From mid-December, rail passengers will be able to travel directly between Berlin and Paris without spending a night on board.

Deutsche Bahn (DB) told German news agency DPA that the journey will take around eight hours.

“From December 16th 2024, the two capitals of Paris and Berlin will be directly linked from city centre to city centre, at high speed, for the first time in the history of rail travel between the two countries,” reads a joint press release from Deutsche Bahn and the French rail operator SNCF.

The direct connection comes in addition to a Berlin-Paris overnight connection that was introduced in December 2023.

[LIVE de BERLIN]
Avec la @DB_Presse, j’ai eu le plaisir d’annoncer notre premier train grande vitesse de jour entre Paris 🇫🇷 et Berlin 🇩🇪.
Une liaison quotidienne faisant escale à Strasbourg, Karlsruhe et Francfort, à partir de ce mois de décembre.

Cette création de liaison… pic.twitter.com/jnTI0hO24r

— Alain Krakovitch (@alainkrakovitch) September 24, 2024

The new service

Passengers will travel on the ICE, the German high-speed train, which typically has 444 seats per train, including 111 in first class.

The trains can reach speeds of 320km/h on the French high-speed section of the line.

The train will run between Paris Gare de l’Est and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, stopping at Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt South and will take just over eight hours.

There will be just one service a day – departing from Paris at 9.55am, arriving in Frankfurt at 2.04pm and in Berlin at 6.03pm. The journey in the other direction leaves Berlin at 11.54am, arriving in Paris at 7.55pm.

Fares for the train will start at €59 for standard class or €69 for first class, according to the joint SNCF-BD briefing.

Reservations will open on October 16th.

READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about the new Berlin-Paris night train

Other direct routes between Germany and France

DB and SNCF have been operating the German-French high-speed rail service in cooperation since June 2007. Since then, ICE and TGV trains have been running on lines from both Frankfurt to Paris and Stuttgart to Paris.

At the end of 2007, a daily connection was extended beyond Stuttgart to Munich – effectively linking Paris to the Bavarian capital.

In March 2012, a daily direct connection from Frankfurt to Marseille was launched. Since 2023, there have also been through trains between Frankfurt and Bordeaux on Saturdays in summer.

As of December 2023, there has also been a night train between Berlin and Paris, operated by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). But service on that route was temporarily suspended from August due to construction work. It is scheduled to return to regular service on October 28th.

READ ALSO:

• The destinations you can reach by direct night train from Berlin
• Where can you get a night train from Paris?