Schiphol is not the only way into the Netherlands, and for a certain kind of traveller it is not even the cheapest. Search a budget airline for a flight to Amsterdam and you will often be quoted a fare into Eindhoven or Rotterdam instead — sometimes €40 less than the same route into Schiphol, sometimes the only option at all. This page is about whether those savings survive contact with reality, and about how the Eindhoven and Rotterdam airports actually connect to Amsterdam once you land.
The honest answer up front: Rotterdam The Hague is a perfectly reasonable arrival point if Amsterdam is your destination, costing you somewhat more time than Schiphol and a bus fare plus an intercity ticket. Eindhoven is a different proposition — two hours door to door, around €30, no direct train, and a bus that stops running at 00:30. If your flight into Eindhoven saves you €50 and lands at 22:00, it is fine. If it saves you €15 and lands at 23:45, you have bought yourself a taxi bill or a night in Eindhoven. And there is a much bigger caveat for anyone booking into 2027, which we come to below.
| Schiphol (AMS) | Eindhoven (EIN) | Rotterdam The Hague (RTM) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank in NL | Busiest by a distance | Second busiest | Third busiest |
| Time to Amsterdam Centraal | 15–20 min | ~2 hours | About 1h 15m–1h 30m |
| Cost to Amsterdam Centraal | About €6 | About €28–31 | Bus about €5.50, plus an intercity fare |
| Direct train from the airport | Yes, beneath the terminal | No — bus to Eindhoven Centraal first | No — bus 33 to metro or Rotterdam Centraal |
| Main airlines | KLM and SkyTeam, plus most full-service carriers | Ryanair, Transavia, Wizz Air, TUI fly | Transavia, Vueling and other low-cost |
| Passengers | Far more than the other two | Record 6.96m in 2025 | About 2.4m in 2025 |
| Late arrival risk | Check NS for late and overnight trains | Bus 400/401 stops about 00:30 | Check RET and 9292 for late services |
The 2027 problem: Eindhoven is closing
Before anything else, if you are booking a flight into Eindhoven for the first half of 2027, stop and check the date. Eindhoven Airport is scheduled to close completely from 1 February to 19 July 2027 — roughly five and a half months — for a full runway renovation, the installation of a Category III instrument landing system and a terminal expansion.
That is a total closure, not a reduced schedule. Transavia is the carrier most affected, along with TUI fly Netherlands and TUI fly Belgium, all of which run more than 1% of their total capacity out of Eindhoven. Eindhoven’s own site says airlines will choose their own alternative airports during the closure. Lelystad Airport — about 60 km northeast of Amsterdam — is the Dutch government’s target for holiday flights from October 2027, but only once a nature permit is granted. None of that is settled at the time of writing.
What this means practically: airlines are still selling into that window in some systems, and schedules will be moved. Do not book non-refundable accommodation around an Eindhoven flight in that period without checking the airline’s current schedule directly, and be sceptical of any third-party page — including a comparison site — that has not been updated since the announcement.
Eindhoven Airport: the practical route to Amsterdam
Eindhoven is the Netherlands’ second busiest airport and handled a record 6,956,486 passengers in 2025, with roughly 329 scheduled departures a week to about 76 destinations. It is overwhelmingly a low-cost operation: Ryanair, Transavia and Wizz Air dominate, with TUI fly and other leisure carriers filling in. The terminal is small, modern and easy to navigate — you will be outside within fifteen minutes of the aircraft door on a good day, which is a genuine advantage over Schiphol.
There is no train station at the airport. This is the single fact that catches people out, because “Eindhoven Airport” sits in a country where you can normally assume a platform under the terminal. Instead:
- Step one. Hermes bus 400 or 401 from directly outside the terminal to Eindhoven Centraal. Just over 25 minutes, about €5.15. Buses run from around 06:00 on weekdays, 07:30 on Saturdays and 08:30 on Sundays, with the last departures around 00:30.
- Step two. Intercity train from Eindhoven Centraal to Amsterdam Centraal. About 1 hour 20 minutes, around €25.60 in 2026, with several departures an hour during the day.
- Total. Roughly two hours and €28–31, assuming the connection is clean. Add a margin — the bus is a bus and it sits in traffic.
There is also a direct coach service to Amsterdam at around €25, but it takes 2 hours 40 minutes, which makes it a saving of a few euros for forty minutes of your life. Take the train unless the coach happens to align perfectly with your flight. A taxi is roughly €120 and about 1 hour 30 minutes — only defensible if you are a group of four and the bus has stopped running.
The late-arrival trap
Budget airlines love a 22:30 arrival slot, and Eindhoven has plenty of them. If your flight is 90 minutes late — which happens — you land at midnight, the last bus leaves around 00:30, and one missed connection leaves you with a taxi or a hotel in Eindhoven you did not plan to book.
The rule we would apply: if a flight into Eindhoven lands after about 22:00 and saves you less than €60 per person against a Schiphol fare, take the Schiphol flight. The saving is real, but it is smaller than the cost of the failure mode, and it does not account for the two hours you spend in transit at either end. Our page on night transport in and around Amsterdam covers what runs after midnight once you do get north.
Is Eindhoven worth a stop in its own right?
Briefly, and honestly: for most visitors, no. Eindhoven is a design and technology city — the Philips legacy, Dutch Design Week in October, the Van Abbemuseum for modern art, and the Strijp-S district where the old Philips factories have become studios and bars. It is genuinely interesting if those things interest you. It is not a canal-and-gables Dutch city, and if you have four days in the Netherlands and have never been, it should not be one of them. Spend the time in Amsterdam and take a day trip to somewhere denser.
Rotterdam The Hague Airport: the better of the two
Rotterdam The Hague (RTM) is the third busiest Dutch airport and sits just 6 km from Rotterdam city centre. It is a low-cost base, with Transavia and Vueling prominent among the carriers. The terminal is small enough that “arrivals hall” is arguably an overstatement.
Getting out is straightforward, and you have a choice:
- Bus 33 to Rotterdam Centraal. RET city bus 33 runs directly between the airport and Rotterdam Centraal in about 20 minutes, up to six times an hour, for around €5.50 single. Simple, and it puts you at a major intercity station.
- Bus 33 to Meijersplein metro. Five minutes on the bus, then metro line E — seven minutes to Rotterdam Centraal, or about 25 minutes to The Hague. Marginally faster to Rotterdam and much better if The Hague is your destination.
- On to Amsterdam. Intercity from Rotterdam Centraal to Amsterdam Centraal, roughly 40 minutes on the fast services. Check the fare in the NS app or on ns.nl before you travel.
Total to Amsterdam: the bus fare plus the intercity ticket, and roughly an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, which is an acceptable penalty. If a Rotterdam fare undercuts a Schiphol fare by €30 or more, take it without much soul-searching.
The case for not going to Amsterdam at all
Landing at RTM and immediately boarding a train to Amsterdam is a slightly odd thing to do, because you are already in one of the more interesting cities in the country. Rotterdam is the anti-Amsterdam: flattened in 1940 and rebuilt without nostalgia, so you get the Cube Houses, the Markthal, the Erasmus Bridge and an actual skyline instead of gables. If your trip has any flexibility, a night in Rotterdam at the start or end costs you nothing in transit and gives you a genuinely different city. Our Rotterdam day trip guide covers what is worth the time, and the same logic applies from the other direction.
The Hague is 25 minutes away on the metro and has the Mauritshuis, the government quarter and a beach at Scheveningen — see our guide to The Hague and Scheveningen. Delft, with the Vermeer connection and the blue pottery, sits between the two; we cover it in our Delft day trip page. All three are more convenient from Rotterdam than from Amsterdam, which is worth knowing before you build an itinerary that treats Amsterdam as the only possible base.
Tickets, OVpay and not overpaying
Dutch public transport has largely moved to OVpay contactless: tap a bank card or phone on the way in and on the way out, and the correct fare is charged. It works on NS trains, on RET buses and metro in Rotterdam, and on Hermes buses around Eindhoven. For a visitor making a handful of journeys, this is almost always the right approach — no card to buy, no deposit, no top-up.
Two things to watch. First, you must tap out as well as in; forgetting costs you the maximum fare for the line. Second, trains and city transport are separate taps even when you change at the same station, so tap out of the bus and into the train. Our OV-chipkaart and OVpay guide goes through the mechanics, and our public transport guide for tourists covers what happens once you reach Amsterdam.
One thing not to buy: the pre-packaged “airport transfer” tickets sold on booking platforms for these routes. They bundle the bus and train legs at a small premium for the convenience of not thinking about it. If you can tap a contactless card you do not need them, and the flexibility of buying nothing in advance is worth more than the packaging when your flight is late.
What the terminals are actually like
Expectations matter here, because both airports are small in a way that cuts both ways.
Eindhoven
A single compact terminal, glass-fronted, with the check-in desks, security and the gates all within a couple of minutes of each other. Arrivals is fast — bags appear quickly and the walk from the aircraft to the bus stop is short. Departures is where it gets uncomfortable: the airport handles nearly seven million passengers a year through that one compact building. The airport’s own advice is to arrive two hours before a European departure, and unlike at some airports that is not padding. The seating airside is limited, the food and drink options are a handful of chains, and there is no meaningful shopping. Bring a book and low expectations.
Parking is cheap by Dutch standards, which is why a lot of Belgian and German passengers drive in. That also means the roads around the terminal are busier than the passenger numbers suggest at changeover times on a Friday and Sunday.
Rotterdam The Hague
Smaller again, and pleasantly so. Under three million passengers a year through a terminal you can cross in ninety seconds. There is a modest café offering and not much else.
The trade-off is fragility. A small airport with few gates has no slack: one delayed aircraft or one weather event and the knock-on is immediate, because there is nowhere to absorb it. Neither airport has the spare capacity that lets Schiphol reshuffle a bad morning, and neither has a meaningful choice of alternative flights if yours is cancelled — you will be waiting for the next one on the same route, which might be tomorrow. That risk is not visible in the fare, and it is the strongest argument for paying the Schiphol premium when your trip has a fixed end.
Which airport should you actually fly into?
A decision that takes thirty seconds if you are honest about the numbers.
- Schiphol if the fare difference is under about €30 per person, if you are arriving late, if you have children or heavy bags, or if you value the 15-minute train into the city. Nothing else in the country competes on convenience.
- Rotterdam The Hague if it saves you €30 or more, or if any part of your trip involves Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft or the coast. A good airport with a genuinely short run into a city worth being in.
- Eindhoven if it saves you €60 or more per person, lands before about 22:00, and you are travelling light. Otherwise the two hours and the bus timetable eat the saving.
- Not before 19 July 2027 for Eindhoven at all, because the airport is closed from 1 February that year.
One more factor that people underweight: the return leg. An early-morning flight out of Eindhoven means leaving Amsterdam in the middle of the night, so check what NS trains and the airport bus actually run at that hour before you commit. The fallback is a taxi, a night in Eindhoven, or a very grim night bus itinerary. Check both directions before you book, not just the outbound. If it comes to it, our guides to sleeping at an airport and airport hotels are written for Schiphol but the logic transfers.
The baggage arithmetic nobody does
Both of these airports are dominated by carriers that price hand luggage aggressively, and the headline fare you are comparing against Schiphol frequently does not include a bag that goes in the overhead locker. Budget fares typically include only a small item under the seat; anything larger costs extra, and the fee varies by airline, route and how late you buy it, so check the airline’s current bag fees. Add the bag fees for everyone in your party, both ways, before deciding which fare is actually cheaper.
Do the comparison on the total, with bags, both directions, at the same time of day, and include the transfer at the far end. A surprising share of “budget airport” savings evaporate at that point, and the remaining ones are usually genuine. There is nothing wrong with flying into Eindhoven for €35 all-in when the Schiphol alternative is €140 — that is a real saving and the two extra hours are worth it. The problem is only ever the marginal case dressed up as a bargain. Our Amsterdam trip cost breakdown puts these numbers alongside what the rest of a trip costs, which is the right frame for the decision.
Other airports you may see quoted
Two more names sometimes appear in search results and deserve a sentence each.
Lelystad Airport, about 60 km northeast of Amsterdam, has been “about to open to commercial traffic” for the better part of a decade and is now targeting October 2027 for leisure flights, subject to a nature permit. Until it actually does, treat any itinerary routed through it as speculative.
Groningen Eelde and Maastricht Aachen exist and handle a trickle of scheduled traffic, but neither is a sensible way into Amsterdam — you would be looking at three hours or more on the train. If a search engine offers you one for a large saving, check the transfer time before you believe the price. Maastricht is, however, a genuinely lovely city in its own right, and a fine place to end a trip rather than start one.
Keep Exploring
- Schiphol Airport Complete Guide
- Schiphol Airport to Amsterdam: All Transfer Options
- Schiphol Terminals, Piers & Connecting Flights
- Rotterdam Day Trip from Amsterdam
- The Hague & Scheveningen Beach Day Trip
- Delft Day Trip from Amsterdam
- Day Trips from Amsterdam
- OV-chipkaart & OVpay Guide
- Amsterdam Public Transport for Tourists
- Amsterdam Night Transport Guide
- Amsterdam Trip Cost & Budget Breakdown
- Amsterdam Trip Planning Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you get from Eindhoven Airport to Amsterdam?
There is no direct train. Take Hermes bus 400 or 401 from outside the terminal to Eindhoven Centraal — just over 25 minutes, about €5.15 — then an intercity train to Amsterdam Centraal, about 1 hour 20 minutes and around €25.60. Total roughly two hours and €28–31.
Is Eindhoven Airport closing?
Yes, temporarily. Eindhoven Airport is scheduled to close entirely from 1 February to 19 July 2027 for runway renovation, a Category III ILS installation and terminal expansion. Transavia and TUI fly are the most affected carriers. Check directly with your airline before booking anything in that window.
How far is Rotterdam The Hague Airport from Amsterdam?
About 60 km. Bus 33 takes you to Rotterdam Centraal in around 20 minutes for about €5.50, and an intercity train covers Rotterdam to Amsterdam Centraal at the standard NS fare. Allow roughly an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, plus the bus and train fares.
Which is better, Eindhoven or Rotterdam, for reaching Amsterdam?
Rotterdam, clearly. It is half the distance, costs slightly less, takes about 45 minutes less, and drops you in a city worth visiting. Eindhoven only makes sense when the fare saving is substantial and your flight lands at a civilised hour.
What time does the last bus leave Eindhoven Airport?
Bus 400/401 runs until around 00:30. First departures are about 06:00 on weekdays, 07:30 on Saturdays and 08:30 on Sundays. A delayed late-evening flight can leave you without a bus, and a taxi to Amsterdam is around €120.
Can I use a contactless card on these routes?
Yes. OVpay contactless works on NS trains, RET buses and metro in Rotterdam, and Hermes buses around Eindhoven. Tap in and tap out on every leg, and remember that bus and train are separate taps even when you change at the same station.
Do any airlines fly to Amsterdam from Lelystad?
Not yet. Lelystad Airport is being prepared for holiday flights from October 2027, but only once a nature permit is granted, and it has been repeatedly delayed. It sits about 60 km northeast of Amsterdam. Treat any itinerary through it as provisional until flights are actually operating.
Are the packaged airport transfer tickets worth buying?
Generally not. They bundle the bus and train legs at a small premium for convenience. If you can tap a contactless bank card you do not need them, and buying nothing in advance leaves you flexible if your flight is delayed.