What Berlin costs

What a day in Berlin costs depends mostly on the room, because much of what people come for is free: the memorials, what is left of the Wall, the Reichstag dome and the parks charge nothing.

The three budgets below are per person per day and assume you travel as a pair — half a double room, half a restaurant bill. Trade fairs and the Berlinale push room rates up, so for those dates work from the top of each range.

One rule that's worth more in Berlin than any discount: if a money-saving tip predates 2025, check it. Museum Sunday, when more than eighty Berlin museums opened without a ticket on the first Sunday of the month, ran for the last time on 1 December 2024 — the city cut its funding — and it is still being copied across forums and older guidebooks.

Budget — about €56 a day

A dorm bed, food from an imbiss, two journeys a day and memorials that charge nothing. In Berlin this budget doesn't mean missing the city: days one and three of the three-day plan cost exactly zero in admissions.

Where to stayRoom rates drop fifty euros two stops down the line:Where to stay in Berlin →

Mid-range — about €132 a day

Half a double room in a decent hotel or flat, one proper restaurant a day, a day pass and one museum.

3 daysFirst time in Berlin and not sure where to start?Berlin in 3 days →

Comfortable — about €268 a day

A four-star hotel in Mitte or Charlottenburg, breakfast outside the hotel, dinner with wine and a taxi when waiting isn't an option.

Day tripsOne day out of town changes the budget too:Day trips from Berlin →

BVG tickets — which one pays when

The day pass pays from — three journeys a day

Where the money actually goes

• A taxi from the airport. BER to Mitte is €60–70 on the meter and 40–50 minutes; the same trip by train is €5 and about thirty minutes.
• Singles instead of a day pass. Three singles already cost more than the day pass (€11.20), and distances here mean you rarely make fewer than three journeys.
• The €60 fine. There are no barriers, so you validate your own ticket: paper goes into the machine on the platform before you board, and into the machine on a bus or tram as you get on. Inspectors work in plain clothes and in groups.
• A ticket you already hold. The ancient Pergamon panorama is included in the €24 Museum Island ticket, and plenty of people buy it separately at the door.
• Bottled water. Berlin tap water is drinkable and the city has public drinking fountains, so a shop bottle with its deposit isn't needed.

Hidden gemsThe best things in Berlin have no ticket anyway:Berlin with an address: a listening station and a river pool →

What is free

• The Reichstag dome — with advance registration, audio guide included, not a euro.
• The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Place of Information beneath it.
• The Topography of Terror, Niederkirchnerstrasse 8 — the exhibition and a surviving stretch of Wall along the street.
• The Bernauer Strasse memorial and the East Side Gallery, both outdoors.
• Tempelhofer Feld, the Tiergarten, Mauerpark and the park around Charlottenburg Palace.
• Sachsenhausen at Oranienburg — the memorial and its museums charge nothing; you only pay the fare.
• The Hackesche Höfe and the galleries along Auguststrasse, which you walk into without a ticket.
• Children and young people under 18 enter every state museum free, Museum Island included.

Tax, tipping, cards and the deposit

The city tax is 7.5% of the net room rate (excluding breakfast and VAT) and is usually paid at reception, outside your booking total — on a hundred-euro room that's about seven euros a night. Tips are rounded up by five to ten per cent and said out loud to the waiter as you pay ('twenty-five' on a €22.80 bill), not left on the table afterwards. Cards work in hotels, department stores and most restaurants, but Spätis, imbiss stands, flea markets, many bars and clubs take cash only. And finally the deposit on every drink from a Späti: cans and plastic bottles carry €0.25, glass beer bottles €0.08, and the machine in any supermarket gives you a slip that comes off your bill — which is why empty bottles in Berlin get left beside the bin rather than in it.

GuideHow many days does Berlin actually need?Berlin →