When German Train Tickets Go on Sale for Christmas Travel
If you plan a German Christmas market trip, train tickets in Germany may not yet be available due to the December timetable change.
Below, you can find out exactly when German train tickets for December and Christmas travel go on sale.
German train tickets for December travel
When searching months in advance for December train tickets to popular European destinations – such as Germany with its many Christmas markets – tourists often find no train connections available in online search tools.
Online forums and social media groups are full of questions from confused travellers wondering whether there are really no trains in December or if they are all already fully booked.
Fortunately, there is no need to worry about your German travel plans for the Christmas holidays, as there is a simple reason why these December trains cannot be booked far in advance.
The annual railway timetable change
Across almost all of Europe, railway timetables change annually on the second Sunday of December.
Those involved in planning the new timetable often joke that the railway’s New Year is not the first of January, but the second Sunday of December, as that is when the new timetable comes into effect.
Already many months in advance, national railway companies across Europe work hard to finalise the new timetable, which requires extensive internal planning as well as precise coordination with train operators from neighbouring countries.
It is not only a massive undertaking to draft the new timetable, but loading it into the systems and setting the fares is an equally large task.
This is exactly why nothing may appear when you try to book a German train ticket in summer or early autumn for travel after the December timetable change, as these trains have simply not yet been loaded into the system.
If this is the case, there is no need to stress about your plans for a Christmas market trip across Germany – if you cannot book German train tickets, neither can anyone else.
Besides, German trains do not have compulsory seat reservations and can therefore never sell out.
When do German trains for the Christmas holidays open for booking?
This year, Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, will release tickets for travel after the December timetable change on 15 October.
On this date, German tickets for travel from 14 December onwards – including the Christmas holidays and dates well into 2026 – will go on sale.
Typically, Deutsche Bahn opens bookings for December and Christmas travel in mid-October, as it has in previous years, so a similar schedule can be expected in the coming years as well.
December train tickets in other European countries
If you are also visiting France or Austria during your European Christmas trip, you can generally expect the French (SNCF) and Austrian (ÖBB) railways to follow a similar schedule to Germany when December train tickets go on sale.
The French will be slightly earlier this year, as tickets for the Christmas season already went on sale on 1 October 2025.
Other railway companies across Europe typically follow a similar schedule, although some handle it differently.
For example, the Italians do not release all tickets for the new December timetable at once, but load them in batches.
It can therefore happen that in the first few days only one or two of the dozen daily trains on a particular route are loaded into the system, or entire regions of the country are still missing!
Then there are countries like Poland, where trains only go on sale 30 days before the travel date, so booking further in advance is simply not possible.
When booking a train ticket for December, the Christmas holidays, or early in the new year, the best advice is simply to check regularly whether trains have been loaded into the system and are on sale.
Conclusion
The annual timetable change in December always complicates train travel across Europe, leaving many foreign visitors puzzled as to why they cannot book their tickets for the Christmas season months in advance.
This is especially causing problems for tourists heading to the German Christmas markets, as when they search for tickets between popular destinations such as Nuremberg and Cologne, or lesser-visited gems like the Bamberg Christmas market, no trains are available.
The key is to be patient, as European railway companies like Deutsche Bahn in Germany only load their trains for the new December railway timetable into the booking system around mid-October.
Simply put, trains after the second Sunday of December – when the railway timetables change each year – only go on sale in October, so there is no point trying to book these tickets months in advance, as it is simply not possible!
