Zürich / Zurich to Paris by train

How to take the rail journey from Zurich to Paris

Direct high speed trains mean that travelling by rail from Zurich to Paris is a very straightforward journey.

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Routes

From Zürich HB / Zurich main station to Paris Gare de Lyon/Paris Lyon

Travel Information

Final Destination: Paris

All trains also call at: Mulhouse-Ville

Most trains also call at: Dijon-Ville

At Zurich HB these trains will depart from gleis (platforms/tracks) 3 - 18, which are directly linked to the street level concourse.

5 x trains per day

Tickets

Book early and save: Yes

Online bookings usually open: up to 6 months ahead of the travel date

If tickets aren't on sale yet for your travel date, then this is a journey for which it's worth signing up to the ticket availability notification service on SNCF Connect.
Do that and you'll receive an email within moments of the tickets being released for sale.
It's worth doing, as this is a journey on which the very cheapest tickets tend to sell out particularly fast.

Trains departing at different times can be cheaper than others leaving on the same day, so you may need to look through the day's departures to find the cheapest fares.
There can be particularly big discrepancies per train on this route.

Seats will automatically be assigned when booking tickets for this journey.

Using rail passes

If you will be travelling with a Eurail or InterRail pass you can make significant savings on the rail pass reservation fees, by instead:

  1. Taking an express train from Zurich to Basel SBB
  2. Connecting into a TER train on to Mulhouse or Strasbourg
  3. Taking a TGV train from Mulhouse or Strasbourg to Paris.
    You will need to pay a €10 reservation fee for those TGV trains, but avoid having to pay a booking fee by not purchasing then at Swiss stations.
Where to book
Ticket Provider Approximate Cost
SNCF Connect from €29

SNCF Connect Guide

SNCF is the national rail operator in France and not so long ago it recently simplified both the range of tickets and the term and conditions of using them.
Therefore the cheapest tickets also become more flexible too.

Other improvements included a simple integration of travelling with bicycles and rail pass users being able to book reservations for national journeys, without paying booking fees.

And it also recently launched SNCF Connect as replacement for its Oui.SNCF booking service.
You can set up a low price alert to let you know when the cheapest price is available for a future journey.

Something else to look out for is that simplest way of travelling with tickets is to use the SNCF Connect App, as booked tickets can therefore be stored on your mobile device, which can then be shown to the train conductors as proof of purchase.

SNCF Connect on Google Play

SNCF Connect in the App (Apple) store

SNCF also operates RailEurope, which is in effect a dedicated online booking service for making bookings from outside of Europe.
If you reside outside of Europe you may discover that SNCF Connect rejects phone numbers or card numbers, but RailEurope won't do so.
Though RailEurope will add booking fees when making a purchase

Trainline from €29

Trainline Guide

Save A Train from €29

Save A Train Guide

Omio from €29

Omio Guide

Omio is an online ticket agency which offers tickets for rail journeys in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain.

The three key advantages of using Omio are

  • it offers prices in multiple currencies
  • it usually offers price comparison with other modes of travel including flights and buses
  • when visiting Europe, you can book journeys in multiple countries in one transaction.

The disadvantage of booking with Omio is that it often adds a booking fee to the final price; therefore when it does so without offering a price advantage, SMTJ doesn't tend to offer Omio as a booking option.

Rail Europe from €29

On this journey

Journey Features

Scenic - NoHigh Speed (partial journey)

Good to Know

When travelling to cities north of Paris you will need to transfer across the French capital in order to catch trains from Paris Nord.

Though if you will be travelling from Zurich to the The Netherlands there is one ICE train per day that takes a Basel – Koln/Cologne – Utrecht – Amsterdam route; so connecting into this train at Basel SBB station is a much easier option than making the cross-Paris transfer.

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