Lisbon: Getting from the airport to city center

There are several options to travel from the aiport to city center.

A few notes about terminal 2

Terminal 2 is departures only. Although you arrive officially at terminal 2 (the airplane actually stops near terminal 2) you will be transported directly to terminal 1 where the arrivals hall and the checked in luggage belts are. From there you can either get the subway, bus or a taxi.

For departure the process is a bit different. You will depart from terminal 2. You can use all of the transports mentioned but both subway and regular bus will leave you at terminal 1. Aerobus (a dedicated bus service) also goes to terminal 2. From terminal 1 to terminal 2 there is a free airport bus. It departs every 10 minutes. The trip shouldn't take more than 5 minutes between terminal 1 and 2.

http://www.ana.pt/en-US/Aeroportos/lisboa/Lisboa/Departures/Terminal2/Pages/Terminal2.aspx

Online Planner - From the airport to the city center

Lisbon region has a transport planner. You can find it here:

http://www.transporlis.sapo.pt/Default.aspx?tabid=36&language=en-GB

It may be useful both to find routes from the airport and others.

Try this link. It's already prepared with the route going downtown (restauradores). Just pick a date and hit calculate.

Available transports - summary

1. Subway: You can find here the official website in english. You can download the network map, plan the route and see the line status (to know if there is a service interruption). The price is currently 6€ for a 24h ticket and 1,40€ for a regular ticket. You need to pay an extra 0.50€ if you don't have already the rechargeable card.
2. Bus: You can find here the official website with their regular routes, some of them passing through the airport. The lines serving the airport are Nº 208, 705, 722, 744, 783 (these serveral destinations, not only downtown) - The price of the ticket is 1,80€ if bought in the bus. If you buy tickets in advance 24h tickets cost 6€ and regular (valid for 60 min) cost 1,40€.
3. Aerobus: You can find here information about the aerobus. The dedicated bus service that connects the airport / downtown OR to the financial district. The first goes downtown and passes by some of the major hotels. The second goes through the major business areas. It currently costs 3.15€ if bought on-line.
4. Taxi: works like in any other city :) ask where you want to go, pay in the end.
5. Uber: Uber is available in Portugal and at the airport. There are currently some problems with taxi drivers and Uber (the first acusing the second of illegal concurrence). If you use this service, Uber will probably request you to meet their car a bit away from arrivals (around 150mts away) to avoid meeting the taxis.

You can also find this information, with more details, at the airport website

The local Carris bus company runs a bus transport service connecting Lisbon's airport to the city centre passing by the main transport hubs such as Comercio Square and Cais de Sodré. This service is called AeroBus and passes by dozens of Lisbon hotels, thus providing tourists arriving at the airport with easy access to their accommodation. An alternative to the bus is the metro or Lisbon airport taxi

I hope this helps.

Metro is best - really simple, cheap (compared to places like London or New York), and quick.

Just follow the 'M' logos to get to the airport Metro station. You need to take the pink line and change at S. Sebastiao, switching to the light blue line and getting off at Baixa-Chiado (the absolute centre of Lisbon).

Good luck - It's a lovely city!