Getting from Malaga Airport to Your Resort

We landed at Malaga once at half eleven at night, walked out to the taxi rank and found about forty people ahead of us in the queue. Fifty minutes we stood there. I have never made that mistake again, and if you are arriving on a late flight in July or August, neither should you.

There are four ways out of the airport: the C1 train, the bus, a taxi, or a private transfer you book before you fly. Which one suits you comes down to how many of you there are, how much luggage you have, and how close your hotel sits to a station. I have used all four, some of them badly.

Prices below were checked in August 2026. Spanish taxi tariffs are set by the city and change most years, so treat the taxi figures as close rather than exact.

The C1 train, if you are heading down the coast

The station is underground, below terminal 3, down the escalators and signposted once you are through arrivals. Trains run every 20 minutes or so, and a single to Fuengirola costs €2.80 and takes about 34 minutes. Into Malaga Centro-Alameda it is closer to 12 minutes.

It stops at Torremolinos and at Arroyo de la Miel for Benalmadena on the way down, which covers a good share of the package hotels on this stretch of coast. If your hotel is in one of those towns and you are travelling light, the train is the obvious answer and nothing else comes close on price.

Here is the catch, and it is the one that caught us out. The train does not run all night. The first service from the airport is around 06:43 and the last leaves shortly after midnight, so a delayed evening flight can put you on the wrong side of it with no train at all.

If you are going to be hopping about on the Cercanias during your stay, buy a bonobus ticket instead of singles. Ten rides costs around €17, which is roughly €11 cheaper than buying them one at a time. I wish somebody had told me that on our first trip rather than our fourth. Timetables are on Renfe's website, which has an English version.

The bus, and where to actually buy the ticket

The stop is right outside the arrivals hall at the side of the road. The Line A Express runs into Malaga city and drops you at Paseo del Parque in about 20 minutes for €4, luggage included, roughly every 20 to 30 minutes from around 07:00 until midnight.

For Marbella, Avanza runs a direct coach from the airport to the bus station for about €8, taking around 45 minutes. There are also services to Benalmadena, Fuengirola and Torremolinos, and the frequency drops noticeably in winter.

Buy your ticket at the office in the arrivals hall rather than online. The booking site is genuinely fiddly and I have watched people give up on it at the gate. The buses also drop you in the centre of town rather than at your door, so if you are staying out along the coast you are still paying for a taxi at the other end. Full routes and times are on Avanza's site.

The taxi, and the thing nobody tells you about car seats

The rank is directly outside arrivals and the cars are white with an orange stripe, lit up when they are free. Malaga airport taxis are metered rather than fixed price, so ask the driver for an estimate to your address before you get in.

There is a €5.50 airport supplement added before you have moved an inch. Weekdays between 06:00 and 22:00 the meter starts at €1.55 and runs at €0.88 a kilometre, with a minimum fare from the airport of €15.21. Nights, weekends and public holidays it starts at €1.89 and runs at €1.07, minimum €19.01. Large cases are about €0.58 each.

In practice that puts Malaga centre at roughly €20 to €25 in the daytime, Fuengirola at about €36, and Marbella at about €73. A taxi carries four passengers maximum, children included, so a family of five needs two cars and the sums stop working quickly.

Now the part worth knowing before you land. Spanish taxis are not required by law to carry child car seats and almost none of them do, because a fitted seat costs the driver an adult fare for the rest of the day. When Rosie was small I assumed a taxi would sort us out and it very much did not. If you are travelling with a toddler, book a transfer with a seat rather than finding out at the rank.

A private transfer, and when it is actually worth it

A driver meets you inside arrivals with your name on a board, which on a late arrival with tired children is worth more than the money you save standing in a queue. Most companies include child and booster seats free if you ask at the time of booking, and the same goes for golf clubs, oversized luggage and wheelchair ramps.

Say it at booking, not on the day. The driver is allocated a vehicle in advance and nobody is going back for a booster seat at 1am.

Five or more of you and a transfer usually beats splitting into multiple taxis, both on cost and on hassle. Two of you travelling light to a hotel near a station, and it is money you do not need to spend, whatever the transfer companies tell you. You can compare airport transfer options and prices for your dates if you would rather have it arranged before you fly.

So which one should you book?

If your hotel is in Torremolinos, Benalmadena or Fuengirola and there are one or two of you, take the train. If you are landing after midnight, do not plan around it.

One last thing for the trip home. Whatever you use to get to your hotel, work out the return before your last morning. The train from Fuengirola takes 34 minutes and the coach from Marbella around 45, and neither of them cares that your flight is at 07:00. More on getting around once you are here in our Malaga guide. If you would rather drive yourself, hiring a car at the airport covers the fuel policies and excess terms that decide what you pay.