Cheap Flights to Belfast: Dublin Is Cheaper From All 25 US Airports

Belfast is the 38th-cheapest of the 40 European cities we price, which is another way of saying it is the third most expensive. Only Santorini and Mykonos cost more to reach from the United States, and both of those are Greek islands. Belfast is a city of 350,000 people two hours up the road from a major international airport.

That road is the entire point of this page. Dublin is cheaper than Belfast from every one of the 25 US gateways that priced both, by a median of $214, and Dublin Airport runs a direct coach to Belfast in about 2.2 hours. If Northern Ireland is the destination, the flight you want is probably not to Belfast.

$895

Median observed economy floor across priced US gateways

#38 of 40

Rank among European cities, cheapest first

$741

Cheapest fare found, from Chicago

$214

Spread between the best and worst US gateway, 35th widest of 40

No single airline sells Belfast International in our grid

Start with the fact that explains all the others. Our carrier grid prices every airline on every route from 26 US gateways to 47 European airports in one fixed travel week, and three cities in it returned no single-carrier itinerary from anywhere: Belfast International (BFS), Santorini and Mykonos. Not one airline, from any US airport.

Those three are also, in that order, the three most expensive cities in our entire grid. That is not a coincidence and it is the cleanest illustration on this site of what actually sets a transatlantic fare. It is not distance, and it is not the size of the destination. It is whether an airline decided to sell you a ticket on its own metal. Where none did, you are buying two tickets stitched together and paying accordingly.

That absence is declared in our data rather than left as a hole, which is a distinction this site insists on: a route that returns nothing is recorded as returning nothing, so a failure to collect can never pass itself off as a market with nothing to sell.

Belfast has two airports, and our two grids search two different places. The carrier grid prices airports one at a time, and the airport it priced here is Belfast International (BFS). The city grid prices the Belfast metro, which covers BFS and Belfast City (BHD) — it has to, because BFS on its own returns no fare at all: on October 1, 2026 a full six-month calendar came back empty from all twelve US gateways we reached that day, on both reads, and a fixed-date search for the same route answered that it had no options and offered BHD instead, 14 miles away. So every Belfast figure on this page is a metro figure. Which of the two airports a given itinerary lands at is not something our grid records, and we will not infer it, so check the airport on the ticket before you book the ground leg.

• Chicago$741
• Philadelphia$768
• Salt Lake City$850
• Miami$863
• San Francisco$863
• Charlotte$864
• Orlando$867
• Los Angeles$874
• Tampa$874
• Phoenix$886
• Raleigh$886
• Washington DC$890
• Atlanta$895
• Austin$895
• Houston$895
• Nashville$895
• Portland$895
• San Diego$895
• Seattle$895
• Boston$910
• Dallas$923
• Detroit$923
• Minneapolis$923
• Denver$935
• Las Vegas$955

Chicago at $741 is the only US airport that prices Belfast under $750. Philadelphia follows at $768. After that the chart flattens into a wall: nineteen of the twenty-five gateways sit between $850 and $955, and eight of them price Belfast at exactly $895, which is the signature of a market being sold by the same handful of connecting itineraries rather than by competing airlines.

New York does not appear at all. It returned no Belfast fare in the week we searched, which for the best-connected transatlantic gateway in the country is the most telling data point on this page.

Dublin wins from everywhere

Across the 25 US gateways that priced both

Dublin was cheaper from 25 of 25

On median the two are $895 and $681, which favors Dublin. The two summaries favor the same destination in this snapshot. Your departure airport’s row is the relevant starting point; matching summaries do not guarantee a lower fare on your dates. 0 gateways had equal observed prices.

Belfast

Median round trip

$895

Cheapest fare found

$741 from Chicago

Gateways where it is cheaper

0 of 25

Dublin

Median round trip

$681

Cheapest fare found

$518 from Boston

Gateways where it is cheaper

25 of 25

Its strongest airport

Boston by $392

From	Belfast	Dublin	Cheaper by
Chicago	$741	$571	Dublin by $170
Boston	$910	$518	Dublin by $392
Philadelphia	$768	$681	Dublin by $87
San Francisco	$863	$618	Dublin by $245
Miami	$863	$648	Dublin by $215
Portland	$895	$628	Dublin by $267
Seattle	$895	$637	Dublin by $258
Los Angeles	$874	$665	Dublin by $209
Washington DC	$890	$653	Dublin by $237
Orlando	$867	$681	Dublin by $186
Salt Lake City	$850	$704	Dublin by $146
Tampa	$874	$680	Dublin by $194
Charlotte	$864	$691	Dublin by $173
Atlanta	$895	$665	Dublin by $230
Nashville	$895	$681	Dublin by $214
Raleigh	$886	$691	Dublin by $195
Austin	$895	$699	Dublin by $196
Houston	$895	$699	Dublin by $196
Dallas	$923	$683	Dublin by $240
Minneapolis	$923	$684	Dublin by $239
San Diego	$895	$718	Dublin by $177
Denver	$935	$681	Dublin by $254
Phoenix	$886	$732	Dublin by $154
Las Vegas	$955	$688	Dublin by $267
Detroit	$923	$766	Dublin by $157

Twenty-five gateways priced both cities. Dublin is cheaper from twenty-five of them. Belfast wins nothing, ties nothing.

The widest gap is Boston at $392, which is not a coincidence: Boston is the cheapest US gateway for Dublin in our entire grid at $518, and one of the more expensive for Belfast at $910. The two cities move in opposite directions from the same airport. Chicago, which holds Belfast's floor, still reaches Dublin for $571.

Only one other comparison in our data produces a clean sweep like this, Greece against Italy, and that one is a comparison of countries on different sides of the Mediterranean. This is a comparison of two cities on the same island.

The coach, honestly

The Dublin-to-Belfast swap is the best arrival swap in Europe by our own measure, and we rank them by what each hour on the ground actually buys rather than by the raw saving. Belfast saves $214 for about 2.2 hours, roughly $97 an hour, which beats every other pair we price. The full ranking is on Fly Into a Different City.

Four practical things, because a swap this good deserves the caveats stated plainly.

The coach leaves from the airport. You do not need to go into Dublin city first. Services run through the day and take roughly two hours to Belfast, so a morning arrival puts you there for lunch.

The border is open, and you should still carry your passport. Ireland and the United Kingdom share the Common Travel Area, so there is no routine passport control on the road north. You clear immigration on arrival in Dublin. Carry your passport regardless; it is the document that proves who you are on the other side, and you will want it for the return.

The currency changes. Ireland uses the euro and Northern Ireland uses pound sterling. This surprises people more often than the border does.

The coach fare is not in our figures. None of the ground legs we price are, because ticket prices vary too much by date and booking window to state honestly. It is a bus fare against a $214 median saving, so the arithmetic is not close, but the number on this page is the airfare difference and nothing else.

When to fly to Belfast anyway

This site's rule is that the cheapest option and the right option are different judgments, so here is the case for the direct fare.

When it is near the floor. Anything at or below $741 beats every gateway we priced. If an alert puts a Belfast fare in that range from your airport, take it; you are getting the destination without the premium.

When the coach does not fit the trip. Arriving late at night, traveling with small children, or going straight on to the Causeway Coast rather than into Belfast itself are all reasons the two hours cost more than they save.

When the trip is both. Dublin and Belfast in one trip is a common and sensible itinerary, and in that case you were going to make the journey anyway. Fly into Dublin, work north, and the swap stops being a compromise.

What the data does not support is booking Belfast directly because it seems simpler. From most US airports that decision costs two to four hundred dollars for two hours saved.

Belfast in context

Belfast is the most expensive city in the British Isles in our grid, and by a distance. London medians $771, Glasgow $775, Manchester $782 and Edinburgh $817. Belfast is $895.

If Northern Ireland specifically is the destination, Dublin is the answer. If Ireland or the British Isles broadly is the destination, cheap flights to the UK covers London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow alongside Belfast, and Dublin has its own guide explaining why the Irish capital is the eighth-cheapest city in Europe to reach while its neighbor two hours north is the thirty-eighth.

What counts as a deal to Belfast

Use the Fare Deal Checker with your own airport rather than the national figure, because Belfast's floor and its median are $214 apart and your gateway could sit anywhere in that band. The Deal Alert Setup Wizard prints the act and grab lines for your city before the alerts start.

And set the alert for Dublin too. On a route this thinly sold, the Belfast fare that beats the Dublin fare plus a coach ticket is rare, and an alert on both is how you find out whether this month is one of the rare ones.