Getting Around Curaçao: Transfers, Taxis, Buses and the Car Question

The island is 60-odd kilometres long and everything you came for is spread along it. That single fact decides your transport budget, and most people decide it badly — either by hiring a car they then leave parked at a resort, or by paying taxi fares all week for journeys a bus covers for the price of a coffee.

Here is what each option actually is.

From the airport, first

Curaçao International (CUR) sits about 12 kilometres from the historic centre of Willemstad — reckon on 20 to 25 minutes. Jan Thiel, where a lot of the hotels are, is about 21 kilometres, roughly 25 minutes. Westpunt, at the far western tip, is about 36 kilometres and three-quarters of an hour.

Taxis wait outside arrivals and are the default. If you would rather have a name sign waiting for you, the one private airport transfer in our inventory runs at €48.31 per group of up to three, about an hour, 24 hours a day, in an air-conditioned vehicle with three standard bags per car and a nine-seater available for groups of five to nine. The driver meets you in the arrivals hall with the lead traveller’s name, and you can cancel free up to 24 hours ahead.

Read its reviews before you book it. It carries 1.9 stars from 23 reviews, and the recurring complaint is drivers not turning up. We list it because it is the transfer that exists here, not because we recommend it — at that rating, a taxi from the rank or a pre-booked local firm is the safer arrival.

Taxis: no meter, a rate card instead

Curaçao taxis are licensed and carry a TX on the number plate. They do not have meters. Fares follow an official rate table by zone, and the driver carries that table — asking to see it is normal and nobody is offended by it.

Two habits worth adopting: agree the fare before you get in, and ask whether a surcharge applies. The surcharge usually quoted is 25 % between 11 pm and 6 am, and on Sundays and public holidays, with extra charges above four passengers. Those are the figures local operators publish rather than a law you can point at, so confirm them with the driver at the door rather than at the destination.

There is no Uber on Curaçao, and no Lyft. What there is instead: local taxi apps — 24-7 Taxi Curaçao and Click Curaçao among them — which book a car from a map and quote a fixed price before the trip. For anyone used to seeing the price up front, that is the closest equivalent.

The bus, which almost nobody on holiday uses

It exists, it works, and it is cheap. Autobusbedrijf Curaçao runs the large buses locals call konvoi, and on the operator’s own published fares a ride through the city and the eastern side of the island costs 2.00 guilders, while a ride covering the west — Banda Abou, Tera Kora, Lagun, Westpunt — costs 2.50. Reduced fares apply from 65. Pay the driver in cash.

Two terminals, and which one you use decides where you can go: Punda, by the Waaigat near the floating market, serves the east; Otrobanda serves the west. There are around a thousand stops across the island. City routes run roughly hourly and less often on Sundays, so the bus is a real option for a planned outing and a poor one for getting back from a beach at dusk. Smaller private minibuses also run the same corridors without a published timetable.

On money: since mid-2025 the island’s currency is the Caribbean guilder, which replaced the old Netherlands Antillean guilder; some operator pages still print the old code. US dollars are widely accepted across tourist businesses, but you will usually get your change in guilders — and for a bus fare, carry local coins.

What the tours actually take off your transport bill

Before you price a hire car for a week, look at what the excursions include — and read that list carefully. Booking pages stack what is included and what is not included directly on top of each other, in the same type; skimmed quickly, the two look identical. On every offer we looked up for this guide, hotel pickup sat on the second list: on the Willemstad walking tour at €32.50, on the amphibious bus at €69.39, which starts from a car park in front of The Movies Punda, and on the big off-road buggy adventure, where you get yourself to Sint Michiel.

So expect to make your own way to the meeting point rather than to be collected. It does exist — the city, culture and Blue Curaçao tasting tour at €57.10 lists it explicitly among its inclusions — it is simply not the rule. Check the pickup line on every booking page anyway, before you book: where it genuinely is included it saves two taxi rides a day — and where it is not, those two rides belong in your budget.

When the island stops working without a car

The honest answer is: as soon as you want the west.

The good swimming and snorkelling bays are strung along the western coast well beyond the bus’s useful frequency, the national park wants an early start that no timetable supports, and a taxi out and back to one of those beaches costs more than a day’s hire. Our guide to Curaçao’s nature spots has the opening times that make the early start necessary, and shore snorkelling explains why the free bays are worth the drive.

Driving here is straightforward. You drive on the right. A valid licence from your own country is accepted; if yours is not in Latin script, carry an International Driving Permit alongside it. Signposted limits are typically 40 km/h in built-up areas, 60 on rural roads and 80 on the main routes, and the roads are in decent condition — with the one local warning worth repeating, that they become slippery after rain, which arrives suddenly and rarely.

If that sounds like your trip, you can compare hire cars for Curaçao and see what a day actually costs against two taxi runs.

Before you pay, read three lines on the rental page rather than trusting a summary: what the deposit is and what is blocked on your card, what the excess comes to if the car is damaged, and what the minimum driver age is — the last of these varies by supplier and is where most disappointments at the desk begin. Those numbers change by company and season, which is exactly why we are not printing any here.

A short version

Staying in Willemstad or Jan Thiel and taking tours with pickup: no car, taxis and apps for evenings. Arriving with children, gear and a west-coast plan: car from day one. In between — the common case — hire for the two or three days you intend to drive the island, and take the bus, a taxi or your feet the rest of the time. The island tours from €24.60 exist precisely for people who would rather not drive at all.