Denmark · Germany · Baltic Sea

The two ferry crossings that hold the Baltic corridor together

Between the Danish islands and the German mainland there is no road that simply carries on. There is water — the Fehmarn Belt and the Kadet Trench — and two ferry routes that turn it into a highway: Gedser–Rostock and Puttgarden–Rødby. This site explains how they work and lets you reserve places for people, cars, motorcycles and bicycles.

Reserve places Compare the routes

≈ 48 kmGedser to Rostock across the Kadet Trench

≈ 19 kmPuttgarden to Rødby across the Fehmarn Belt

2 corridorsE55 via Falster, E47 via Lolland and Fehmarn

4 islandsZealand, Falster, Lolland and Fehmarn

Two crossings, two different jobs

They are often described as alternatives, and on a map they look like it. In practice they serve different journeys: one is a short, high-frequency shuttle, the other is a longer sea leg that starts your German journey much further south.

Gedser → Rostock

Falster, Denmark → Mecklenburg, Germany

≈ 48 km
≈ 1 h 45 min
Corridor E55

The direct sea link from the southern tip of Falster to the German Baltic coast. A Rostock–Gedser ferry lands you at Warnemünde‑Rostock, already on the A19 motorway towards Berlin, with no detour through Fehmarn and Holstein.

Preferred by freight and by drivers heading for Berlin, Dresden and Prague.
Long enough for a real meal, a nap or a work session on board.
Popular final leg of the Berlin–Copenhagen cycle route.

About the Gedser–Rostock ferry

Puttgarden → Rødby

Fehmarn, Germany → Lolland, Denmark

≈ 19 km
≈ 45 min
Corridor E47

The classic Vogelfluglinie — the “bird flight line” — the shortest hop between the two countries. A Rødby–Puttgarden ferry is less a voyage than a moving section of motorway, with departures throughout the day and night.

The fastest option for anyone driving Hamburg ⇄ Copenhagen.
Short crossing: you stay close to your vehicle deck the whole time.
Runs around the clock, which suits night driving and tight schedules.

About the Puttgarden–Rødby ferry

Why these crossings exist at all

Denmark is not one landmass but roughly four hundred islands, and the ones that matter for this journey lie in a chain: Zealand, then Falster, then Lolland, and finally — on the German side of the water — Fehmarn. Bridges and dams already stitch the Danish islands to each other. The Storstrøm and Farø bridges carry traffic from Zealand down to Falster; the Guldborgsund tunnel and bridges link Falster to Lolland. But at the southern edge of that chain the land simply stops, and the Baltic begins.

Everything travelling by road between Scandinavia and continental Europe has to solve that gap. There are only three honest answers. You drive the long way round, west through Jutland and over the border at Flensburg, adding hundreds of kilometres. You wait for the Fehmarn Belt fixed link, the immersed tunnel now under construction between Rødbyhavn and Puttgarden. Or you put your vehicle on a ship and let the crossing do the work for you.

That is the entire purpose of a Gedser–Rostock or Puttgarden–Rødby ferry. It is not a scenic extra; it is a piece of road infrastructure that happens to float. The moment it stops running, the islands south of Zealand turn from a through-route into a cul-de-sac, and the freight corridor between Sweden, Denmark and Germany has to redirect itself across half a country.

What the ferry actually carries

It is easy to picture holiday traffic and stop there. The real mix on a Gedser Rostock ferry crossing is broader:

Freight. Trailers and lorries moving Nordic goods south and continental goods north. For a haulier, the sea leg is also a legally usable rest period — the crossing time is not wasted time.
Commuters and regional traffic. People with family, property or work on both shores of the Baltic, for whom the ferry is a bus route that happens to be 48 kilometres long.
Holiday drivers. Families heading north to the Danish coasts and Norway, or south towards Berlin and the Alps, usually with a roof box, a bike rack or a caravan behind them.
Cyclists. The Berlin–Copenhagen route and the Baltic Sea Cycle Route both need this water crossing. A bicycle takes a fraction of a car’s deck space, so a bike reservation is a small, simple booking — but still a reservation.
Motorcyclists. Especially in summer, when the crossing is the natural pause in a long ride.

The islands you are actually travelling between

Knowing which island you land on matters more than it sounds, because it decides which motorway you join.

Zealand (Sjælland)	Denmark’s largest island and home to Copenhagen. Everything on the E47 and E55 heading south starts here.
Falster	Reached from Zealand over the Storstrøm and Farø bridges. Gedser sits at its southern tip — the southernmost point of Denmark — and is the port for the Rostock crossing.
Lolland	West of Falster and connected to it. Rødbyhavn on its south coast is the port for the Puttgarden crossing, and the Danish end of the future Fehmarn Belt tunnel.
Fehmarn	German, in Schleswig-Holstein, joined to the mainland by the Fehmarnsund bridge. Puttgarden on its north coast is the German ferry port.
Møn, Bogø, Askø and others	Not on the ferry route itself, but the reason many travellers are in the area at all: chalk cliffs, dark skies and quiet coast roads a short drive from both ports.

Rule of thumb. If your destination is Berlin, Dresden or anywhere south-east, take the Gedser–Rostock ferry. If it is Hamburg, the Ruhr, the Netherlands or anywhere south-west, take Puttgarden–Rødby. The extra time at sea on the Rostock route is usually repaid on the road.

What you can reserve here

One form covers both directions on both routes — Gedser–Rostock, Rostock–Gedser, Puttgarden–Rødby and Rødby–Puttgarden — for foot passengers and for vehicles.

People, by age group

Adults, travellers under 18 and seniors aged 65 and over are counted separately, because age decides which documents and which onboard arrangements apply to each traveller.

Vehicles and tonnage

Car, campervan, motorcycle, bicycle or on foot. For anything with an engine we ask for gross weight in tonnes and overall length — deck space is allocated by weight class and by metre, not by headcount.

Dates and direction

Choose one-way or return, pick your outbound and return dates, and state a preferred departure window. Reservations are held per sailing, and sailings fill up first on summer weekends and public holidays.

Go to the booking form

Frequently asked questions

Which crossing is faster overall, Gedser–Rostock or Puttgarden–Rødby?

Puttgarden–Rødby is far faster at sea — around 45 minutes against roughly 1 hour 45. But “faster” depends on where you are going. From Rostock you are already deep in Mecklenburg with a clear run towards Berlin, while from Puttgarden you still have the whole of Schleswig-Holstein ahead of you. For south-eastern destinations the Rostock Gedser ferry usually wins on total door-to-door time.

Do I need a reservation, or can I just turn up at the port?

Vehicle space is finite and the deck is loaded by size and weight, so a reservation is the only way to be certain of a place on a particular sailing. In quiet periods there is often spare capacity, but on summer weekends, around public holidays and during school breaks the sailings you want are exactly the ones that fill first.

Why do you ask for tonnage?

Because a car deck is planned in tonnes and metres. A loaded campervan can weigh three times what a small hatchback weighs while occupying a similar footprint, and stability calculations depend on it. Stating gross weight — the weight of the vehicle including load, not the empty kerb weight — lets your place be assigned correctly the first time.

Can I take a bicycle without a car?

Yes. Cyclists are carried on both routes and are usually loaded separately from the car queue. Choose “bicycle” as your vehicle type and add one traveller per bike. If you are riding the Berlin–Copenhagen route, this crossing is the link between its German and Danish halves.

What happens when the Fehmarn Belt tunnel opens?

The immersed tunnel between Rødbyhavn and Puttgarden will give the Vogelfluglinie a fixed road and rail link and will change how traffic is distributed across the region. Until it is open and in service, the ferry remains the link on that corridor — and the Gedser–Rostock route continues to serve the eastern corridor regardless.