The live arrivals board on this page shows every flight landing at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (BUD) today — scheduled time, revised estimate, flight number, airline, origin city and current status. The airport is still widely known locally as Ferihegy. If you are meeting someone, the single most useful thing on this page is below the board: the gap between the word Landed and a passenger actually walking out into the arrivals hall.
How to read the BUD arrivals board
Five columns, and the first is the one that misleads. The time column shows the scheduled arrival; when an arrow and a second time appear, that is the revised estimate filed by the airline, and it supersedes the schedule. An estimate less than 15 minutes out is normal operational drift rather than a delay.
| Column | What it shows | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Scheduled arrival, plus a revised estimate where one exists | Airlines pad schedules, so early arrivals are common |
| Flight | The IATA flight number | Search by this, not by the booking reference |
| Airline | The carrier operating the aircraft | On a codeshare this is not always who sold the ticket |
| From | Origin city and its IATA code | The code disambiguates cities with several airports |
| Status | Current state of the flight | See below — "Landed" is not "here" |
Statuses on the inbound side are short: Scheduled (running to plan), Delayed (revised estimate at least 15 minutes late), Landed (wheels down), Diverted (sent to another airport, most often weather or a medical emergency) and Cancelled. A diversion is the one worth acting on: the passenger may be arriving hours later by coach from another city, so contact them before you drive out.
"Landed" does not mean "here" — budget 20 to 45 minutes
This is where people meeting a flight waste money in the pick-up car park. Wheels down starts a chain that takes time: taxiing to the stand, disembarking, the walk in, passport control if the flight came from outside Schengen, then the wait at the baggage belt. A realistic gap between the board saying Landed and your passenger appearing:
- Schengen arrival, hand luggage only — about 15 to 20 minutes. No border check, straight out.
- Schengen arrival with a hold bag — 25 to 35 minutes. The belt is the variable, not the walk.
- Non-Schengen arrival, hand luggage only — 25 to 40 minutes, depending on the passport queue.
- Non-Schengen arrival with a hold bag — 35 to 50 minutes, and longer if two long-haul flights land together.
The practical rule: watch the board for Landed, then wait a further twenty minutes before you set off for the pick-up area. It is the difference between the free five minutes and a 3,500 HUF ticket.
Passport control on arrival: Schengen, non-Schengen and EES
Flights from inside the Schengen Area land at the 2A pier and involve no border check at all — you walk from the aircraft to the baggage hall. Flights from outside Schengen land at 2B and clear Hungarian passport control first.
The automated border gates are open to travellers aged 12 and over holding a biometric travel document, and to nationals of the EU and EEA, the United Kingdom, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Passengers with reduced mobility, visually impaired passengers and anyone with a pushchair are handled at a staffed booth. Non-EU visitors on short stays are now registered under the EU Entry/Exit System, which captures fingerprints and a facial image in place of the old passport stamp; the first registration takes noticeably longer than later crossings, which is why a first-time non-EU arrival should be given the upper end of the estimates above. Detail in our EES passport control guide.
Baggage reclaim: finding your belt
The baggage hall sits immediately past border control, with several carousels and digital screens above them showing flight numbers against belt numbers. Check the screen rather than following the crowd — flights that landed within minutes of each other are frequently on adjacent belts and the wrong one costs you twenty minutes.
Oversized items — skis, bicycles, golf bags, instruments, pushchairs — do not ride the standard carousel. They come out at the oversized baggage position, handled separately by ground staff. If your bag does not appear, report it before you leave the baggage hall, at the handling agent's lost-luggage desk in the same area: once you are through customs, a claim becomes far harder to open. You will be given a reference number, and you keep your baggage tag receipt for it.
Customs: the green channel and what has to be declared
After the belts you pass through customs. Arriving from another EU country there is normally nothing to do. From outside the EU, standard EU allowances apply to alcohol, tobacco and goods, and cash of EUR 10,000 or more — or the equivalent in any currency — must be declared. If you have nothing to declare, walk through the green channel without hesitating; the red channel is for anything over the allowances. Hungarian customs officers do spot-check, and the area is fully covered by cameras.
What is open when you land — money, SIM cards, pharmacy
The arrivals hall has ATMs and exchange desks, but a warning worth more than the convenience: airport exchange rates are poor, particularly for larger sums. Change a small amount for the bus fare or a tip and do the rest in the city, or simply pay by card, which is accepted almost everywhere in Budapest. If an ATM offers to bill you in euros rather than forints, decline — that is dynamic currency conversion and it costs you several percent. Our currency exchange and ATMs guide works through the options.
Also landside in arrivals: car rental desks, tourist information, a pharmacy, and transport ticket machines and booths where you can buy a BKK ticket before heading for the bus stop. Left luggage is available if you land early and cannot check in yet — see luggage storage at Budapest Airport.
Meeting arriving passengers: where to wait and what it costs
Arriving passengers all emerge into the same arrivals area in Terminal 2, a two to three minute walk from the baggage belts. There is no separate meeting point to arrange in advance — one exit, one hall.
If you are driving, the Arrivals pick-up area is the closest option and by some distance the most expensive tariff at the airport. Take a ticket on entry; the first five minutes are free on your first entry of the day, and after that it climbs steeply:
| Duration in the Arrivals pick-up area | Price |
|---|---|
| 0–5 minutes (first entry of the day) | Free |
| 6–30 minutes | HUF 3,500 |
| 31–60 minutes | HUF 5,000 |
| 2 hours | HUF 10,000 |
| 3 hours | HUF 15,000 |
| 4 hours | HUF 20,000 |
| 10–24 hours | HUF 50,000 |
So if the board shows a delay, do not sit in the pick-up lane. Wait in Terminal Parking (HUF 3,400 for two hours) or City Break Parking (HUF 2,900), watch the board here, and drive round once the bags are actually collected. Full comparison in our Budapest Airport parking guide.
Getting into the city after you land
BUD sits about 16 km southeast of the centre. Euro figures below assume roughly 365 HUF to €1 for orientation; the forint amount is the real one.
| Option | 2026 fare | Journey time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bus 100E Airport Express | HUF 2,500 | ~40 min to Deák Ferenc tér | Central hotels, fewest stops, 24/7 |
| Bus 200E + metro M3 | HUF 850 on a 90-minute ticket | ~45 min | Tight budgets, M3 destinations |
| Bus 200E + train from Ferihegy | HUF 500 + rail fare | ~40 min to Nyugati | Avoiding road traffic |
| Official taxi (Főtaxi) | ~HUF 13,000–15,000 (≈ €36–41) | 25–40 min | Late arrivals, luggage, groups |
Two ticketing traps at the arrivals doors. First, the 500 HUF single ticket covers one ride on one vehicle and does not allow a transfer, so bus plus metro needs two singles or — cheaper — one 850 HUF 90-minute ticket with unlimited transfers. Second, standard tickets and travelcards are not valid on the 100E: it takes its own 2,500 HUF airport ticket, which you can buy and validate with a bank card on board, or a 1,000 HUF add-on if you hold a Budapest-pass, Pest County Pass or Hungary Pass.
Taxis are metered and Főtaxi is the official rank operator outside arrivals. Since the tariff rise of 1 August 2026 the meter opens at 2,100 HUF on any airport journey — the 1,300 HUF base plus the 800 HUF airport surcharge — then adds 521 HUF per kilometre and 130 HUF per minute of slow-moving time. Uber operates in Budapest through Főtaxi on that same regulated meter; Bolt runs its own dynamic pricing, which is not reliably cheaper. See our airport taxi guide and Uber in Budapest.
Landing at night
Late arrivals are well served, but not by the same routes as daytime ones. The 100E does not run through the small hours, and metro line M3 stops before the last flights land. What does run: bus 200E, which at night extends to Határ út, where night buses 914, 914A, 950 and 950A continue into the centre. Trains from Ferihegy station run roughly 04:00 to 23:16, so they are out for a genuinely late landing.
Taxis operate 24 hours a day, every day, on the same metered tariff — there is no night surcharge beyond the standard slow-time rate. For a 02:00 landing with luggage, the rank outside arrivals is usually the sane choice. If you would rather not travel at all until morning, our guides to sleeping at the airport and hotels near BUD cover the options.
Connecting through Budapest
BUD is compact, which makes connections quick. If both flights are Schengen or both are non-Schengen, you stay airside and simply walk through the SkyCourt from one pier to the other in a few minutes. Crossing between the two — a non-Schengen arrival onto a Schengen departure, or the reverse — means clearing passport control in between, so allow extra time for that leg.
Budapest is not a hub airline's base in the way Vienna or Frankfurt are, so most connections here are self-transfers on separate tickets: you collect your bag, leave, and check in again. If that is your situation, treat it as an arrival followed by a departure and read the deadlines on our departures board page. Long gap? See what to do on a layover and whether you can leave the airport. For the full walkthrough from touchdown to the city, our arrival guide goes step by step.
