — two to Centrale, two to Cadorna — with the first at 05:37 from T2 and the last at 00:20, passing Terminal 1 six minutes later. If you land after that, the train is finished for the night and you want the coach.

Which terminus you want depends on where you sleep. Cadorna puts you on metro M1 and M2 at the western edge of the centre, ten minutes’ walk from Castello Sforzesco and three stops from Duomo. Centrale is the one for onward rail travel and for the Bergamo coaches, but the station itself is a long walk end to end.

Buy on the platform machines or in advance. Validate a paper ticket in the little machines before boarding — an unvalidated ticket is treated as no ticket.

Malpensa shuttle coaches

Several operators, including Autostradale, run coaches from both terminals to Piazza Luigi di Savoia beside Milano Centrale, roughly every 20 minutes, with a journey of 50 to 60 minutes. They cost less than the train and take your bags in the hold; they also sit in whatever traffic the ring road is producing. On a Friday evening, take the train.

Coaches are the right call for a night arrival, for a family with a luggage trolley, or when your hotel is near Centrale anyway.

Taxi and private transfer from Malpensa

Milan uses fixed fares for licensed taxis on the long airport runs rather than the meter. Use only the official rank outside arrivals, take a white taxi with a roof sign and a licence number, and know the number before you get in. Ignore anyone who approaches you inside the terminal offering a car.

The Comune di Milano publishes the fixed fares, and they are the ones to quote back:

The tariff sheet is explicit that no supplement is due on these: the fare already includes the motorway toll and the night or holiday premium, so a driver adding €10 “for the autostrada” at Malpensa is overcharging you. Two conditions attach. The fixed fare applies only with no intermediate stops — ask to divert mid-journey and the driver is entitled to switch to the meter. And on a phone booking the driver waits five minutes free; beyond that, meter time can be added.

There is no fixed fare between Linate and central Milan — that ride is metered, and rightly so at 8 km. The meter starts at €4.10 on a weekday, €6.60 on a Sunday or holiday and €7.90 between 21:00 and 06:00, and any ride leaving an airport has a €16 minimum.

A pre-booked private transfer makes sense for three or more people with luggage, or for a 05:00 departure; see our Tiqets review for how transfer vouchers and changes work. For two people travelling light, the train wins on both price and predictability.

Milano Linate (LIN)

Linate is the easy one. Since metro M4 — the blue line — reached the airport in 2023, you walk out of arrivals, go down one level, and are at San Babila in about 15 minutes, where you can change to M1 for Duomo, one stop away. It runs on a normal ATM urban ticket at €2.20 (atm.it), which makes it far and away the cheapest airport link in Milan. That is not a partial fare, either: ATM states that Mi1–Mi3 tickets are valid terminus to terminus on M1, M3, M4 and M5, and Linate Aeroporto is the eastern terminus of M4 — so €2.20 covers you from the aircraft door to the Duomo. One line to watch for the same reason: on M2, an urban ticket only reaches Cascina Burrona going east. And children under 14 travel free across the whole system on production of an ID document.

Other Linate options, in descending order of usefulness:

• Bus 73 from Piazza San Babila, an ordinary ATM city bus on the same €2.20 ticket, with luggage room measured in optimism. Slower than M4, useful only if the metro is down.
• Airport Bus coaches to Milano Centrale, roughly 25 minutes. Worth it only if you are heading straight for a train.
• Taxi from the rank, on the meter rather than a fixed fare, about 15–25 minutes depending on traffic. At 8 km the meter is genuinely reasonable for two or more people; the €16 airport minimum is roughly what a short run costs anyway.

M4 also runs west to San Cristoforo, so if you are staying in the Navigli or Porta Romana area, check whether an M4 stop is closer than the centre.

Milan Bergamo, Orio al Serio (BGY)

Bergamo is the low-cost hub, 50 km north-east, and it is not really a Milan airport — but it is the one Ryanair passengers land at. There is no train from the airport; the connection is by coach.

Terravision’s official site quotes €5 one way and €10 return for the direct bus to Milano Centrale, with children aged 5–12 at €5 one way and €9 return, infants under 5 free, a journey of approximately 50 minutes, departures every 30 minutes, and no intermediate stops. Other operators — Autostradale and Orio Shuttle among them — run the same route with similar timings; the partner products below start at €8 and include fixed departure slots.

Two alternatives worth knowing:

• ATB bus line 1 from the airport to Bergamo’s train station takes about 15 minutes, and from there regional trains reach Milano Centrale in under an hour. This is the option if you want to see Bergamo Città Alta rather than rush past it. ATB charges no special airport fare — line 1 takes its ordinary tickets, and a one-zone ticket is €1.70 for 75 minutes (atb.bergamo.it), which also covers the funiculars up to the old town. Buy from the machine in the terminal so the zone is priced for you. The onward Trenord regional to Milano Centrale is €6.30 one way in second class, about 48 minutes direct. Total to central Milan: €8, against €5 on the Terravision coach — you pay a little more and gain a hill town.
• Taxi to central Milan is expensive at this distance. To Bergamo town it is short and sensible.

Night arrivals and early departures

Low-cost schedules put a lot of arrivals after 23:00, and this is where plans break.

Malpensa: the train stops. Per malpensaexpress.it, the last service out of Terminal 2 leaves at 00:20, passing Terminal 1 at 00:26, and the first of the morning is 05:37 from T2. So anything landing between roughly 00:30 and 05:00 means the coach — several operators run overnight departures timed to late arrivals, but their night schedules are published only in their own booking systems rather than as a fixed timetable, so check the specific night you land and pre-book the seat.

Bergamo: buses meet the final arrivals, but the gap between the last one and the first morning departure is real. A 02:00 landing may mean waiting in the terminal.

Linate: the metro stops overnight like any metro. After closing, it is a taxi.

Three rules for a night arrival. Pre-book the coach seat so you are not queuing at a kiosk with a card reader that is offline. Know your hotel’s night entry procedure — small Milan hotels do lock the door. And for a pre-06:00 departure, ignore public transport entirely and book a car; the first train will not get you there.

Milan metro and ATM: the primer

Five metro lines, colour-coded and impossible to confuse once you know them: M1 red, M2 green, M3 yellow, M4 blue, M5 lilac. Duomo sits on M1 and M3; Centrale on M2 and M3; Cadorna on M1 and M2; San Babila on M1 and M4. Trams and buses run on the same tickets, and the surface network is often the nicer way to cross the centre.

Fares confirmed on atm.it:

• Urban single ticket, zones Mi1–Mi3: €2.20. Valid on metro, tram and bus.
• Contactless daily cap: €7.60 in zones Mi1–Mi3 — from your fourth journey in 24 hours, the system charges you the day fare instead of individual tickets.
• Carnet of ten 90-minute tickets: €19.50, and a three-day urban ticket: €15.50 — both on atm.it and both sold in the ATM app. The carnet is worth it above nine journeys; below that the contactless cap is simpler.

How to pay, in order of least hassle: tap the same contactless bank card or phone at the metro gate and at the validator on trams and buses, and let the cap do the work. Otherwise buy in the ATM app, or paper tickets at station machines and tobacconists. Validate every time — including on trams, where nobody appears to be checking until an inspector does.

Journeys beyond Mi1–Mi3, such as some suburban destinations, need a zone fare from the STIBM calculator on atm.it, not the urban ticket.

For visitors making a lot of journeys plus attractions, a transport card or a city pass can be simpler than counting tickets; compare them on our tickets and passes page before you buy.

Milano Centrale: orientation and luggage

Centrale is enormous and badly signposted for a first visit. The layout, once you know it:

• Platform level is up the escalators from the entrance halls. Departure boards are at the head of the platforms — check the platform number late, because it changes.
• Piazza Duca d’Aosta is the grand front. Piazza Luigi di Savoia, on the eastern flank, is where the airport coaches for Malpensa and Bergamo pull in and out. If your bus ticket says “Centrale”, it means this side, not the front steps.
• Metro M2 and M3 are below the concourse, signed in green and yellow.
• Long-distance Frecciarossa and Italo trains use Centrale; many regional and some high-speed services also stop at Porta Garibaldi and Rogoredo, which can be closer to your hotel and much less crowded.

Left luggage: there is a staffed deposit inside the station, and independent storage shops in the surrounding streets. Our partner sells insured day storage at Milano Centrale from €6.75, booked in advance with a time slot, which removes the queue. The station’s own KiPoint deposit is on the ground floor in the shopping gallery and opens 07:00–21:00 (milanocentrale.it) — it publishes no bag size or weight limit, so if you are carrying something outsized, a ski bag or a bike box, ring ahead rather than turning up. Note the closing time against your flight: 21:00 is early if you have a late departure and were planning to collect on the way.

Keep your bag closed and your phone away on the concourse and the platform escalators — Centrale is the one place in Milan where opportunistic theft is a genuine, routine problem.

Choosing, in practice

Two people, hand luggage, arriving at Malpensa in daylight: take the train. The same two at 01:00: take the coach. A family of four with cases: coach on price, private car on sanity. Landing at Linate at all: take M4 and stop reading. Landing at Bergamo: pre-book the Centrale coach, or take ATB line 1 into Bergamo and give the upper town two hours before you go on. If your last day is a late flight, an outlet run fills it better than a fourth museum.

Whatever you pick, book the airport transfer before you fly rather than in the arrivals hall, then use the €2.20 urban ticket for everything else in the city. Prices checked September 2026: partner prices from live partner data, official fares from atm.it, malpensaexpress.it, terravision.eu, atb.bergamo.it and the Comune di Milano taxi tariff.