🇫🇷 Paris · Getting around
Transport and the shape of the city in Paris
A dense metro, one Navigo pass covering the whole region, and a city that has spent a decade removing space from cars.
The thing people get wrongThe Navigo Mois is now zone-free across the entire Île-de-France region, so living further out no longer costs you more to travel. That single change makes the outer arrondissements and the inner suburbs a genuinely different proposition from what older guides describe.
The Navigo pass
One card covers the métro, RER, buses, trams and Transilien trains across the whole region on a single flat-rate monthly or annual pass. The monthly Navigo runs on the calendar month rather than from the day you buy it, so buying on the 25th is money thrown away. Navigo Easy is the rechargeable card for occasional single journeys, and students and under-26s have their own heavily discounted formulas.
- Navigo Mois: flat rate, all zones, calendar month — buy from the 20th for the following month.
- Navigo Annuel spreads the cost monthly and works out cheaper over a year.
- Imagine R is the student and youth formula and is substantially reduced.
- Employers are legally required to reimburse half the cost of a transport pass for commuting.
Métro, RER and Transilien
Fourteen métro lines make almost everything inside the Périphérique reachable within a short walk of a station, and line 14 is automated and fast north to south. The RER lines cross the region and are much quicker over distance but far more prone to disruption, and Transilien serves the wider suburbs from the mainline terminals. The Grand Paris Express extension programme is progressively adding orbital lines around the city, which is steadily changing which suburbs are worth living in.
- Métro stations are dense; the RER is faster but the stations are far apart.
- Check whether a given RER station is served by all trains — many are skipped by fast services.
- Line 1 and line 14 are the fastest cross-city routes; line 13 is the one people warn about.
Cycling, walking and driving
Paris has built a large segregated cycle network and Vélib' remains the default bike-share, with both electric and mechanical bikes. Driving in the centre has become deliberately difficult: a low-emission zone governed by Crit'Air vignettes, reduced speed limits, fewer lanes and reduced parking, with residents' permits tied to your address. For most people living inside the Périphérique, a car is a liability rather than an asset.
- A Crit'Air vignette is required for the low-emission zone and is based on the vehicle's age and fuel.
- Resident parking permits are issued by the mairie and tied to your registered address.
- Vélib' subscriptions are cheap; electric bikes cost a supplement per trip.
The airports and the mainline stations
Charles de Gaulle is reached by RER B and by the Roissybus, and Orly by the Orlyval shuttle onto RER B and by métro line 14, which now runs there directly. Both airports also have fixed-fare taxi rates to and from Paris, split between the Right and Left Banks, which removes the usual negotiation. The six mainline stations put most of France within a few hours by TGV, and Gare du Nord handles Eurostar.
- CDG: RER B, around 35 to 50 minutes depending on the terminal and the service.
- Orly: métro line 14 direct, or Orlyval onto RER B.
- Taxi fares to both airports are fixed flat rates, set by Right Bank or Left Bank destination.
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