How to Get Around Kos by Bus (2026 Guide): Routes, Stops, Times & Fares

Kos is long, flat and strung out along one main road, with the airport in the middle and the resorts at either end — a shape that suits buses. KTEL Kos (legally KTEL KOS S.A., in Greek ΚΤΕΛ ΚΩΣ Α.Ε.) runs the island-wide network — 10 routes fanning out from its station in Kos Town: Kefalos and Kardamena in the south-west, Tigaki, Marmari and Mastichari along the north coast, Pyli and Zia inland, and Kos International Airport “Hippocrates” in the middle. Kos Town has a second, completely separate city-bus network, and knowing which of the two you are waiting for is the most useful thing here.

The Kos bus network at a glance

Everything intercity leaves from the KTEL Kos bus station in Kos Town, on Kleopatras Street, a short walk inland from the ferry harbour; local signage often shows it as ΚΤΕΛ ΚΩ. The network is an easy shape: one line west along the north coast through Tigaki and Marmari to Mastichari, one down the spine of the island past the airport to Antimacheia, Kardamena and Kefalos, two short inland runs to Pyli and Zia. Only ten stops are published — these are village-to-village services with one named stop at each end, not dense urban lines.

The Kos Town city buses

The second network is the Kos Town city buses, run for years by DEAS Kos (ΔΕΑΣ Κω) and, since that body was dissolved, directly by the Municipality of Kos. They go where KTEL does not: the beaches on the town's doorstep and the ancient sites just outside it. The municipality's timetable, effective 20 July 2026, runs Line 1 from the Aktaion terminal to Agios Fokas and Line 5 on to Therma, 28 departures from 06:45 to 23:30 with returns until 23:45; Line 2 from the Delfinia terminal on Dolphins Square to Lampi and Nea Alikarnassos, 19 departures from 08:00 to 22:30; and Line 3 from Aktaion to Platani and the Asklepieion, 8 departures from 08:00 to 14:00. Line 3 is the only bus to the Asklepieion, and it runs mornings only, so go early.

Treat those times as provisional: the service was not running at the start of the 2026 season and the timetable has already been reissued twice in a month, on 22 June and again on 20 July 2026. Check the dated 20 July post on kos.gov.gr — the older timetable page still carries 2024 files — or ask the municipal transport office on +30 22420 26276. They use their own stops, sometimes metres from a KTEL stop near the harbour, and are not in our route list. For everywhere else it is KTEL Kos, on +30 22420 22292.

Main Kos bus routes

• Kos Town ↔ Kos Airport: the busiest service in our Kos data by a wide margin, running across the day and late into the evening; 35 minutes end to end on the operator's own times — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Mastichari: the north-coast run to the fishing village whose harbour is the Kalymnos ferry port, about half an hour away — route details.

• Mastichari ↔ Kos Airport: the second half of the same through bus, 10 to 15 minutes between the airport and the ferry harbour — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Tigaki: the long shallow beach nearest town, one of the two most frequent beach lines — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Marmari: the next big beach west along the same coast, served about as often as Tigaki — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Airport ↔ Kefalos: the full run to the south-western tip, calling at the airport; no journey time is published, so allow roughly an hour and a quarter — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Airport ↔ Kardamena: the big south-coast resort, and the closest resort to the airport — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Zia: the hillside village above the plain, roughly 25 to 30 minutes up — but the last bus back down leaves at 16:30, so the classic sunset is not a bus trip. Few runs, none on Sunday — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Pyli: the inland village line, a handful of weekday trips and nothing on Sunday — route details.

• Kos Town ↔ Antimacheia: the large village next to the airport, on its own lightly served table — route details. The Kardamena and Kefalos buses pass through too, with no published times.

Every departure we hold is on the full Kos bus timetable.

Getting from the airport and the port

Kos International Airport “Hippocrates” (KGS) is not near the town — it sits in the middle of the island beside Antimacheia, which is why four of our ten routes touch it. The direct Kos Town–Airport line is the workhorse, and the operator's own tables put the airport 35 minutes from town: the figure to plan a flight around. The Kefalos and Kardamena buses call there en route from town as well.

What the separate timetables hide is that the town, Mastichari and airport services are one bus, not three: Kos Town → Mastichari → Airport outbound, Airport → Mastichari → Kos Town inbound, with every Kos Town departure reappearing on the Mastichari–Airport sheet exactly half an hour later. So you can land and ride straight on to Mastichari, 10 to 15 minutes on the operator's published times, without going into town first. Sunday is the day to trust least: two current operator tables, both valid from 1 August 2026, disagree over how many Sunday trips run the Mastichari leg, so confirm at the station or on +30 22420 22292 rather than believing either.

One trap on the way back: for the Kefalos and Kardamena services the operator publishes the departure from the airport but not the time the Kos-bound bus passes it, so work from the departure printed for your village and leave slack. Ferries dock in Kos Town harbour, a short walk from the KTEL station.

Tickets and fares

You pay on board: KTEL Kos tickets are bought from the driver when you get on, and the operator does not sell online, so there is nothing to book ahead. Fares are distance-based and printed at the foot of each route timetable; these are the prices set at the March 2026 revision, re-checked against the operator's current sheets in August 2026. KTEL Kos lists one-way fares of €2.50 to Zia, Tigaki, Marmari and Pyli; €4.00 to the airport, Mastichari and Antimacheia; €4.20 to Kardamena; and €5.50 to Kefalos. Shorter legs cost less: €3.20 airport to Kefalos, €2.50 airport to Kardamena, €2.50 Mastichari to the airport. The municipal city buses publish no fares at all, so carry small change. Where a Greek operator does sell online you can buy through Greek Island Buses at the same price and board with a QR code; on Kos we publish the timetable rather than the ticket.

Mastichari, the Kalymnos ferry and bicycles

Mastichari matters beyond its beach: its harbour is the Kalymnos ferry port. ANEM Ferries — legally Mastihari Shipping Company S.A. — sails the F/B Olympios Zeus to Pothia on Kalymnos from 14 June to 31 October 2026, leaving Mastichari at 09:00, 14:30 and 18:30 Monday to Saturday (09:00 and 18:30 on Sunday) and Kalymnos at 07:00, 13:30 and 17:30 (08:00 and 17:30 on Sunday).

On the published times the 08:00 bus out of Kos Town makes the 09:00 boat, the 13:00 makes the 14:30 and the 16:30 makes the 18:30, while the 18:45 is too late for the last sailing. That pairing is ours, not the operators' — the bus run is about half an hour and no arrival times are published — so confirm both ends before you commit, and mind the Sunday caveat above. The ferry season runs to the end of October, outlasting the summer bus timetables. Day boats to Nisyros, incidentally, sail from Kos Town harbour rather than Kardamena.

Kos is also one of the few Greek islands where cycling is a serious option — the northern half is flat and rental bikes are everywhere. Ride out to Tigaki or Marmari and bus back when the wind picks up — though KTEL Kos publishes no policy on bikes in the luggage bays, so ask the driver first.

Seasons, Sundays and the trips that don't come back

Summer 2026 timetables took effect at the end of June — 29 June is the season cut-over — and individual tables were reissued through the summer, the airport and Mastichari ones from 1 August 2026. KTEL Kos publishes only a valid-from date, never a valid-to, so no official end date exists; in recent years the switch to the thinner winter timetable came at the start of November. Sunday catches people out: no service at all to Zia or Pyli, the Antimacheia table shows Sunday departures out of town with no published return, and the Mastichari columns contradict each other. Pyli also has a late-afternoon weekday departure with no later bus back the same day. And arrival times are published nowhere on this network — the 35-minute airport run is only known because two operator tables cross-check each other — so treat a departure time as the only fixed point and never plan a tight connection off one.

Plan your trip

Browse the complete Kos bus timetable for every route, stop and departure we hold, and remember the two-network rule: KTEL Kos for the island, city buses for the town and its beaches.