Getting to Barajas for a 6am flight has one obvious answer and one that is only months old. The obvious one costs €5; the new one is an ordinary night bus.
Madrid’s metro closes at 1:30 and reopens at 6:00, on every night of the year. There is no weekend extension, so the gap is the same 4½ hours from Monday to Sunday. The Exprés Aeropuerto 203 covers it from 00:00 to 5:40 out of Atocha and Cibeles for €5.00, and night bus N32 runs 00:15 to 5:30 from Avenida de América at an ordinary fare.
How do I get to Madrid airport after the metro closes? Two EMT routes run overnight. The Exprés Aeropuerto 203 covers 00:00 to 5:40 from Atocha and Cibeles for €5.00, and night bus N32 covers 00:15 to 5:30 from Avenida de América at an ordinary fare. Metro de Madrid is shut between 1:30 and 6:00 every night of the year.
Two night routes to Barajas since 2026, at very different prices
The long-standing one is the Exprés Aeropuerto 203, linking Atocha station and Plaza de Cibeles with Terminals 1, 2 and 4 of Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. It runs 00:00 to 5:40 overnight, every 35 minutes, and it charges a fare of its own: €5.00, against the €1.50 of daytime airport lines 101 and 200.
The new one is night bus N32, in service since 23 February 2026, from a newly created stop at Avenida de América 12 via the A-2 and Canillejas to Terminals 1, 2, 3 and T4. It is the only airport link that calls at Terminal 3.
| Route | Departs from | Overnight window | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| N32 from Terminal 4 | Terminal 4 | 00:10 to 5:25 | 35 min Sun–Thu, 17–18 min Fri–Sat |
| N32 towards the airport | Avenida de América | 00:15 to 5:30 | 35 min Sun–Thu, 17–18 min Fri–Sat |
| Exprés Aeropuerto 203 | Atocha and Cibeles | 00:00 to 5:40 | every 35 minutes |
On a Friday or Saturday the N32 runs roughly twice as often as the Exprés. On a Tuesday both sit at 35 minutes, so missing one costs more than half an hour either way.
No night tube, and a bus network instead
The metro timetable runs 6:00 to 1:30 across every day of the year. Nothing about it changes on a Friday or a Saturday, which is the assumption most likely to strand someone at two in the morning.
What Madrid reinforces at the weekend is the bus network rather than the rail one. There is also a detail the Consorcio flags and that catches people out at the end of a line: some individual stations keep more restricted hours than the network’s 6:00 to 1:30, so the last train from a specific station is not always the last train on the map.
The búhos, and why Cibeles is the name to remember
EMT Madrid’s night network is called the búhos, and Plaza de Cibeles is its reference point in the centre, with most lines departing from there towards the outer districts and Alonso Martínez serving as head of some of the rest.
Frequency is what changes the experience. It was the Council that reinforced the network to a 15-minute frequency at weekends, while weekday intervals are wider and vary by line.
One thing worth knowing before a big night out: on high-attendance nights the departure points move. On one such night the lines started from Argüelles, Alonso Martínez, the Atocha interchange and Plaza de la Independencia until roughly 4:30, returning to their usual heads afterwards.
Fares do not change at night, but the airport does
Night travel uses the same tickets as daytime travel, at the fares the Consorcio sets for the whole network rather than anything EMT Madrid or Metro de Madrid publishes separately.
That split between operator and price-setter is one of several mapped in who sets Madrid’s opening hours. A single metro journey in zone A costs between €1.50 and €2.00 depending on the number of stations, and the ten-journey ticket costs €7.30, at the fares the Consorcio publishes.
The exception is the airport, and it is about destination rather than hour. The airport supplement is a ticket in its own right, explained in how the Madrid airport supplement works, and who avoids paying it in whether the tourist travel pass is worth it. The rest of the fare structure is in what a metro ticket costs and the public transport guide.
Frequently asked questions about Madrid at night
How do I get to Madrid airport at night?
Two routes run overnight. The Exprés Aeropuerto 203 goes from Atocha and Cibeles to Terminals 1, 2 and 4 between 00:00 and 5:40 for €5.00, and night bus N32 runs from Avenida de América to Terminal 4 between 00:15 and 5:30.
What time does the Madrid metro close?
At 1:30, reopening at 6:00, every day of the year. There is no extended weekend service, so a Saturday night is served by exactly the same closing time as a Tuesday, and some individual stations close earlier still.
Does Madrid have a night tube like London?
No. The metro shuts at 1:30 on every night of the week, and the gap until 6:00 is covered by EMT Madrid’s night bus network, known as búhos, which is what gets reinforced at weekends instead.
Do night buses in Madrid cost more?
No, the same tickets apply by night as by day, at the fares set by the Consorcio Regional de Transportes. The one extra charge is the airport supplement, which is a separate ticket tied to the destination rather than the hour.
Four and a half hours without a metro, two night routes to Barajas, and a closing time that ignores the day.