Nice Airport to Monaco in 2026: Costs and Times for 5 Options

The cheapest way from Nice Airport to Monaco is the free tram to Nice Saint-Augustin plus a TER train: SNCF advance fares start around €5, and this page budgets about 45 minutes door to station. Line 80 is the direct public-transport option at €21.40. A taxi from the airport rank to Monaco is a fixed €95 set by prefectural order — not a meter, and not a daytime figure. A private car is our own estimate of €75–€95, and the helicopter's base fare is capped at €195. The five options are priced on different bases, which is what the rest of this page unpicks. Prices verified 31 August 2026.

The five ways across, side by side

• Train — from about €5, roughly 45 minutes in total including the free tram leg. Cheapest, but you finish at Monaco-Monte-Carlo station with your luggage.
• Express bus, line 80 — €21.40, about an hour, every 30 minutes to and from Monaco.
• Taxi — €95 fixed by prefectural order, any hour of the day, 30–43 minutes by road, for the car rather than per person.
• Private transfer — our route-page estimate is €75–€95 for a business saloon, agreed before you travel.
• Helicopter — base fare capped at €195 including tax, seven minutes in the air.

Time basis: the train figure is our door-to-station budget including the tram leg and a typical wait; the bus figure is the ride from the airport to a Monaco stop; the taxi and private-transfer figures are the same estimated road time for the 25 km; the helicopter's seven minutes is airborne time only, and excludes check-in at both ends and the leg from the Fontvieille heliport to your final address. That is four different bases of measurement across the five options, so treat the list as a price comparison first and a speed comparison second.

Which option fits your arrival?

• Travelling light, watching the budget: the train, at roughly €5–€7 all in.
• One or two people with normal luggage: line 80, at €21.40 each, with no change of vehicle.
• Three or four people, or heavy luggage: compare the arithmetic below — four bus tickets come to €85.60, against €95 for a taxi that takes the whole party and the bags.
• A late landing, a child seat, or a hotel that is hard to reach on foot: a car booked in advance, because the price and the meeting point are settled before you fly.

The train: cheapest by a distance, if your luggage cooperates

There is no rail station in either terminal. Take tram line 2 to Grand Arénas — the airport publishes this leg as free between Terminal 2, Terminal 1 and Grand Arénas — then leave the tram and follow the SNCF signs on foot to Nice Saint-Augustin station. It is a separate walking transfer between two buildings, not a change of platform, and it is the part of this route that luggage makes awkward.

From Saint-Augustin the coastal TER line runs east to Monaco-Monte-Carlo in a little over 20 minutes, and SNCF advance fares start around €5. Adding the tram leg and a typical wait, budget about 45 minutes in total and €5–€7. Two caveats decide whether that is worth it: not every TER service calls at Saint-Augustin, so filter the SNCF timetable for the ones that do rather than assuming any eastbound train will stop; and Monaco-Monte-Carlo station is built into the rock, which means lifts, long tunnels and a further walk or taxi to your hotel.

If you are travelling with a wheelchair, a stroller or heavy cases, check the current step-free status of the Grand Arénas–Saint-Augustin transfer and of the Monaco station exit nearest your hotel before you commit to this route. With hand luggage it is the best value on this list. With three suitcases and a child it is not.

The express bus everyone still calls 110 is now line 80

The airport express to Monaco and Menton has been renumbered. Guides, forums and hotel concierges still say "the 110"; the service now runs as ZOU! NiceAirportXpress line 80, and looking for the old number is how people end up at the wrong stand.

What the operator publishes for line 80 (niceairportxpress.com, checked 31 August 2026):

• €21.40 for a single ticket.
• 47 trips a day on the line, with departures every 30 minutes to and from Monaco.
• Departures from the Terminal 2 bus station; the Terminal 1 stop has been served since April 2024.
• Several stops inside Monaco, including Grimaldi Forum, Monte-Carlo (Casino), Sainte-Dévote Gare and Place d'Armes — so check which is nearest your hotel rather than riding to the end.
• All-electric coaches with WiFi and USB sockets.

A single ticket costs €21.40. Both the operator and the airport publish a €0.40 surcharge on tickets bought from the driver, which makes that channel €21.80. The operator also invites you to tap a bank card on the on-board validator instead of buying ahead, but does not state whether a tap counts as a driver purchase, so budget €21.80 if the difference matters to you. The operator's published luggage policy is the other thing to check before choosing the bus over a car — it governs how many bags travel free.

The taxi: €95 fixed by the prefecture, not a meter reading

Taxi fares in the Alpes-Maritimes are set by prefectural order, and the current one is arrêté n° 2026-051 of 15 January 2026, published in the department's official record on 19 January 2026. Article 16 fixes the flat fare for journeys "depuis l'aéroport de Nice Côte d'Azur et à destination de la Principauté de Monaco" at €95 for Nice taxis — alongside €85 to Cannes and €32 into central Nice.

What matters more than the number is Article 17, which governs what may be added to it. The price "est déterminé avant la prestation et ne peut excéder les montants fixés" — set before you travel, and not to be exceeded. Exactly two things may be added: waiting time you ask for (Article 19) and a booking supplement of €4 for a Nice taxi ordered in advance rather than taken at the rank (Article 18). The order then closes the door in as many words: "l'ajout de tout autre supplément étant formellement interdit" — adding any other supplement is formally forbidden.

So, for the airport-to-Monaco run:

• There is no night rate on this journey. The order sets one figure, with no daytime or night-time variant. The department's night tariff (18:00–09:00, Sundays and public holidays) and its per-kilometre rates apply to metered journeys, not to a flat-fare one.
• Luggage is not extra. The €2-per-bag and fifth-passenger supplements sit in the metered part of the order and cannot be added to the flat fare.
• The A8 toll is not extra either, for the same reason.
• €95 is for the car, not per passenger, up to the vehicle's capacity.
• Card payment cannot be refused whatever the amount (Article 12).
• One thing does void the flat fare: under Article 17 II, if you ask the driver for a stop or a detour of your own choosing, the journey reverts to the meter.

This is worth knowing before you join the rank, because published quotes for this route disagree with the order. Taxi Nice Riviera publishes the airport–Monaco run at €85–€95 by day and €100–€110 at night, night being 18:00–09:00 plus Sundays and public holidays (checked 31 August 2026); a night figure above €99 — the flat fare plus the booking supplement — is either a private-hire (VTC) price, which is not regulated by this order, or more than a Nice taxi may charge you. Ask for the flat fare by name, and ask for the printed receipt, which is compulsory at or above €25. We look at the wider pattern in hidden airport taxi fees.

The private transfer, and when the arithmetic favours it

A pre-booked car covers the same 25 km door to door. The range we publish for it — €75–€95 for a business saloon, 30–43 minutes — is our own estimate, produced by the calculator behind our Nice to Monaco route page from the road distance and vehicle class, and deliberately set on the high side so that live offers tend to come in at or below it. It is an editorial estimate, not a price list, and not a quote: the actual number comes from the offers you receive.

What a booked car adds over the rank is not speed but certainty, and it is worth pinning down in writing before you pay. Confirm whether the quote includes flight monitoring, how much waiting time is included after landing, the terminal and the exact arrivals-hall meeting point, how the driver will identify you, and the fallback contact if you do not find each other. If you need a child seat, give the child's age and size when you request the car and accept only a booking that confirms the seat — nothing on this page establishes that a taxi at the rank will have one.

The arithmetic against the bus is straightforward, because bus tickets scale with the party and the taxi flat fare does not. One to three travellers pay less by bus: €21.40, €42.80 or €64.20. At four, €85.60 in bus fares is within €10 of the €95 flat-fare taxi that takes the whole party and the luggage in one vehicle. A private transfer's estimated €75–€95 sits alongside that taxi fare rather than above it, so the choice between the two is about the meeting point and the fixed quote, not about price. A car may earn its premium earlier than four people for luggage or door-to-door access — but it is not automatically the cheapest option after a certain hour, and nothing here establishes 22:00 as the moment that changes.

The helicopter, and what the August order actually changed

The seven-minute hop from Nice to the Fontvieille heliport ran under a Monacair service convention signed on 5 August 2015. That exclusivity ended on 31 December 2025. A memorandum of understanding between the French and Monegasque aviation authorities, signed 3 June 2026, then gave each side the right to designate two carriers on the route from 31 July 2026.

Monaco used that right in Arrêté Ministériel n° 2026-457 of 7 August 2026, published in the Journal de Monaco of 14 August 2026 (issue 8812). English-language coverage of the change appeared later in August; the order itself is dated the 7th and was published on the 14th. What it fixes, and what it leaves open:

• Monacair and Héli Air Monaco are both authorised to operate the scheduled Fontvieille–Nice link.
• Base ticket prices are limited to €195 including tax. Operators may charge less; they may not exceed it.
• Both must run a scheduled service seven days a week with published times — but the order sets no minimum number of daily rotations, so frequency is a commercial decision.
• Aircraft must be EASA-certified, hold a noise-limitation certificate and be fitted out for VIP passengers.
• The authorisations expire on 31 December 2026. How the route runs from 2027 has not been decided.

If your travel falls in 2027, do not assume today's timetable or price ceiling survives the changeover.

Late arrivals and practical constraints

• Line 80 is not an overnight service, and TER trains thin out after midnight. Compare your scheduled landing time against the operators' dated timetables before you rely on either; a delayed flight can leave you with only the road options.
• Monaco is a separate country, but there are no border formalities arriving from France — no passport check on the A8 or at the station.
• The euro is the currency, and a taxi ordered inside Monaco is a Monegasque taxi, priced under Monaco's own rules rather than the Alpes-Maritimes order above.
• The A8 is tolled between the airport and the Monaco exits. It is inside the €95 taxi flat fare and inside a fixed private fare; it is added only to a metered journey.

Monaco Yacht Show and Grand Prix: access changes

Two events re-route the Riviera corridor, and one of them is imminent. The Monaco Yacht Show runs 23–26 September 2026 at Port Hercule, with the Wednesday reserved for invited guests; expect the coast road, the taxi rank and the heliport to be saturated on the Tuesday and Wednesday, and hotel prices in Monaco to follow. The Grand Prix weekend in late May closes the streets that become the circuit, which changes where a car can physically set you down.

For both, ask your hotel to confirm its event-week vehicle access point and send that location to the driver; street closures may make the official address unreachable by car.

Whichever you choose, decide before you land. Licensed drivers send fixed-price offers on GetTransfer, so the fare, the vehicle and the meeting point are settled while you are still at the gate.