Questions and answers

Measured, not estimated: the median is 98 minutes for the WHOLE crossing, from your slot time to leaving the checkpoint. The familiar "forty minutes" is only passport and customs control inside the checkpoint — a part of the crossing, not the crossing; the stage-by-stage split is on the border page. One coach in ten waits 186 minutes or more, roughly 1 crossing in 9 is over three hours. Sample: 1,533 coach crossings at Porubne–Siret, 01.07.2025 — 05.08.2025; this is history, not the queue right now. The timetable is built around a fast crossing — a long queue makes the van late, and a short one does not make it wait out the schedule.

A passport valid at least 3 months beyond the return date. Romania is an EU and Schengen country, and Ukrainian citizens need no visa: 90 visa-free days in any 180. An internal passport or ID card is not accepted for the crossing. A child of any age travels on their own passport. Men aged 18–60 need documents confirming their right to leave the country — the Ukrainian side checks this, and the carrier has no influence over the decision.

Besides the child’s passport, border officers may require the notarised consent of the parent who is not travelling, plus a document proving the accompanying adult’s relationship to the child. The rules change from time to time, so check the current requirement on the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service website before you travel. We carry children accompanied by an adult, but we have no right to judge whether the documents are sufficient in the border officer’s place — that decision is theirs alone.

No. Porubne–Siret is the border with Romania, and only the Romanian destinations go through it: Siret, Suceava, Iași, Bucharest. The Chișinău trip (240 km, €35) crosses the Ukrainian–Moldovan border at a different checkpoint, so nothing written on our Porubne–Siret page applies to it. Moldova is in neither the EU nor the Schengen area: Ukrainian citizens need a passport to enter, but no visa.

Porubne–Siret puts cars, buses and pedestrians through the same lanes, and the speed depends not on how many vehicles there are but on how many lanes are open on both sides at once. A bus queues separately and is usually faster than the cars, but if one passenger on board has a question for the border officer, the whole bus waits. On the measured data the easiest day is Monday (median 90 minutes, 7.8% of crossings over three hours) and the hardest is Wednesday (118 minutes and 21%). The fastest hour of the day is 05:00 (46 minutes).

No. Online you only secure the seat — we do not ask for card details on the site and we take no money up front. You pay the driver on the day of departure, in cash or by card. This is a deliberate condition, not a temporary one: on this route a departure can shift because of the border or a delayed flight, and refunding a prepayment is slower and more unpleasant than never taking one.

20 minutes. That is how long you have to fill in the passenger details and confirm the booking; during that time the seat no longer shows as free to anyone else. If you run out of time the seat goes back on sale and you start the booking again. It costs nothing, because there is no prepayment.

Yes, the driver carries a card terminal. One practical note: the terminal works over the mobile network, so it is best to pay as you board rather than mid-route or in the border queue, where coverage can be patchy. Timetable prices are in euro, and that is the amount charged.

As soon as you confirm you get a six-character booking code and a ticket page with a QR code. The code is built so it can be read out loud: it contains no characters that sound alike — no zero against “o”, no one against “i”. You can find the booking later under “My ticket” using the code and the phone number; no registration and no password, because we do not create accounts.

The price is published and fixed: Siret €8, Suceava SCV €25, Iași IAS €45, Bucharest OTP/BBU €70, Chișinău (Moldova) €35. It does not rise on a Friday and it does not depend on how many seats are left. The form on this site books everyone travelling at once: adults at the published fare, children under 10 at the route’s child fare, and it shows the total before you confirm. It does not apply the discount for groups of six or more on a single booking — an operator applies that before you travel. Which channels are open for that today is shown on the Contacts page.

Your ticket page names the boarding city as soon as you book, and once the trip is assigned, the van number and the driver’s name. The exact pickup address is not published on the site yet. At the airport the driver meets you in the arrivals hall with a name sign.

One item in the hold plus one piece of hand luggage in the cabin are included in the ticket price. The second and every further item is charged at the tariff, calculated by the driver as you board. Oversized items — a bicycle, a television, furniture — only by prior arrangement: in a minibus there may physically be no room for them, and boarding is the worst moment to find that out.

It depends on the vehicle, and its model is shown on the departure row before you book. The large coaches (Setra, Mercedes Tourismo, Neoplan, MAN) have a toilet and climate control; the minibuses (Mercedes Sprinter, VW Crafter, Iveco Daily) have no toilet — the driver stops before the border. It is better not to count on Wi-Fi en route: there are stretches of road with no coverage, and we do not promise what is not ours to give.

Morning flights from Suceava and Iași start between 6 and 8, and check-in closes well before take-off — with 2 h 15 min on the road to SCV there is no other way to make it. On top of that, the fastest hour at the border is 05:00 (median 46 minutes against 98 overall). The bus number and the driver’s name are on your ticket as soon as the dispatcher assigns them — usually a day before departure, so you will not have to look for anyone. Coffee and a toilet are at the stop before Porubne; inside the crossing itself you may not leave the bus until the border officer allows it.

A small animal in a carrier, yes, but only by prior arrangement: there may be a passenger with an allergy on board, and that is settled before the ticket is sold, not at boarding. To cross the border the animal needs a microchip, a valid rabies vaccination and an EU pet passport or an international veterinary certificate. We do not carry large dogs.

If you gave the flight number when booking, dispatch sees it and can move the pickup time by hand, at no extra charge; there is no automatic flight status tracking at present. Free waiting at the airport is 60 minutes from the plane’s actual landing. If the flight was cancelled outright, cancel the booking under “My ticket” and pick another departure — it costs nothing, because there is no prepayment.

From your ticket page or under “My ticket” — you need the booking code and the phone number. Cancellation is free any time before departure. A later cancellation also costs nothing, because there is no prepayment — but do it anyway: the seat goes back on sale and someone else can still take it.

The van does not wait: the border is ahead, and one passenger’s delay puts everyone else’s flight at risk. A no-show costs nothing in money, since there is no prepayment, but the seat is lost. The moment you realise you will not make it, open “My ticket” with the code from your confirmation and cancel the booking: the seat goes straight back on sale, and you pick the next departure yourself in the search by date.

Changing the date is the simplest: cancel the booking and make a new one — it costs nothing, because there is no prepayment. You cannot change the passenger name yourself: the passenger list is handed over at the border, and the person on the bus must match the person on the list. So here too the quickest route is the same one: cancel the booking and rebook in the right name.