Düsseldorf Airport to Dortmund
About 70 km east; regional and ICE trains from the airport station take 45–60 minutes for €15–30.
The eastern end of the Ruhr, a brewing and steel city rebuilt after near-total wartime destruction, with a football stadium that holds eighty thousand and the loudest terrace in Europe.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Dortmund, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from €110).
What it costs for your group
The bus is charged per person, while a taxi or private transfer is one price for the whole car — so the more of you there are, the better door-to-door value looks.
| Group | Private transfer | Best value |
|---|---|---|
| Solo · 1 traveller | €110 | Private transfer |
| Couple · 2 travellers | €110 | Private transfer |
| Family of 4 · 4 travellers | €110 | Private transfer |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority is… | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Cheapest fare | From €15, though slower with a change in the city. |
| Speed & comfort | Private transfer | Door-to-door, fixed price, a driver waiting for you. |
| A group of 3–4 | Transfer or taxi | One flat fare splits cheaper than several bus tickets. |
| A late-night arrival | Transfer or taxi | Both run 24/7 when buses and the tram have stopped. |
By transport mode
Train
Fifty minutes on average. Dortmund Hauptbahnhof is central and the U-Bahn from it reaches the stadium in about ten minutes on match days.
Where to catch it: SkyTrain to the station, then an eastbound service through Duisburg and Essen. ICE is quicker; regional trains cost less.
Best for budget travellers near a stationPrivate transfer
Note that Dortmund has its own airport (DTM) with low-cost services. If Dortmund is the destination and the flight exists, that is a considerably shorter transfer.
Where to catch it: An hour on the A2. Mostly booked by business travellers and by groups arriving for matches.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsTaxi
Hard to justify against a €15 train. Use it only outside train hours.
Where to catch it: Seventy kilometres on the meter produces a large fare; agree an estimate first.
Best for small groups in a hurryCar rental
On Bundesliga match days the roads around the Westfalenstadion close and the city's transport is free with a match ticket — driving is the worst possible choice.
Where to catch it: Motorway the whole way, with an environmental zone in the centre as elsewhere in the Ruhr.
Best for travellers who want to exploreDortmund & Düsseldorf in photos
Buying tickets in Düsseldorf
The step that catches people out at Düsseldorf is the SkyTrain — the automated monorail linking the terminals to Düsseldorf Flughafen railway station, running about 03:45–00:45, every 3.5–7 minutes, seven minutes end to end. It is not free. It runs on a VRR public-transport ticket, so buy one in the terminal before boarding — and the same ticket then covers your onward train, meaning you pay once rather than twice. From the station, the S11 reaches Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof in 12 minutes for about €3.40, three times an hour, valid 90 minutes so an onward U-Bahn leg is included. DB regional and ICE services also call at the same station and reach Hauptbahnhof in about 10 minutes on a pricier ticket. The wider point: this station has direct services across the Rhine-Ruhr — Duisburg 15 minutes, Cologne 22–40, Essen 25, Dortmund about 50 — so for a great many arrivals Düsseldorf is not the destination at all.
Taxi scams & safety in Düsseldorf
Fares here are regulated and disputes are rare — a metered taxi into the centre is around €20, which for three or four people travelling together costs about the same as four train tickets. The genuine risk is the SkyTrain fare: it looks like an airside shuttle, behaves like one, and is legally part of the public transport network, so boarding without a VRR ticket is the most common inspection case at this airport. Buy before you ride. Two further points. Düsseldorf's centre is an environmental zone needing a sticker, and the Altstadt's inner streets are pedestrian, so a car reaches the edge and no further. And Düsseldorf hosts some of the largest trade fairs in the world — drupa, K, boot, Medica — during which hotel rates across the whole region rise several-fold and transfer capacity tightens; if your dates coincide, book rooms before you book flights. Finally, if Cologne is your actual destination, note that CGN is twenty minutes from Cologne while DUS is forty-five: worth comparing while the flights are still open.
Getting from DUS to Dortmund
Dortmund is the eastern end of the Ruhr, a brewing and steel city rebuilt almost entirely after the war, and the home of a football club whose south terrace holds twenty-five thousand standing supporters and is the loudest thing of its kind in Europe. Seventy kilometres from Düsseldorf Airport, about fifty minutes by train.
Getting there
SkyTrain to the airport station, then an eastbound service through Duisburg and Essen. ICE trains take about forty minutes, regional ones closer to an hour, at €15 to €30. Several run direct without entering Düsseldorf.
Say this first
Dortmund has its own airport, DTM, with low-cost services across Europe. If Dortmund is the destination and a flight exists, that is a fifteen-minute transfer instead of a fifty-minute one. Many people land at DUS because it has the routes, which is why this page exists.
The Westfalenstadion
Officially Signal Iduna Park, capacity just over eighty-one thousand, with the Südtribüne — the Yellow Wall — holding twenty-five thousand standing. Borussia Dortmund's average attendance is the highest in world club football. On match days the U-Bahn from the centre runs constantly and city transport is included with a match ticket.
Getting a ticket
Hard. Season tickets take most of the capacity and the standing terrace is effectively unavailable to visitors through official channels. Tours of the stadium run on non-match days and include the terrace, which is the realistic option.
The German Football Museum
Opposite the main station, covering the national team and the domestic game, with the 1954 World Cup and the 2014 one given considerable weight. It is well done and it is not only for supporters.
Beer
Dortmund was for a period the largest brewing city in Europe, producing Dortmunder Export — a pale lager brewed strong to survive being carried to the pits. Most of the breweries have consolidated but the brewery museum in a former Union brewery building covers the history properly.
Zeche Zollern
A colliery in the north-west of the city with an art nouveau machine hall — steel and glass with a decorated portal, built in 1903 to demonstrate that industrial architecture could be beautiful. It is part of the industrial heritage route and it is quieter than Essen's Zollverein.
Phoenix See
A lake in the middle of the city, created in 2010 on the site of a steelworks, with apartments and restaurants around it. It is the clearest single example of the Ruhr's post-industrial reinvention — a blast furnace site turned into waterfront property in a decade.
The centre
Rebuilt functionally after 1945 with a long pedestrianised shopping street. Four Romanesque churches survived or were reconstructed, and the Museum Ostwall in the U-Tower — a former brewery storage building with a giant illuminated U on top — holds modern art.
Driving on a match day
Do not. The roads around the stadium close, the city is full, and public transport is free with a ticket. Any other day, Dortmund has an environmental zone like the rest of the Ruhr.
The Christmas market
Built around a Christmas tree assembled from around 1,700 spruces into a structure forty-five metres tall, which the city maintains is the largest in the world. It is a serious claim seriously defended.
The honest position on the transfer
Fifty minutes and €15 to €30 by train, against €130 to €180 for a taxi and €110 to €160 for a transfer. Unless you are arriving outside train hours, the train is the answer by a wide margin.
The U-Tower
A former Union brewery storage building in the centre, nine storeys with a giant illuminated U on the roof, converted in 2010 into an arts centre holding the Museum Ostwall's modern collection and exhibition spaces. The roof terrace is open and the view takes in the whole city, which is flatter and greener than its reputation.
Where the Ruhr ends
Dortmund is the eastern edge of the conurbation, and beyond it the Sauerland hills start within half an hour — walking country with reservoirs and small towns that Ruhr residents use as their weekend escape. It is a different landscape entirely and almost no foreign visitor sees it.
