A berth on a night train can be sold once a day. A seat on a day train can be sold up to four times and an aircraft seat up to five, French state operator SNCF Voyageurs said in September 2025, when it announced it would pull out of the Paris–Berlin and Paris–Vienna night trains. Both services were 70% full on average in 2024.
The operator said that level of occupancy did not make the services viable without state support, and the French government had withdrawn its subsidy. Higher ridership would not have closed the gap either, the operator said, because operating costs are too high. The services described below run either because a government pays for them or because an operator owns or leases the coaches and carries the risk itself.
One fare per berth per day
A day train on a busy corridor can make several trips between morning and midnight. A sleeper coach leaves in the evening, arrives in the morning and spends most of the day parked. Each berth earns one fare in 24 hours, so to match the revenue of a day seat it would have to earn up to four times the fare.
A sleeper coach also carries fewer passengers than a seated coach of the same length. Beds take more room than seats, and a couchette compartment holds four or six people.
Low-cost flights on the same city pairs set the price most travellers compare against. That leaves little room to raise fares. An occupancy rate of 70% still leaves a night train short of its costs.
Costs a day train does not carry
SNCF Voyageurs listed the extra costs when it explained its decision. Night trains need more on-board staff, border crossings require additional crew and changes of locomotive and driver, and night work costs more. Daily cleaning, fresh bedding and the upkeep of compartments add costs a seated train avoids.
Long routes also pay track access charges to the infrastructure manager in every country they cross, and use more energy per journey. Under the Recast Directive (2012/34/EU), each network sets its own charges within a common EU framework, so a cross-border night train pays several national tariffs on a single trip.
Dutch-Belgian night train operator European Sleeper started a Brussels–Milan service on 9 September 2026. The train crosses four national networks, each with its own infrastructure manager, and a different company provides the locomotive and driver south of the Swiss–Italian border. Every interface adds a contract, a charge and a point where delays can build.
Coaches and track time at night
Sleeper and couchette coaches are built in small numbers by few manufacturers, and they cost more to buy and maintain than seated coaches. Austrian state operator ÖBB is spending more than EUR 500m on 24 new Nightjet trains, a spokesperson told Euronews in January 2026. The order had been cut from 33 trains, with the money moved to day services.
Night is also when the network is repaired. Night trains compete for slots on the track with freight trains and with engineering work. SNCF Voyageurs said works in France and Germany ruled out the planned move to a daily Paris–Berlin service.
ÖBB took its night train to La Spezia out of the 2026 timetable because of construction work. An operator that loses a route for a season still carries the cost of the coaches.
Why national operators hold back
A national operator that runs high-speed day trains has a reason to be cautious. Some passengers on a new night train would otherwise have bought a day ticket from the same company, so a night service that covers its own costs can still reduce the group’s total revenue. A company with no day trains on the route has no such trade-off.
The Paris–Berlin Nightjet ran three nights a week and never became daily. Cross-border night trains are often sold through several national booking systems, and not always through the partner operators’ own. The Nightjet’s tickets had not been sold through SNCF’s own channels since May 2024, which SNCF Voyageurs attributed to changes in its reservation system.
The Paris services were run by four national operators together – SNCF Voyageurs, ÖBB, DB and the Belgian operator SNCB. When the French subsidy ended, none of the partners continued the routes on its own, and both trains stopped at the timetable change on 14 December 2025.
Who pays, and on what terms
The operators behind Europe’s night trains work under three arrangements:
State contract – the state pays an operator to run a fixed service. As of September 2026, Swedish transport administration Trafikverket has agreed to pay state-owned operator SJ just under SEK 30m, roughly EUR 2.7m, for six months of the Stockholm–Östersund–Duved night train from 13 December 2026.
State-owned operator – the operator runs night trains within a state-owned group and orders its own fleet. ÖBB, with its order for 24 new Nightjet trains, works this way.
Commercial operation – a private operator runs the service at its own risk, without a state contract. German operator RDC Deutschland was due to take over the Berlin–Hamburg–Stockholm night train on this basis on 1 September 2026.
SJ held the Swedish state contract for the Stockholm–Berlin route for four years, with RDC supplying the coaches from the start. In October 2025, ahead of the contract’s expiry, RDC said it would run the route itself. Its June 2026 announcement set three departures a week in each direction, with the same coaches.
Public money can also be withdrawn before a train runs. The Basel–Copenhagen–Malmö night train planned by Swiss national operator SBB with RDC for April 2026 was cancelled before launch after Swiss federal funding was refused. Tickets had already gone on sale.
At 70% occupancy, the Paris night trains still needed state money to run. The commercial services launched or scheduled in 2026 are planned around three departures a week on coaches their operators own or lease, and their accounts will show whether that closes the gap.