Last updated: August 2026
There is a cricket pitch in the middle of Corfu Town. Officers off a Royal Navy ship played the first match on the Spianada in 1823, during the British protectorate, and Corfiots have been playing there ever since. So is Corfu expensive? No, not especially, and the square that pitch sits in is where the answer starts.
Corfu at a glance
- Flight timeAround 3 hours from London, longer from Scotland
- AirportCorfu Ioannis Kapodistrias (CFU), about 3km from Corfu Town
- CurrencyEuro (EUR), around €1.17 to the pound in August 2026
- Time zone2 hours ahead of the UK year-round
- LanguageGreek; English is widely spoken in resorts and towns
- VisaVisa-free for UK passports, up to 90 days in any 180
The arcades around that pitch are French, put up during the earlier occupation. The old quarter behind them is Venetian, and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2007. Once the flight is booked, two things decide what a week here costs. The room is roughly two thirds of what you spend in a day, and which street you eat on is most of the rest. Bus fares and admission charges barely register.
How to keep Corfu costs down
In rough order of what they are worth, biggest first.
| Do this | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Stay outside Corfu Town | The same three nights in September run £51 a night in Benitses and £148 in Garitsa, both for two people. Across those three nights that is a saving of £291. |
| Eat away from the Liston | Numbeo's Corfu panel puts an ordinary restaurant meal at €10 and three courses for two at €55. The arcade terraces sit at the top of both ranges. You are buying the position, not the cooking. |
| Take the green bus to Paleokastritsa | KTEL Kerkyras charges €2.80 each way for the 50-minute run from the town terminal. The full-day coach tour covering the same bay and the Achilleion is £56 a head. |
| Check the room levy for your hotel's class | Greece charges it per room per night and bands it by star rating: €2 at two stars, €5 at three, €10 at four and €15 at five, between 1 April and 31 October. It's collected at the property, so it usually sits outside the price you compare online. |
| Buy bus tickets before you board | Astiko KTEL Kerkyras states on its own tickets page that fares sold on the bus are higher, by law. Kiosks and machines at San Rocco Square and the port charge the printed fare. |
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"A cheap room in a smart hotel pays exactly the same levy as the suite upstairs, because Greece bands the charge by star rating and not by what you handed over. It runs from €2 a night at a two-star to €15 at a five-star, so a fortnight at the top of that scale is €210 nobody quoted you. Small money against the room, but it's the easiest surprise here to see coming."
Kate Acaster, Chief Editor, Flight Tribe
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Getting to Corfu from the UK
Sixteen UK airports show up on the scheduled route data for Corfu, and TUI Airways sells Corfu flights on top of those. Gatwick dominates, with 145 departures in August 2026 against 91 from Manchester and 58 from Heathrow. Fares swing too hard by date and departure point for one figure to be worth printing, so treat the flight as the number you check yourself.
| Airline | UK airports with direct flights | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jet2.com | Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool, London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle | Thirteen airports, the widest UK network to the island |
| easyJet | Belfast International, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester, Newcastle | Nine airports, heaviest from Gatwick and Manchester |
| Ryanair | Birmingham, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London Stansted, Manchester, Teesside International | Seven airports, and the only carrier serving Teesside |
| British Airways | London Gatwick, London Heathrow | The only airline flying Corfu from Heathrow |
| Wizz Air | London Luton | One UK route |
| TUI Airways | Missing from the scheduled route map used for the airports above, though it sells Corfu seats directly | Its own Corfu flights page is live for 2026 and 2027 |
Aggregator route maps undercount this island. Their TUI coverage is patchy, and TUI is not hiding anything: you can book its Corfu seats on tui.co.uk today. If a round-up tells you a UK airport has no direct service, check the airline itself before you believe it.
Visa and entry requirements for UK travellers
A UK passport gets you into Greece without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180. Your passport must have been issued within the last ten years on the day you arrive, and stay valid for at least three months after the day you leave. They're two separate tests, and an older passport can fail the first while passing the second.
EES, ETIAS and what actually happens at Corfu airport
The EU's Entry/Exit System started on 12 October 2025 and now covers Greece. It replaces the passport stamp with a digital record and can involve giving fingerprints and a photo on arrival. Registration is free and the record lasts three years. Greece is the useful exception here: the UK government says Greek authorities have indicated they will not collect biometrics from UK travellers under the scheme, so the queue at Corfu should look much like it always has. ETIAS, the €20 authorisation, is expected from autumn 2026 and is not required yet.
Reduced admission doesn't follow a British passport everywhere
The Ministry of Culture sells a €5 reduced ticket for the Old Fortress, but restricts it to Greek and EU citizens over 65, and only between 1 October and 31 May. A British visitor of 70 pays the full €10 whatever the month. The Achilleion sets no nationality condition, no seasonal window, and its own threshold is 67. The same visitor pays €5 there in July.
Getting from Corfu airport into town
The airport sits on the edge of the lagoon, about 3km by road from the Old Town.
| Option | Cost and timing |
|---|---|
| Blue bus, Airport to San Rocco Square and the port | €1.30 as a Zone A single, roughly a quarter of an hour to San Rocco. Buy at a kiosk before boarding, since on-board fares are higher. |
| Taxi into Corfu Town | About €7 and ten minutes. Numbeo puts the local meter at €3.60 to start and €1.61 a mile. |
| Hotel airport shuttle | Benitses Arches charges €40 per vehicle one way for up to four, booked 48 hours ahead. On the meter rates above the same run is nearer €14, so this buys certainty at the arrivals door rather than a saving. |
| Pre-booked private transfer | Quoted per car rather than per head. It won't beat the bus on price at any group size, but with three or more people and luggage it stops being an extravagance. |
Getting around Corfu
Two networks cover the island, run by two companies with almost the same name. The blue buses are Astiko KTEL Kerkyras and cover Corfu Town and the villages nearest it in two fare zones. The green buses are KTEL Kerkyras and run everything further out from one terminal on Leoforos Eptanisou. Here is what the long runs cost, one way.
| Destination | Journey | One-way fare |
|---|---|---|
| Agios Gordios | 40 minutes | €2.70 |
| Glyfada | 45 minutes | €2.70 |
| Paleokastritsa | 50 minutes | €2.80 |
| Sidari | 1 hour 15 | €4.10 |
| Kassiopi | 1 hour 15 | €4.30 |
| Roda and Acharavi | 1 hour 20 | €4.40 |
| Perithia, for Mount Pantokrator | 1 hour 30 | €4.60 |
| Agios Stefanos | 1 hour 45 | €5.00 |
| Kavos | 1 hour 30 | €5.30 |
Astiko KTEL Kerkyras also sells a blue bus day ticket at €5. Three singles at €1.30 come to less, so it only pays from the fourth ride. A book of ten Zone A rides plus one free costs €13, or €1.18 a ride.
| Where the money goes | What it costs |
|---|---|
| The furthest point on the island | €5.30 to Kavos, an hour and a half away |
| The west-coast beaches nearest town | Under €3 |
| The mountain villages | €4.60 to Old Perithia, for Mount Pantokrator |
| A hire car | Worth it only for several beaches in one day, or the villages the buses miss |
The Old Town has no gate and no ticket booth. The fortress at the end of the same street charges €10 to walk into. You can spend a morning in the arcades, the Liston and the lanes behind Saint Spyridon and pay for nothing but coffee.
The French built the Liston during their occupation and modelled it on the Rue de Rivoli. They look more Parisian than Greek. Behind them, Nikiforou Theotoki holds the kumquat shops and the tavernas islanders use.
Where to base yourself in Corfu
Corfu Town is the only base that reaches the whole island without a change, because both networks start there. Everywhere else trades a longer ride back against a cheaper room. Here is what that trade costs.
| Base | Suits | Bus fare into town |
|---|---|---|
| Corfu Town | Museums, the arcades, both bus networks and no car | Nothing to pay |
| Benitses and Perama | Cheaper rooms, with a few boutique exceptions, within a Zone B fare of the Achilleion | €1.80 each way |
| Paleokastritsa and Glyfada | Clear water and the island's best-known coves | €2.70 to €2.80 each way |
| Sidari, Roda and Acharavi | Family resorts and long sandy beaches | €4.10 to €4.40 each way |
| Kavos | Nightlife, at the far southern tip | €5.30 each way |
Even the worst of that trade is small. Two people based in Acharavi, coming into town and back twice during a week, spend €35.20 on fares. That is a fifth of one night in the Garitsa three-star priced further down.
What Corfu's main sights cost
| Sight | Adult admission |
|---|---|
| Achilleion Palace, Gastouri | €7, or €5 for students and anyone over 67. No charge under six. |
| Old Fortress, Corfu Town | €10, or €5 for Greek and EU citizens over 65, and only from 1 October to 31 May. |
| Museum of Asian Art, in the Palace of Saints Michael and George | €6, or €3 reduced. The only museum of its kind in Greece, built on a Greek ambassador's private collection of Chinese and Japanese work. |
| The Old Town, the Liston and the Spianada | No ticket. A UNESCO-listed quarter you can walk into from any direction. |
| Paleokastritsa bay and its coves | No ticket, and €2.80 each way on the green bus. |
| Day cruise to Paxos, Antipaxos and the Blue Caves | £42 a head on Expedia, rated 9.4 out of 10 across 588 reviews. |
| Full-day coach tour, Achilleion and Paleokastritsa | £56 a head on Expedia, roughly €65. Check whether the Achilleion ticket is included. The Achilleion sits in blue bus Zone B, so doing both by bus costs about €16 with entry, spread over two days. |
The combined ticket is a mess. The Ministry of Culture's record for the Old Fortress says the combined ticket covering the fortress, the Museum of Asian Art, the Archaeological Museum, the Antivouniotissa Museum and Mon Repos is no longer available, and prints its price as zero. The Ministry's record for the Museum of Asian Art still advertises the same five-site package at €14, valid three days. Both pages were live on 15 August 2026. Budget for separate tickets, and treat a combined ticket as a bonus if a desk still sells you one.
The coach tours all go to Paleokastritsa. The A9 green bus goes there too, for €2.80. Six coves sit under steep green hillsides on the north-west coast, 50 minutes from the town terminal. The monastery above the bay asks for a donation rather than an admission fee.
Photographs make it look flatter than it is. The road drops through olive terraces, and the coves are separated by headlands you walk over rather than round. Boat operators run the short hop between them. Walk over the headland instead and you reach the same water for the bus fare.
Where to stay in Corfu on a budget
We priced these three on the same midweek stay, 15 to 18 September 2026, for two adults, with taxes and fees included.
| Tier | Hotel | Per night |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Benitses Arches on Benitses Main Road, five minutes' walk from the beach by the marina and 18 minutes from the airport by road. Rated 8.6 across 174 reviews, with service scoring 9.0. No lift, and breakfast costs extra. | £51 |
| Mid | Dalia on Anapafseos in Garitsa, a 17-minute walk from Spianada Square. Rated 9.2 across 80 reviews, with the breakfast singled out. One room type was available on these dates, a double or twin with a city view. | £148 |
| Worth the spend | Eleals Boutique Hotel at Perama, a few minutes by road from the Achilleion. Rated 9.8 across 164 reviews, the highest score of the three. Cooked-to-order breakfast and parking are included. | £322 |
| Hotel class | 1 April to 31 October | 1 November to 31 March |
|---|---|---|
| One and two star | €2 a night | €0.50 a night |
| Three star | €5 a night | €1.50 a night |
| Four star | €10 a night | €3 a night |
| Five star | €15 a night | €4 a night |
The spread between the top and bottom of the hotel table is £271 a night, which buys more than a hundred green bus rides to Paleokastritsa. The levy then widens it again: over a week in September, Eleals adds €70 to the bill and Benitses Arches adds €14.
Where to eat and drink in Corfu on a budget
Corfiot cooking leans Venetian rather than Aegean. Pastitsada is beef or cockerel in a spiced tomato sauce, served over thick pasta. Sofrito is veal cooked slowly in garlic, parsley and vinegar. Bourdeto is fish stewed in hot red pepper, traditionally scorpionfish. You will find all three across the Ionian islands, and rarely on a tourist set menu.
| Tier | Where | Per head |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Corfu Central Market, the covered market and the stalls around it in Corfu Town. Bread, cheese, olives, fruit and a bottle of wine come to less than the €10 Numbeo puts on an ordinary restaurant meal, and the market is a short walk from the Old Fortress. | Under €10 |
| Mid | Rex at Kapodistriou 66, one street behind the Liston. Trading since 1932 and run by the Katsaros family since 1955, doing sofrito, bourdeto and pastitsada in their plainest versions. | About €28 |
| Mid | Klimataria in Benitses, a fish taverna the Bellos family opened in February 1997. Eleven tables, six of them on the porch, so booking is not optional. Open February to November, fish priced by the kilo. | About €30 |
| Worth the spend | The Venetian Well in the Old Town, the island's best-known fine-dining room. Its own menu lists squid with Corfiot salami and lamb with miso, and doesn't print a single price against any of them. | Ask when you book |
Those per-head figures are a sketch. Numbeo's Corfu panel is widely quoted and very thin: 30 contributors in eighteen months, with the site itself flagging some numbers as estimates. Its pint of draught sits at €4 with a stated range of €2.50 to €6, wide enough to describe two different holidays.
The local product to bring home
The kumquat is one of the few souvenirs that is properly Corfiot rather than generically Greek. It arrived from Asia in the nineteenth century, took to the island's damp winters, and distillers have made liqueur from it ever since. It also sells as a spoon sweet and a marmalade.
Most shops along Nikiforou Theotoki stock it. The market a few streets away sells the same bottles for less. A bottle weighs enough to matter, so check your baggage allowance before buying three. Without a checked bag you are down to the 100ml rule, or buying it airside.
Corfu Town or the coast
Two full days cover the town: the Old Fortress, the Museum of Asian Art in the old British palace, the market, and an evening under the arcade lights. The coast wants a week. You can run both from Corfu Town, but the week goes on the green buses. Three nights in Garitsa and four on the west coast cost one €2.80 transfer a head, and save you the daily round trip.
Most of the west-coast beaches are on the green bus map. Glyfada and Agios Gordios both cost €2.70 and take 40 to 45 minutes, for water you can see the bottom of.
Greek law caps how much of a beach an operator may cover with beds, and makes them leave a free strip open. On the west-coast bays that strip usually sits at either end. Walk past the beds and swim from there.
How much does Corfu cost per day?
This is a mid-range day in September for one person, sharing a Garitsa three-star with someone else.
| Item | Cost per person |
|---|---|
| Room in Corfu Town, split two ways | €87 |
| Breakfast and coffee | €6 |
| Lunch at an ordinary restaurant | €10 |
| Blue bus day ticket | €5 |
| Taverna dinner with a drink | €18 |
| Overnight levy, three-star band, split two ways | €2.50 |
| Daily total | €128.50 |
The shape of that column matters more than the total. The room is €87 of €128.50, or roughly two thirds. Everything else, the three meals and the buses and the levy, comes to €41.50, and €34 of that is food. Move to Benitses Arches and eat at the bottom of Numbeo's range and the same day is about €57: €30 for the bed, €22 for three meals, €3.60 on the Zone B bus and €1 of levy. Most of the saving comes from the bed.
Best time to visit Corfu on a budget
| Period | What to expect |
|---|---|
| May and early June | Corfu takes far more winter rain than the Aegean islands, and in May the hills are still green from it. Rooms sit well below the August rate. |
| July and August | Peak. KTEL Kerkyras posts warnings of 10 to 20 minute delays across August, and on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, the green buses drop to a Sunday timetable. |
| Mid-September to October | The sea is at its warmest and the town is quiet again. Every Expedia room rate on this page comes from that window. |
| November to April | Most resort hotels close. Corfu Town keeps going, and the Achilleion switches to 08:00 to 16:00 from 1 November. |
So, is Corfu expensive?
No, but one number decides most of it. The gap between the cheapest and dearest bed here is £271 a night, before the levy widens it further. Once the room is booked, food is the biggest thing left that moves: €34 of a €41.50 non-room day, across a Numbeo range of more than two to one.
Everything else is small. Every beach on the bus map is under €6 away, and the dearest of the three ticketed sights here is €10. A mid-range day lands at about €128 a head. Move to Benitses and eat at the bottom of the range and it is nearer €57.
After the room, the biggest lever left is which street you stop on. Numbeo puts an ordinary restaurant meal at €10. Its range runs to €23.
The Liston terraces sit at the top of that range. Paying it once is a fair trade and paying it nightly is an expensive habit. One street back, a smaller kitchen sells the same dish for less. Across seven dinners for two, that range is worth roughly four times what the fortress, the palace and the Asian Art museum cost the pair of you.
Corfu against its neighbours
Crete undercuts it on rooms, helped by more competition and a longer season. On admissions Corfu beats Rhodes: the Palace of the Grand Master and the Acropolis of Lindos are €20 each, against €10 and €7 for the two ticketed headliners here. Against Santorini and Mykonos it isn't a contest. The Greece budget travel guide puts the islands side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Corfu expensive?
No. It is mid-priced for a Greek island and far cheaper than Santorini or Mykonos. A mid-range day works out at about €128 a person with a town hotel split two ways, and a careful day is closer to €57.
How much does a meal cost in Corfu?
Numbeo puts an ordinary restaurant meal at €10, with a stated range of €8 to €23, and three courses for two at a mid-range restaurant at €55. Expect the higher end on the Liston.
How much is a pint of lager in Corfu?
About €4 for a pint of domestic draught on Numbeo's Corfu figures, with a range of €2.50 to €6. A bottle from a shop is €1.51.
How much money do I need for a week in Corfu?
Budget around €420 a person for seven nights in Benitses sharing a twin, including food, buses and the three main sights, or nearer €920 for a mid-range week from a Garitsa three-star. Flights sit on top of both and are the number you have to check for your own dates.
Which is nicer, Rhodes or Corfu?
Corfu, if you want green hills, Venetian architecture and short flights. Rhodes, if you want a medieval walled town and more reliable heat into October. Corfu is the cheaper of the two on admissions: its two ticketed headliners are €10 and €7, against €20 each for the Palace of the Grand Master and the Acropolis of Lindos.
Ordering the way islanders do costs less than ordering the way menus suggest. Shared plates and one main between two, with bread and a carafe of house wine, lands nearer Numbeo's €10 mark than its €23 one, and puts more of the island's own cooking on the table.
Pastitsada, sofrito and bourdeto are one-pot dishes built for sharing. They arrive in large portions and rarely appear on tourist set menus. A carafe of local wine costs a fraction of what a bottle does, and Corfu Beer, brewed on the island, undercuts the imported lagers on most taverna lists.
How do I get from the UK to Corfu?
Direct, in around three hours from London. Sixteen UK airports show up on the scheduled route data, with Jet2 serving thirteen of them, easyJet nine and Ryanair seven, and TUI Airways selling Corfu flights on top. Every UK route is seasonal, and Gatwick runs latest into the winter.
Do I need a hire car in Corfu?
Not for a normal week. Green buses reach Paleokastritsa for €2.80, Kavos for €5.30 and the north coast resorts for around €4.40, and blue buses cover the town and the Achilleion. Hire a car for a day if you want several beaches at once, or the inland villages the buses miss.
Is there a combined museum ticket for Corfu?
Treat it as withdrawn. The Ministry of Culture's Old Fortress record says the five-site combined ticket is no longer available, while its Museum of Asian Art record still lists the same package at €14 for three days. The package never covered the Achilleion anyway, so budget €10 for the fortress, €6 for the Asian Art museum and €7 for the palace separately.
What is the cheapest time to visit Corfu?
May, early June and from mid-September. Room rates fall well below the August peak, the sea is warmest in September, and the August delay notices come down.
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Kate Acaster is Chief Editor at Flight Tribe. She writes about practical travel planning, budget airlines, baggage rules, city breaks, beach holidays and good hotels that do not cost daft money.
Kate has travelled through Europe, South America and beyond, usually with a notebook, a half-formed plan and a strong opinion on airport snacks. At Flight Tribe, her work focuses on helping UK travellers understand what is included, what costs extra, and whether a trip is worth booking at the price shown.
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Kate checks the details that can change the value of a trip, including cabin-bag rules, airline fees, hotel location, seasonality, travel dates and booking conditions. She is especially interested in offers that look useful on the surface but need a proper reader-first check before they are worth recommending.
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