Cartagena airport: the taxi to your area, at the fare the city sets

Pick where you are staying, enter your landing time and how many of you share the taxi. The chart marks every zone of the city's 2026 table that it can place on the map, with its fare by day and from 19:00 to 5:00, and draws the straight line from the airport. The ruled table under it lists all fourteen lines a visitor is likely to need, with or without the finder.

Leaving the airport for your hotelWhat each costs and where you meet it, from the operator, the city and the sellers' own pages.

Way	What you pay	Where you meet it
Authorized taxi	The zone fare of the city's table	The taxi station at your exit
Transfer booked ahead	The seller's price, paid in advance	A driver at the exit or in the arrivals hall
Ride-hailing app	The app's price	Wherever the driver can stop
Transcaribe bus	3,900 COP a ride	A walk into Crespo; no stop at the terminal

The authorized taxi station

On its transport page the airport operator, OINAC, names two authorized taxi stations, at the domestic and the international exits, and recommends always using them. The service runs 24 hours (operator's questions page). The fare is the zone fare in the finder, set by the city under Decreto 0051 de 2026, with the night surcharge of 1,100 COP from 19:00 to 5:00. Give the barrio, not only the hotel name, so the zone is clear before you get in. The operator gives about 10 minutes to the historic center and 15 minutes to the hotel zone.

A transfer booked ahead

A booked transfer is priced by its seller, not by the city's table, but the price is fixed before you fly and someone is waiting. Three are listed on GetYourGuide, each with free cancellation up to 24 hours before:

• Airport Transfer to Cartagena Hotels, by AV COL. A private transfer; pickup is arranged by WhatsApp with your flight number, the driver waits at the airport exit, and if the flight is late they wait or send another driver. The standard vehicles are small 4-seater cars that cannot take much luggage, and a luggage add-on books a larger vehicle. Drop-offs: Bocagrande, Castillogrande, El Laguito, the old city, Getsemaní, Marbella, El Cabrero, Morros, La Boquilla, Manga, San Felipe and Crespo; the itinerary counts 15 minutes by car.
• Airport Transfer to/from Urban Area Hotels, by Guianza Express. Private, one way, to accommodation inside the urban area; you are greeted after clearing customs; flight and destination details are needed when booking; offered at any hour, every day.
• Cartagena Airport: Private Arrival or Departure Transfer. Private, arrival or departure; the driver waits in the arrivals hall or your hotel lobby with a sign bearing your name. A flight change costs nothing extra if you tell them 4 hours ahead.

Six private transfer listings of this kind started at 11 to 30 USD on GetYourGuide and Viator, read 12 November 2026, the lowest price each showed, four of them priced per group and two per person. The partner sets these prices and they change. They are a seller's price, not the city's: the authorized station charges the 2026 zone fare above.

All three are private, for your party alone; none of the listings is a shared shuttle. The operator lets only passengers holding a boarding pass into the terminal, so whoever meets you waits at the exit.

Ride-hailing apps

Uber’s own page for the airport says pickups at CTG can be arranged, and rides to the airport can be requested now or reserved for later (uber.com, CTG). The airport operator names no pick-up point for apps; its advice is the taxi station. Whether a ride in a private car booked by app is legal in Colombia is a question for the national transport regulator, which fined the companies behind Beat, DiDi and Cabify on 15 July 2022 and wrote on 12 November 2024 that DiDi is not authorized; its statements and what they cover are on getting around Cartagena.

The UK, Canada and Australia advise a licensed taxi booked by phone or app, or through your hotel, rather than one hailed on the street. At the airport, the station is the licensed taxi. All four advisories side by side: is Cartagena safe.

The bus

Transcaribe, the city's bus system, has no stop at the terminal. The operator's answer: Route T102 Portal - Crespo runs through Crespo near the airport, Monday to Friday 5:00 to 21:00, Saturday 5:30 to 20:30, Sundays and holidays 6:00 to 20:00; hours and routes subject to change (operator; Transcaribe's route list). The same page gives the city's other urban buses as running from 6:50 to 23:45. A free airport bus ran only as a test, on weekdays from 20 January to 7 February 2025, starting at the international exit (Transcaribe). The fare is 3,900 COP, paid with a contactless Visa card or phone, one card or phone for each traveler. Buses and walking in town: getting around Cartagena.

The terminal is one long building with an arrivals hall at each end. On the operator's terminal map: Domestic arrivals at one end of the terminal and international arrivals at the other, the main hall between them; a taxi symbol at the street side of each arrivals hall. Flights from abroad end at the international exit, flights from Bogotá or Medellín at the domestic one, and each has its own taxi station. If someone is meeting you, tell them which.

The city's table has two lines that begin with Centro, and travelers bound for the old town meet both. In the table's own capitals:

CENTRO - SAN DIEGO - LA MATUNA - GETSEMANI

Zone 1, 20,200 COP (about USD 6). The walled city's two halves, Centro and San Diego, the modern blocks of La Matuna and the barrio of Getsemaní outside the gate.

CENTRO - ZONA HOTELERA CENTRO HISTÓRICO

Zone 2, 24,300 COP (about USD 7). The hotel zone of the historic center. Give the street and ask the station which line it is.

So a ride to the same old town can be priced on either line. Before you get in, give the street and the barrio and ask which line the station applies; the difference is 4,100 COP. Getsemaní is named only on the zone 1 line. The streets themselves: the walled city and Getsemaní.

When to be there. The operator asks for at least 2 hours before a domestic flight and 3 hours before an international one (operator). Check your airline's own cut-off times too.

The taxes on your ticket. Each international departure carries the airport tax of 54 USD per passenger for 2026 (operator's charges page). Colombia adds an exit tax of 1 USD per international departure on tickets sold since 23 September 2026, collected when the ticket is sold. The tourism tax belongs to the ticket that brought you in (Check-Mig and entry). The tax lines of your ticket show which charges are already in the fare. Domestic flights carry their own airport tax.

The taxi to the airport. The table on this page prices rides from the airport only. For the trip back, agree the fare with the driver before you get in, or book the return leg of a transfer; the second listing above offers one, and the third covers departures. Why the city fares are not online: prices in Cartagena.

The operator, Operadora Internacional Aeropuerto Cartagena S.A.S. (OINAC), moved 3,906,258 passengers in the first half of 2026. From January to August 2026 the total rose by 1.9% on a year earlier and domestic travel by 4%, while international travel fell by 4.4% (airport statistics).

The airlines on the operator's list: Avianca, LATAM, Wingo, American Airlines, Copa, Spirit, Plus Ultra, KLM, Air Transat (seasonal), JetBlue, Arajet, JetSMART, Aeroméxico, Edelweiss (seasonal), Delta, Air Canada, Laser Airlines (airlines). The operator also publishes a flight board and a map of the cities it connects; which cities fly direct, by airline and season: getting to Cartagena. The operator has announced a weekly Saturday Frontier Airlines route from Orlando from 19 December 2026.

The terminal is being enlarged: ANI and the operator OINAC signed contract changes to expand and modernize the terminal; works are under way. A new airport at Bayunca, north-east of the city, is still a project: as of 30 July 2026 the national infrastructure agency ANI listed it among the private initiatives for airports whose projects are still being structured (ANI).