Bucharest to Chisinau: Night Train & Bus

The short answer: if the journey is part of the appeal, take the Prietenia night train. It leaves Bucharest Gara de Nord around 19:06 and rolls into Chisinau about 08:44 the next morning, so you sleep through the 666 km and save a hotel night, all for roughly 37 euros in a four-berth sleeper (less if you book the advance fare). If you just want to get there cheaply and by day, the bus is faster on paper and often a little cheaper, taking around eight to ten hours. And you can fly OTP to Chisinau in under an hour if time matters more than money. Whichever you pick, this is a real international border with a genuine passport check, and the train does something no other route does: at Ungheni it has its wheels changed.

This guide covers all three ways, the strange and slow border stop, the visa and money rules for Moldova, and how to fold Iasi into the trip so you are not just passing through eastern Romania in the dark. If you are still working out the Romanian leg first, our 7-day Romania itinerary and things to do in Bucharest cover the days before you head east.

The night train: the Prietenia, and why people love it

One train runs each way per day, and it has a name: Prietenia, which means “friendship” in Romanian. Officially it is trains 401 and 402, run jointly by Romania’s CFR Calatori and Moldova’s CFM. Northbound it leaves Bucharest Nord around 19:06 and arrives Chisinau about 08:44; southbound it departs Chisinau about 16:50 and gets into Bucharest around 06:38. Either way you are looking at roughly thirteen and a half hours, almost all of it overnight, which is the whole point: you go to bed in one capital and wake up in another.

The carriages are old-school in the best sense - classic ex-Soviet sleeping cars, with two-bed compartments in first class and four-bed compartments in second. Book the four-berth and you get a bunk for about 182 lei (roughly 37 euros) one way; a two-berth is around 207 lei (42 euros), and paying for a two-bed compartment to yourself runs about 273 lei (55 euros). If you plan ahead, there is a discounted SMART Prietenia advance fare that can drop the four-berth to around 27 euros. There is a small buffet counter for drinks and snacks, but do not count on a proper meal - bring water, something to eat, and a plug adapter, because the sockets in the cabin are handy but not universal.

What surprises first-timers is how comfortable the beds are. The bedding is fresh, each cabin has a little table you can eat off, and the train is rarely full, so there is a decent chance of a four-berth to yourself or with one other person. Heating comes from radiators; there is no air conditioning, so a summer cabin can get stuffy in the small hours. Pack for that and it is a genuinely pleasant way to cover the distance.

The border at Ungheni: they change the wheels

Here is the part that makes this train unlike almost any other in Europe. Romania runs on Europe’s standard track gauge; Moldova, like the rest of the former Soviet Union, runs on a wider gauge. So at the border town of Ungheni, in the small hours, the whole train is shunted into a shed, the carriages are jacked up one by one, and the bogies (the wheel assemblies) are swapped for ones that fit the Moldovan track. You stay on board the whole time.

Do not underestimate how long this takes. The scheduled border stop northbound is roughly 04:08 to 06:03, and between the bogie change and the two passport checks - once out of Romania, once into Moldova - travellers routinely report a couple of hours parked at Ungheni, some closer to three. Officers come through the carriages to check documents, so keep your passport within reach. It is not something to be nervous about, just slow, and it is honestly part of the experience. Ungheni has a piece of history right beside the line too: the Eiffel Bridge over the Prut, a rail bridge from the workshop of Gustave Eiffel, opened in 1877 and still carrying the cross-border trains.

You can buy tickets on the Romanian side through CFR Calatori (the international booking site opens 60 days before departure) or on the Moldovan side through CFM at railway.md, which opens 30 days ahead. If you would rather deal with a human, the international ticket office at Bucharest Nord sells them in person. Buy a few days out in summer, when the sleeper can genuinely fill up.

The bus: cheaper, quicker, less romantic

If a night in a bunk is not your idea of fun, the bus is the practical workhorse. It is a busy corridor - somewhere around twenty departures a day across all operators, names like MirTrans-Express, GAL Trans and Alverstur among them, sold through the usual aggregators. Fares run from roughly 34 to 43 US dollars (about 35 to 40 euros) one way, so it is generally a touch cheaper than the train’s standard sleeper fare and lands in the low double digits if you catch a deal.

Timing is where it gets slippery. The distance by road is shorter than the rail route, about 355 km, and the fastest coaches can do it in around six hours; but the typical run is eight to ten, and it hangs almost entirely on the border. Buses cross at a road checkpoint - most on the main Bucharest route go via Albita on the Romanian side and Leuseni on the Moldovan side - where everyone gets off with their bags for passport control. On a quiet day that is quick; on a bad one, a queue of vehicles can leave you standing at the border for an hour or more with the engine off. The upside over the train is simple: you travel in daylight, you see the countryside, and you are not committed to an overnight. The downside is that a long daytime bus is a long daytime bus.

Should you fly?

Only if your time is worth more than the fare. The flight from Bucharest (OTP) to Chisinau (KIV) is genuinely short, about fifty minutes to an hour in the air, flown nonstop by TAROM, HiSky and Wizz Air, with roughly ten departures a week between them and fares often starting around 50 euros.

The catch is the usual one: the flight is the quick bit, everything around it is not. Add the trip out to Otopeni, check-in and security, the wait, and the ride from Chisinau airport into town, and your one-hour hop becomes the better part of a half-day. The plane still wins outright on speed if you book well, but it strips out what the train and bus give you - the scenery and, on the train, a night’s sleep and a story. Our which airport for Romania guide covers getting to and from OTP if you fly.

Driving it, and the rental-car catch

Driving is a fair option if you want to explore rather than just arrive. It is roughly 460 km and about six and a half hours from Bucharest, up through Moldavia - the historic region of eastern Romania, not the country - and across the border at Albita-Leuseni, or at Sculeni if you are coming from Iasi. The road runs through vineyards and walnut country, and having your own car is the only real way to reach the wine estates and villages that make Moldova worth the trip in the first place.

The catch is the rental. Most Romanian companies either forbid taking the car into Moldova or require written permission plus a Green Card, the insurance extension for abroad - and some refuse outright because Moldova is outside the EU. Sort it at the counter before you sign, exactly what our car rental in Romania guide flags, and read our driving in Romania guide for the rovinieta vignette first. If the paperwork is a headache, a fixed-price private transfer drops you door to door.

Break the journey in Iasi

Here is the move that turns a transfer into a trip. Iasi - Romania’s cultural capital, the historic seat of Moldavia - sits right on the way east, a short hop from the Sculeni border crossing, and it deserves a day rather than a glimpse through a train window at midnight. It is a city of grand churches and student energy, anchored by the vast neo-Gothic Palace of Culture and the extraordinary carved stonework of the Three Hierarchs church. Our Iasi travel guide lays out a day and a half there, and it pairs naturally with the painted monasteries of Bucovina if you have longer in the north-east.

A common budget plan is to base in Iasi for a night, see the city, then cross to Chisinau by bus the next day - so you take the Prietenia only if you actively want the sleeper, not because it is the only link.

Visas, documents and the Transnistria question

Good news for most readers: Moldova is visa-free for citizens of the US, UK, Canada, the EU and many other countries, for stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period. US travellers need a passport valid for at least three months on entry (the US embassy suggests six to be safe); EU citizens can enter with a passport or a machine-readable national ID card. If you plan to stay longer than 90 days, that is a residence-permit matter with Moldova’s migration authority, not a border formality.

One safety note worth taking seriously. Transnistria (Transdniestria), the breakaway strip along the eastern border, is not under the control of the Moldovan government, and at the time of writing carries a stronger travel warning than the rest of the country - the US government rates it “reconsider travel,” against “exercise increased caution” for Moldova overall. You do not pass through it on any of the routes in this guide, but if you deliberately visit, carry your passport, do not photograph military sites, and be aware that consular help is limited there. As with all of this, rules and advisories change: confirm the current position on the official Moldova e-visa portal and your own foreign ministry before you travel. (Checked July 2026.)

Money: a different leu

Do not get caught out by the currency. Moldova uses the Moldovan leu (MDL), a completely separate currency from the Romanian leu (RON) you have been spending - same name, different money, and your Romanian notes are not legal tender across the border. Some hotels and airport taxi drivers informally take euros, Romanian lei or dollars, but only the Moldovan leu is official and paying in foreign cash usually means a poor rate. Draw a small amount from an ATM at Chisinau airport or in the city on arrival - they take Visa and Mastercard - enough for a taxi into the centre. Cards work fine in most Chisinau restaurants and shops, so you need little more than that.

So which should you take?

If you want the experience, take the night train: you save a hotel, you cross the border in your sleep, and the wheel change at Ungheni is a genuine one-off worth staying awake for at least once. If you want the cheapest daytime option and do not mind a long haul, take the bus - just build in slack for the border. Fly only when time is tight, because the airport overhead eats most of the speed advantage. And if you can spare a day, stop in Iasi on the way, so the trip east is a proper visit to Romanian Moldavia rather than a dark corridor to somewhere else. For the reverse direction, or a different Danube border, our Bucharest to Sofia guide covers the run south, and the what-to-eat in Romania guide sorts out the sarmale and mici before you leave.