Belgrade to Budapest Train From Dec. 13: Ticket Price

When can you board a fast train from Belgrade to Budapest? From December 13, Ljubisa Pejicic, acting director of Srbijavoz, confirmed to Tanjug. Tickets are not on sale yet, and the price is only approximate.

The date coincides with the start of the new timetable. Pejicic says Srbijavoz has been ready to launch for a long time and that the Hungarian side asked for additional testing on its own territory. The line in Serbia is grade-separated and never crosses road traffic, he said, while in Hungary the route has more than 90 level crossings.

What is confirmed and what is not

• Start of service: December 13.
• Departures: eight in total, six to Budapest and two to Vienna.
• Price: set by Srbijavoz and Hungarian Railways, with Austrian Railways joining for Vienna.
• Ticket sales: Pejicic said he expects them to begin soon, but no exact date has been given.

How much is a ticket to Budapest?

The rough price is about 35 euros, or around 4,100 dinars at an exchange rate of about 117 dinars to the euro. Pejicic stressed that the deal is not yet closed:

“The price will be set in agreement with the Hungarian railway, and when it comes to Vienna, the Austrian railway will take part too. We saw that a figure of 43 euros to Vienna appeared in public. Here the price will be around 35 euros to Budapest, it is still at the stage of negotiation,” Pejicic said.

So there is no official price for Vienna. Pejicic mentioned that a figure of 43 euros, about 5,000 dinars, had appeared in public, but he did not say whether that figure is accurate.

The price has already moved once. Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Aleksandra Sofronijevic spoke earlier this year at the Kopaonik Business Forum about a one-way ticket and a first departure on March 27:

“The price of one-way tickets is being negotiated, 32 euros was announced. On Thursday there will be a last meeting with the Hungarians, and it is expected that the new ticket price could be around 25 euros,” Sofronijevic said.

March passed without a departure, and the rough price is now 35 euros. Treat the figure as an estimate, not as a price you can put in a budget.

When does the train leave?

The final timetable has not been published. N1 obtained Srbijavoz’s planned 2026/2027 timetable through a freedom of information request. According to that document, the trains would run as follows:

• Soko 150: leaves Belgrade at 5:06, Subotica station at 6:21, arrives in Budapest at 8:14.
• Soko 160: leaves Belgrade at 19:32, arrives in Budapest at 22:49.
• EC Avala: leaves Belgrade at 8:44, reaches Budapest at 12:14 and Vienna at 16:00.
• EC Ivo Andric: leaves Belgrade at 12:44, reaches Budapest at 16:14 and Vienna at 20:00.

In the opposite direction, Soko 151 leaves Budapest at 5:09 and arrives at Prokop at 8:25, while Soko 161 leaves at 19:45 and arrives at 22:51. Avala leaves Vienna at 8:00 and arrives in Belgrade at 15:13, and Ivo Andric leaves at 14:00 and arrives at 21:13.

The Soko trains stop only in Subotica. The other departures also stop in Novi Sad, Vrbas and Backa Topola, where passengers can board.

How much faster than the bus?

The trip to Budapest takes about three and a half hours, and a Soko with no intermediate stops takes about three hours and 15 minutes. That saves roughly 15 minutes. By the timetable of the Belgrade Bus Station, the bus takes about six hours.

To Vienna, the train should take about seven hours and 15 minutes, and the bus a little under nine.

Before you go

At the same forum, Sofronijevic said Serbia had procured five Soko sets for this line and Hungary three, and that a round-trip ticket would cost about 50 euros. That amount was tied to the 25-euro price at the time, so do not count on it.

Our advice: wait for the announcement of ticket sales before you pay for accommodation that cannot be cancelled. Pejicic announced sales “soon,” but without a date, and the timetable is for now planned, not final.