Riga handled 7.1 million passengers in 2025, more than any other single airport in the region: Vilnius managed 5.11 million and Tallinn just under 3.5 million, and Lithuania only edges ahead of Latvia by adding Kaunas and Palanga to the tally. Around 1.4 million of Riga's passengers, close to one in five, never left the building at all. They were connecting, mostly on airBaltic, which alone accounts for 57.2 percent of traffic here against Ryanair's 22.8 percent. That is what makes RIX different from its neighbours, and it also produces the single most useful fact on this page: the place that sells SIM cards at Riga airport is in the public arrivals hall, and a Schengen-to-Schengen transfer passenger never goes anywhere near it.
If you are arriving in Latvia rather than passing through, the situation is more relaxed. There is a shelf of prepaid cards, there is genuinely good free WiFi, and there is a bus into the centre that costs less than a coffee. What there is not, unlike the big Asian hubs, is a staffed carrier counter waiting to sort you out.
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Where Prepaid Cards Actually Live at RIX
Set expectations before you land. Riga does not run the branded operator desks you find at Bangkok or Istanbul, with staff, tariff boards and a queue. What it has is retail, and the retail sells SIM cards as one product among many.
The two places to look
Narvesen in the arrivals hall. The Baltic newsstand chain has a store in the public arrivals area, and it stocks LMT and Tele2 prepaid packs alongside the coffee, pastries and phone chargers. This is where most arriving passengers buy. It is a till transaction, not a consultation: nobody is going to configure your handset for you, though the staff speak English and will point at the right pack.
Duty-free in baggage reclaim. The shops on the reclaim side also carry prepaid cards, which is occasionally handy because you can buy before you walk out into the public hall. Selection is narrower.
Two consequences follow. First, opening hours are shop hours rather than airport hours, so a late arrival can find the shelf behind a shutter. Second, and this is the part people get wrong, both locations are on the arrivals side. If you are transferring between two Schengen flights, which is the single most common thing that happens at this airport, you stay airside in the pier and never reach either of them.
Worth flagging for anyone travelling after the autumn: Latvia has historically not required prepaid lines to be registered, but the government backed a mandatory registration scheme in March 2026 with a start date of the first of October. From that point expect a passport and a form at the till. The Latvia SIM card guide goes through what changes and what it costs.
RIX-Free-WiFi, and the Fifteen Minute Advert
The airport's free wireless is one of the better ones in Europe: unmetered, no registration wall, and available on both sides of security including out along the piers. It is genuinely usable for activating a profile or downloading something before a flight.
Find the network
Open WiFi settings and select RIX-Free-WiFi. There is no password and no account to create, which is a lower barrier than most airports in the region set.
Accept and go
A portal page loads, you agree, and you are through. Coverage runs across landside, airside and the gate piers, so it stays with you from check-in to boarding.
Expect the advert
Sessions are interrupted roughly every fifteen minutes by a short advertisement you have to watch before continuing. It is not a time limit and it is not a paywall, but it is an interruption, and it makes the network irritating for anything sustained like a video call or a long upload.
That advert cycle is the honest limitation. As a way to check in, load a boarding pass or bring an eSIM to life while you wait for a bag, RIX-Free-WiFi is fine. As the thing you rely on for a working hour in the terminal, it is a slow drip of interruptions. And of course it ends at the bus stop.
Ten Kilometres Into Riga, and What Each Route Costs
RIX sits about ten kilometres west of the centre in Marupe, which is close enough that no option takes very long and cheap enough that the expensive options are hard to justify. There is no rail link yet: the Rail Baltica station being built at the airport is not carrying passengers, so ignore any advice that mentions a train.
| Option | Where it goes | Time | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bus 22 | Along Kalnciema iela and over the river to 13. janvara iela, beside Central Station and the Central Market | About 30 minutes, every 10 to 20 minutes | 1.81 EUR from the driver, card only |
| Minibus 222 and 241 | Similar routing into the centre, fewer stops | About 30 minutes | 1.15 EUR as an advance e-ticket, 2.00 EUR from the driver |
| Bolt | Door to door anywhere | 15 to 25 minutes depending on traffic | Typically well under the metered rate, but needs data to book |
| Metered taxi | Door to door anywhere | 15 to 25 minutes | Roughly 15 to 20 EUR to the Old Town |
| Prepaid taxi voucher | Door to door anywhere | 15 to 25 minutes | Around 33.50 EUR, which is the price of not paying attention |
Bus 22 is the workhorse and the terminus is well chosen: 13. janvara iela puts you between Riga Central Station, the Origo shopping complex and the Central Market's five Zeppelin hangars, within walking distance of most Old Town accommodation. Note the payment quirk, which catches people out constantly. The driver on route 22 takes bank cards only, no cash, at 1.81 euro. Buying an e-talons in advance from the airport Narvesen, or through the Rigas satiksme app, brings the price down.
Signal along the whole route is continuous on every network, so the half hour into town is usable time rather than dead time. That matters most if you are booking a Bolt, since the app needs a live connection precisely when you are standing outside the terminal with a suitcase.
Connecting Through Riga: the Hub Problem
Roughly one in five people at this airport is going somewhere else, which is a share no other Baltic airport comes close to. airBaltic built its whole network around feeding Riga from Vilnius, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm and a long list of regional cities, then pushing passengers onward across Europe. If your trip has a Riga connection in it, the transfer is short, the terminal is single and the walk is manageable. What you cannot do is shop for a SIM.
Arriving with a profile already active
Planning to buy on the ground
The specific case worth thinking about: you fly into Riga, spend three days in Latvia, then continue to Vilnius or Tallinn. Buying a Latvian prepaid card is not wrong here, because EU roaming rules mean it keeps working across both borders at domestic rates. But a Europe regional eSIM does the same job without the errand, and it is already running when you land. The Latvia eSIM guide compares the options with prices.
Airport Shelf Prices Against a Travel eSIM
Riga is one of the more honest airports on price, which is worth saying plainly rather than pretending every kiosk in Europe is a rip-off. Because the cards come off a Narvesen shelf rather than a dedicated tourist counter, you pay roughly what a Latvian pays.
| Where | What you get | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Narvesen, arrivals | LMT or Tele2 starter pack with a small allowance | Roughly 5 to 10 EUR |
| Narvesen, arrivals | Short tourist data bundle, about a week | From around 5 EUR |
| Local operator month bundle | Roughly 10 to 20 GB over 30 days | Around 7 to 15 EUR |
| Nomad eSIM | 5 GB, 30 days | 14 USD, near 13 EUR |
| Airalo eSIM | 1 GB, 7 days, on LMT | 5 USD, near 4.60 EUR |
| Holafly eSIM | Unlimited, 5 days | 19 USD, near 17.50 EUR |
So the gap here is not really about money. A small eSIM and an airport starter pack land within a few euro of each other, and for a stay of a month or more the Latvian shelf genuinely wins. What the eSIM buys at Riga is the removal of three specific frictions: the shop being shut when your flight lands at half past eleven, the shelf being on the wrong side of a transfer, and the identity paperwork that arrives with the registration rule in October. If none of those apply to you, buying at the airport is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Where the eSIM pulls clearly ahead is the multi-country Baltic trip. One regional profile covers Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with no second purchase, and if you are not sure how much data that adds up to, the eSIM Finder will size it. Anyone weighing the unlimited option should read our Holafly review first, because five days at 19 dollars is a lot of money for a city break.
Late Landings and Other Practical Notes
A handful of things that only become obvious once you are standing in the terminal.
Worth knowing at RIX
Bus 22 is cash-free. Have a contactless card or a phone wallet ready, because the driver cannot take euro notes and there is no cash fallback on that route. Cash still works for the minibuses.
The last buses are earlier than the last flights. Riga takes arrivals well into the night and the public transport does not entirely keep up, so a very late landing usually means Bolt or the taxi rank, which in turn means having data at that exact moment.
Ignore the prepaid taxi voucher desk. At around 33.50 euro it costs roughly double a metered ride into the Old Town and several times what a Bolt costs. It exists for people who arrive without a working phone, which is a category worth not being in.
The advert timer resets constantly. RIX-Free-WiFi is unlimited in duration but interrupts you every fifteen minutes or so, so do not plan a long working session in the terminal around it.
Check where you land. Riga has one passenger terminal with lettered gate sectors rather than separate buildings, so there is no terminal transfer to worry about and no risk of the SIM shelf being in a building you are not in. The walk from the far piers to arrivals is a few minutes.
For what happens once you are actually in town, including tram fares, the free WiFi picture and the Jurmala and Sigulda day trips, the Riga city guide takes it from here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there anywhere at Riga Airport to pick up a local SIM?
Yes, though it is a shop rather than a counter. The Narvesen newsstand in the public arrivals hall carries LMT and Tele2 prepaid packs, and the duty-free shops on the baggage reclaim side stock a narrower selection. There are no permanently staffed operator desks at RIX, so nobody will set the card up for you. Both locations keep retail hours rather than airport hours, which is the thing to check if you are landing late in the evening.
I have a 50 minute connection in Riga. Can I get a SIM airside?
No, and this is the most useful thing to know about this airport. Every point of sale for prepaid cards at RIX sits landside, in the arrivals hall or in baggage reclaim. A Schengen-to-Schengen transfer, which describes most connections here given airBaltic's Baltic and Nordic network, keeps you airside in the piers the entire time. If you want data on arrival at your final destination, it has to be sorted before you fly.
What is the airport WiFi called and does it have a catch?
It is called RIX-Free-WiFi, it needs no password or registration, and it covers landside, airside and the gate piers. There is no session limit. The catch is an advertisement that interrupts you roughly every fifteen minutes and has to be watched before you continue, which makes it fine for boarding passes and eSIM activation and tiresome for anything longer, like a video call while you wait out a delay.
Bus 22 or a Bolt into the centre from RIX?
Bus 22 if you are travelling light and heading anywhere near the Old Town, because it runs every ten to twenty minutes, takes about half an hour and costs 1.81 euro from the driver, terminating at 13. janvara iela right by Central Station and the Central Market. Bring a contactless card, since that route takes no cash. Bolt makes more sense with luggage, with a group, or late at night when the buses have thinned out, and it consistently undercuts the metered taxi rate.
Do I still have signal on the ride from the airport into Riga?
Yes, the whole way. The ten kilometre run through Marupe and across the Daugava is continuously covered on every Latvian network, with no tunnels and nothing that would drop a connection. That is worth knowing because the half hour on bus 22 is when most arrivals want to message their accommodation, check tram routes or order a ride for the last leg, and it works reliably as long as your plan is already active when you step outside.