Getting from Dusseldorf to Cologne

Düsseldorf and Cologne sit 40 km apart on the same river and spend a good deal of energy disliking each other. Düsseldorf drinks Altbier, Cologne drinks Kölsch in small glasses that a waiter keeps replacing until you put a beer mat on top. Düsseldorf has the shopping and the Japanese quarter. Cologne has the cathedral, which you will see from the train before you see anything else, because the station was built practically underneath it.

They are close enough to be one trip. Plenty of people base themselves in one and see the other over an afternoon.

Trains, and there is no real second option

This is one of the densest stretches of railway in Germany. Between the S-Bahn, regional expresses and the long-distance trains there is something leaving every few minutes through the day, and the journey runs from about 25 minutes on a fast train to around 40 on a stopping one.

Because of that frequency, forget timetables. Turn up at the station and take whatever leaves next. Deutsche Bahn has the times if you want them.

What you should think about is which ticket. For a short hop like this the regional fare is inexpensive, and if you are staying in the area the local transport associations, VRR around Düsseldorf and VRS around Cologne, sell day tickets that cover trams and buses in both cities as well as the train between them. That usually beats two singles the moment you make a second journey.

The Deutschlandticket, 63 euros a month since January 2026, covers every regional train and S-Bahn on this route along with the local transport at both ends. It does not cover the ICE or IC. On a corridor this well served, the ICE saves you around ten minutes, so the pass costs you nothing in practice here.

The airports, which is why people ask

Most people making this journey are really asking which airport to fly into.

Düsseldorf Airport (DUS) is one of the country's largest and has its own long-distance station, so you can land and be on a train to Cologne without leaving the complex. Cologne Bonn Airport (CGN) is smaller, and has a base for Eurowings, Lufthansa's low-cost arm.

A note for anyone working from an older guide: Germanwings, long named as the airline to look for at Cologne, stopped flying on 20 April 2020. Its short-haul flying went to Eurowings from 2015 onwards and the brand is finished.

Then there is Weeze (NRN), marketed for years as Düsseldorf and sitting roughly 80 km away near the Dutch border. Ryanair and other low-cost carriers use it. The fare can be genuinely cheap. The transfer is a bus or a train and a bus, and it takes well over an hour, so do that arithmetic before you congratulate yourself on the ticket price.

Driving and cycling

The A57 and A3 both link the two and the drive is around 40 minutes when the Rhine-Ruhr is behaving, which it frequently is not. Parking in either old town is expensive. The train is faster, and you can drink.

The better reason to be on the ground here is the Rhine cycle path, which runs the whole way between the two cities and turns a transit into a decent day out.

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