Train travel from France to Spain: Everything you need to know

There are four rail routes that cross the border between Spain and France, scattered from the Mediterranean to the Basque coast, all varying in time and cost.

Let’s start with the major ones. French railway operator SNCF offers services from Paris Gare de Lyon - via Valence, Nîmes, Montpellier, Sète, Agde, Béziers, Narbonne, and Perpignan - to Barcelona, stopping at Figueres and Girona in Spain before reaching the Catalan capital.

There are currently two high-speed trains per day in each direction between Paris and Barcelona.

Meanwhile, Spain's state-owned rail network Renfe is to begin running high-speed AVE services between France and Spain, according to Spanish Transport Minister Raquel Sánchez. Routes planned to open this summer are Madrid-Marseille and Barcelona-Lyon, while a Madrid-Paris is planned by the end of the year.

Renfe’s high-speed trains will initially run between Madrid and Marseille and between Barcelona and Lyon on alternate days, with six weekly return trips on each route.

As the services ramp up, they will then run twice a day, with Renfe aiming for 28 services a week between the two routes.

Further down the line - see what we did, there? - Italy's Trenitalia is planning to launch a service that connects Paris and Madrid by the end of 2024 - creating a service between the French capital and Barcelona, and linking with its already existing high-speed service between the Spanish cities.

Most of the remaining routes are via regional trains. 

Cerbère to Port Bou

This route runs along the Mediterranean coastline, between the two small border towns - the travel time between the two stations is just 11 minutes and runs every two hours. Single tickets cost just €1.20.

Local TER services in France connect the border town of Cerbère to Narbonne, Montpellier, Avignon - UK newspaper The Guardian last year waxed lyrical about the four-hour-and-15-minutes, 25-stop journey from Avignon to Spain - and Toulouse.

Single standard tickets for the two-hour 50-minute journey between Toulouse and Cerbère cost around €39.

Latour de Carol to Puigcerdà

This scenic route takes you straight through the Pyrenees, not far from Andorra, from the French village of Latour de Carol, also known as La Tor de Querol-Enveig in Catalan, to the small Catalan town of Puigcerdà.

The total journey time between the two stations takes just 6 minutes and costs €2.15, but it’s more likely that travellers will be coming from Toulouse - or even Paris. 

Toulouse to Latour de Carol takes about three hours, and tickets routinely cost around €28. It’s possible to connect from Paris Austerlitz to Toulouse on this service.

Hendaye to Irún 

The Basque Country crossing offers so many trains per day that it’s often used by commuters and is definitely one of the easiest and most efficient crossings between the two countries.

This is the Euskotren, that runs throughout the Basque Country, part regional train and part metro. This section crosses into Spain from Hendaye to Irún, just outside San Sebastián.

That part of the journey takes just 4 minutes and costs €1.85, but it’s more likely that you’ll be travelling from to or nearby San Sebastián in Spain, or Hendaye in France. Hendaye to San Sebastián takes 23 minutes and costs €2.75, with trains running every 30 minutes.

You can get directly to Hendaye from Biarritz, Bayonne and Bordeaux - and from San Sebastián (itself a popular holiday destination and foodie hotspot) you can head on deeper into Spain via Bilbao, Valladolid and Madrid.