September 9, 2026
Bogotá’s airport, El Dorado International (BOG), is the busiest in Colombia and one of the busiest in Latin America, and it sits at the western end of the avenue that carries its name, about twelve kilometers from the center of the city along Calle 26. The ride in is not long; it is variable, and the variables are the hour, the door you walk out of, and whether you booked anything before you landed. We put guests in cars from this terminal every week and run a five-hour tour that starts at its arrivals hall, so this is the ride option by option, with the 2026 fares from the city’s own decree, the bus that leaves from Door 2, where the apps actually pick up, and what the altitude does to your first afternoon.
The short version
The authorized taxis leave from lane 1 between Doors 8 and 10 of Terminal 1 and run on the meter under the 2026 tariff: 4,500 pesos to start, 159 per 100 meters, an 8,000 peso airport surcharge, and 3,800 more at night, on Sundays and on holidays, so a run to Chapinero or La Candelaria comes to the mid thirty thousands before traffic time. TransMilenio’s K86 bus leaves from Door 2 and the SITP feeder 16-14 from Door 4, at 3,550 pesos with a Tullave card sold at the kiosk in front of Door 1. Uber, DiDi, Cabify and inDrive pick up where the app tells you, not at the taxi lane. A private transfer with the driver inside the terminal starts at 49 US dollars with Safe Transfers by Cielo.Travel, our transfer company. And if the layover is long, we can take you up Monserrate and back to your gate in five hours.
The airport, in the numbers that matter to you
El Dorado moved 45.8 million passengers in 2024 and passed two million in January 2026 alone; in April 2026 Skytrax named it the best airport in South America for the eighth time, the fifth year in a row. There are two terminals. Terminal 1 is the main building, with international flights at gates A and B and domestic flights at C and D; Terminal 2, the Puente Aéreo, is a separate building for some domestic flights, with gates G and H. A free shuttle links the two every day from 4 am to midnight, with a ramp for reduced mobility, so check the terminal on your booking before you tell a driver where to meet you. The airport recommends being there three hours before an international flight and two before a domestic one, and in the 2026 high seasons it has repeated that advice in the press because the queues have grown with the traffic.
The one number nobody mentions at the gate is the altitude. Bogotá sits at about 2,640 meters, and the airport is barely lower. Most people feel nothing worse than a shorter breath on the stairs and an early bedtime; the ones who suffer are the ones who land, drink, and go dancing. Water, a light first dinner and a slow first morning are the whole treatment, and it is why our layover tour drives you up Monserrate rather than walking you up.
Option 1: the authorized taxi lane, on the meter
Bogotá taxis run on a meter, unlike Cartagena’s, and the airport trip is metered too rather than a flat fare as in Medellín; the airport’s authorized company is Taxi Imperial, with a lane on the first floor outside Terminal 1 between Doors 8 and 10 and uniformed staff assigning cars between Doors 7 and 10. The 2026 tariff is fixed by Decreto 042 de 2026, in force since February: the meter starts at 4,500 pesos, adds 159 pesos per 100 meters, has a minimum fare of 8,000, adds an 8,000 peso surcharge for any trip from the airport, and adds 3,800 at night and on Sundays and holidays. On those figures a trip of twelve to fifteen kilometers, which is what Chapinero, the Zona T or La Candelaria are from the terminal, comes to roughly 31,000 to 36,000 pesos in distance and fixed charges, plus whatever the meter adds for time stopped in traffic and the night surcharge if it applies. Taxis on the higher “excelencia operacional” tariff, for cars certified under that scheme, charge 4,800 to start, 172 per 100 meters and 8,600 for the airport surcharge.
The airport lane is the organized exception to the rule in our guide to why we do not take street taxis in Bogotá: the cars are assigned, the plates are logged, and the meter is the meter. It is a fair choice in daylight for people who are comfortable in Spanish and know what the meter should read. It is not what we do at night, and it is not what we recommend to anyone landing in Colombia for the first time, for a reason that has nothing to do with the driver: after a long flight you will not know whether a route through Puente Aranda is the fast way or the long way, and the meter does not care.
Option 2: the apps
Uber, DiDi, Cabify and inDrive all operate in Bogotá and all pick up at El Dorado. The pickup is not at the taxi lane; the app sends you to a meeting point it chooses, usually a short walk with your bags, and Uber’s own airport page tells riders to follow the in-app directions rather than promising a fixed spot. The price is shown before you confirm and it rises with demand, which at El Dorado means the evening bank of arrivals and the rain. Ride-hailing sits in a legal gray zone in Colombia: the platforms are not licensed as public transport, so drivers may ask you to sit in the front seat and avoid the lane where the authorized taxis are. Our own rule for apps, from the taxi guide above, is simple: match the plate, share the trip with someone, and keep the phone in your pocket while you wait on the sidewalk. The apps also carry licensed taxis now, and the city’s decree sets a separate tariff for taxis hired through a platform, with a 4,600 peso start, 1,625 pesos per kilometer and an 8,100 peso airport surcharge.
Option 3: TransMilenio from Door 2, and the feeder from Door 4
El Dorado is the rare Latin American airport with a real bus rapid transit connection at the door. TransMilenio’s K86 service leaves from Door 2 on the first floor of Terminal 1, Monday to Friday from 5:30 am to 11 pm, Saturdays from 6 am to 11 pm, and Sundays and holidays from 7 am to 10 pm; the SITP feeder 16-14 leaves from Door 4 to the Portal El Dorado station, Monday to Friday from 4:30 am to 12:20 am, Saturdays from 5 am, and Sundays and holidays from 5:30 am to 11:20 pm. Both need a Tullave card, sold and loaded at the kiosk in front of Door 1, and the 2026 fare is 3,550 pesos per trip. The K86 is a dual bus that runs the Calle 26 corridor into the center and continues up Carrera Séptima, which is why it is the one to take for the Museo Nacional, the Centro Internacional and the hotels along the Séptima; from Portal El Dorado the trunk lines along Calle 26 reach the university district and La Candelaria’s edge. Check the current routing in the TransMiApp, because routes change and the airport’s page is the only stable fact.
It is a real option for one traveler with a backpack, in daylight, going somewhere on the Calle 26 or Carrera Séptima corridors, and at 3,550 pesos it is a tenth of a taxi. It is not an option with suitcases, because the buses are full and the stations have stairs and turnstiles, and it is not an option at night, when the walk from a station to a hotel is the part of the trip we would not do.
Option 4: a private transfer, with the driver inside the terminal
Our transfers are operated by Safe Transfers by Cielo.Travel, our transfer company. A private transfer from El Dorado to Chapinero, the Zona T, Parque de la 93, Usaquén, La Candelaria or Salitre starts at 49 US dollars per vehicle, with the driver inside the terminal at arrivals holding a board with your name, whichever terminal you land in, your flight tracked so the driver moves with your delay, and the price fixed in dollars when you book. It is what we do for our own guests, and it is the right choice in four situations: a night arrival, when we would rather you walked out to a person than to a lane; a family, or anyone with more bags than hands; a first trip to Colombia, when the value of a fixed price and a known driver is the whole point of the first hour; and a tight connection between the airport and a hotel meeting, when the flight tracking is what makes the meeting. In our transfer company’s experience, arrivals after 9 pm and before 6 am are the smoothest window on the road, which is one more reason not to let the hour decide against booking. Book it at Safe Transfers, Bogotá airport transfer.
The layover option: Monserrate and the Old Town between flights
El Dorado is a hub, and a six-hour gap between an international flight and a domestic one is common. Because the city is close and the mountain is closer, we built a private layover tour that meets you at arrivals with a car and a bilingual guide, drives to Monserrate, walks you through the Old Town, and returns you to the terminal in five hours; tell us in advance and we arrange secure storage for your luggage. It exists because the alternative, five hours in the terminal, is the most expensive thing you can do with a first look at Bogotá. If the layover is a night rather than an afternoon, our guide to spending a layover in Bogotá is organized by how many hours you have, from three to a full day.
The clock and the calendar
Calle 26 is a straight run east from the terminal, and at six in the morning the center is twenty-five minutes away. In the evening rush, from about five to eight, budget an hour to Chapinero and more to Usaquén, and treat Friday evenings, long weekends and December as the slowest. Rain adds time to everything in Bogotá and the apps’ prices with it. On departure day, work backwards from the airport’s own minimums, three hours international and two domestic, add the road, and remember that the airport’s queues in 2026 have been long enough for the airport itself to ask travelers to come early.
Arriving from abroad: Check-Mig, Biomig, customs, pesos
Migración Colombia asks every traveler entering or leaving Colombia by air to pre-register the trip with its Check-Mig form, free on Migración Colombia’s own site, between 72 hours and one hour before departure; do it before you fly in and again before you fly out, and keep the confirmation on your phone. El Dorado has the Biomig automated gates, which read the face or the iris: foreign adults can use them when leaving the country without prior enrollment, and enrollment for everything else is at counter 68 on the second floor of Terminal 1; on arrival you go to an officer. After immigration and customs, the exits put you on the first floor with the taxi lane between Doors 8 and 10, the Tullave kiosk in front of Door 1 and the bus stops at Doors 2 and 4. Change a small amount for the first day and use the ATMs in the city for the rest; the taxi fares above are in pesos.
Parking, and the return trip
If someone is meeting you with a car, the Short Stay lot in the center of Terminal 1 has 650 spaces and is built for pickups; the Long Stay lot near Door 1 has 550 spaces with covered areas, and the Business lot to the south is monthly parking. Going back to the airport, the same options apply in reverse, with one difference: from a hotel, the app and the pre-booked transfer are simpler than a taxi, because there is no lane and no dispatcher.
Where you are going, and what to do first
If you have not chosen where to stay, the ride helps decide: La Candelaria, the colonial center, is the closest and the one to see first; Chapinero and the Zona T are the middle, where most of our guests stay; Usaquén is the furthest north and the quietest. For the first day, our private Perfect Day in Bogotá tour picks you up at the hotel and does Monserrate, La Candelaria and the museums in seven hours with a guide who lives here, and our Bogotá tours page has the rest. For the safety questions everyone asks before landing, our honest take on whether Colombia is safe has a Bogotá section.
For the city itself, with the 2026 figures and the neighborhoods as they are, our guide to whether Bogotá is safe.
Once you are in the city, the buses, the apps and the ciclovía are in our guide to getting around Bogotá.
What we do differently
We do not run the taxi lane or the bus; we run the alternative. Our transfers, by Safe Transfers by Cielo.Travel, put a driver inside the terminal with your name, and our tours in Bogotá start at the hotel, or at arrivals if the layover is the trip. The point of both is the same as the point of this page: nobody in our care is reading a meter at eleven at night.
Questions travelers ask
How far is El Dorado airport from downtown Bogotá?
About twelve kilometers along Calle 26 to the Centro Internacional, a little more to La Candelaria and Chapinero and around twenty to Usaquén; twenty-five minutes at dawn, an hour in the evening rush.
How much is a taxi from El Dorado airport in 2026?
The meter starts at 4,500 pesos, adds 159 per 100 meters and an 8,000 peso airport surcharge, plus 3,800 at night and on Sundays and holidays, under Decreto 042 de 2026. For Chapinero or La Candelaria that is roughly 31,000 to 36,000 pesos before traffic time. Take the authorized lane between Doors 8 and 10.
Can I use Uber at El Dorado?
Yes. Uber, DiDi, Cabify and inDrive pick up at El Dorado at a meeting point the app chooses, away from the taxi lane. Match the plate before you get in.
Is there a TransMilenio bus from El Dorado?
Yes: the K86 from Door 2 of Terminal 1 and the SITP feeder 16-14 from Door 4 to Portal El Dorado, for 3,550 pesos with a Tullave card sold at the kiosk in front of Door 1. Fine with a backpack in daylight; not with suitcases or at night.
Which terminal will I use at El Dorado?
Terminal 1 for all international flights and most domestic ones; Terminal 2, the Puente Aéreo, for some domestic flights. Your booking says which, and a free shuttle links them from 4 am to midnight.
What is the airport code for Bogotá?
BOG. The airport’s full name is Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado, at the western end of Avenida El Dorado, Calle 26.
Can I leave the airport during a layover in Bogotá?
Yes, with five or six hours. Our private layover tour meets you at arrivals, takes you up Monserrate and through the Old Town, and returns you to the terminal in five hours; luggage storage can be arranged in advance.
Plan it with us
Our transfers from El Dorado are operated by Safe Transfers by Cielo.Travel, and every tour we run in Bogotá is private, with a guide who lives here. Write to us on WhatsApp with your flight and your hotel, or start with our Bogotá tours page.
