How do I get from the airport into Taipei?
Short answer
The Airport MRT. One line, two kinds of train — take the Express, not the Commuter, and it runs straight to Taipei Main Station.
One line, two trains
The Airport MRT connects both airport terminals to Taipei Main Station, and every train on it is one of two kinds. The Express runs the airport run with only a handful of stops — Taipei Main, New Taipei Industrial Park, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, then the terminals. The Commuter stops everywhere.
Both leave from the same platforms, so the thing to check before boarding is which type is pulling in, not which line.
How often, and how to read the platform
Each type runs every 15 minutes, staggered against the other — so from Taipei Main Station a train of one kind or the other leaves roughly every seven minutes. Missing an Express is a short wait, not a problem.
The two terminals are separate stations a stop apart. Check which terminal your airline uses before you tap out; walking between them with luggage is the version of this trip nobody enjoys.
Why not a taxi
The airport sits in Taoyuan, well outside Taipei, so the road trip is long enough that the train wins on predictability. Traffic into the city at the wrong hour costs more time than any gap between Express departures.
If your destination is not near Taipei Main Station, ride the MRT in and change to the city metro — the transfer is inside the station complex.
Good to know
- Express and Commuter share platforms — check the train type, not the line
- The two airport terminals are separate stations
By train, nearly always. Which train depends on the airport and on which side of the city you are sleeping.
Rail, in every case. Each major airport has a dedicated line, and the ordinary metro is always the cheap way in.
From Suvarnabhumi, the Airport Rail Link on floor B1 — or a metered taxi, which adds a THB 50 airport surcharge on top of the meter.
Metered taxi or a city bus, and the answer scales with the city: Hanoi's airport is far, Saigon's is close but slow, Danang's is practically downtown.
Train, bus or taxi. The airport railroad runs from both terminals into central Seoul and is the cheapest of the three.