Four Etihad Rail stations carry passengers. Abu Dhabi and Fujairah opened on 30 June 2026, and Dubai and Al Dhaid joined them on Wednesday 30 September 2026. That is four of a planned eleven.
The gap between the plan and the service is the whole story. Four of eleven stations are open, and as late as 23 September the operator’s own station page listed only two of them.
| Detail | What applies |
|---|---|
| Open | Abu Dhabi and Fujairah since 30 June 2026; Dubai and Al Dhaid since 30 September 2026 |
| Next openings | Al Dhafra stations on 30 December 2026; Sharjah on 30 March 2027 |
| Planned network | 11 stations |
| Dubai to Abu Dhabi fare | Reported from AED 39 Comfort, AED 109 Premium |
| Dubai to Abu Dhabi time | 1 hour 4 minutes |
| First train from Dubai | 06:14, with four more services later in the day |
| Booking | Etihad Rail website and mobile app |
Every figure above was checked between 23 September and 1 October 2026. Each one is attributed in the section that uses it.
Which Etihad Rail stations are open right now
Abu Dhabi and Fujairah opened to passengers on 30 June 2026. Dubai and Al Dhaid followed on 30 September. Every other station on the map is scheduled rather than built.
The operator’s own stations page makes the point in an awkward way. Fetched on 23 September, it named two stations, Fujairah and Abu Dhabi, with Dubai absent a week before opening. Checked again on 1 October, it lists Al Dhaid, Dubai and Fujairah.
That page does list three Abu Dhabi shuttle stops. They are ADNEC Center at Al Rawdah, ADNOC Headquarters on the Corniche, and Reem Mall on Al Reem Island. Those are bus connections into the city. Reading them as rail stations is the easiest mistake to make.
The live schedule page behaves the same way. Its table is headed “This schedule is only for today”, so you cannot plan a future trip against it.
The full eleven-station list
Khaleej Times reported the finished network in January 2026. It described eleven stations running “from Al Sila near the Saudi border to Al Dhaid in Sharjah, and from the western region of Abu Dhabi to Fujairah on the east coast”.
The opening dates come from a separate report in June. Putting the two together gives the table below, which no single source publishes.
| Station | Emirate or area | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Abu Dhabi | Abu Dhabi | Open since 30 June 2026 |
| Sakamkam, Fujairah | Fujairah | Open since 30 June 2026 |
| Dubai (Al Yalayis) | Dubai | Open since 30 September 2026 |
| Al Dhaid | Sharjah | Open since 30 September 2026 |
| Al Sila | Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi | 30 December 2026 |
| Al Dhannah | Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi | 30 December 2026 |
| Al Mirfa | Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi | 30 December 2026 |
| Madinat Zayed | Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi | 30 December 2026 |
| Mezairaa | Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi | 30 December 2026 |
| University City | Sharjah | 30 March 2027 |
| Al Faya | Abu Dhabi | No opening date published |
Al Faya is the loose end. It sits in the eleven-station list, yet appears in none of the published opening dates, and other coverage describes a depot of that name at the same location.
Total network length is another gap. Figures between 900 and 1,200 kilometres circulate in secondary coverage. None of the sources checked here states one, so no distance is given.
Dubai to Abu Dhabi, the newest numbers
Fares for the Dubai leg appeared on 22 September 2026, eight days before the station opened. Khaleej Times reported tickets that “start at Dh39 per person in the Comfort class and Dh109 on the Premium class”, with the trip “expected to be completed in one hour and four minutes”.
Five services run in each direction. The first leaves Dubai at 06:14, and four more follow at 07:14, 13:14, 17:14 and 18:14.
Gulf News’s launch-day report tied the AED 39 Comfort fare to the 17:14 and 18:14 departures, so not every train necessarily sells at that price.
Two rival journey times are worth ignoring. One page claims 30 minutes, and a figure of 57 minutes circulates elsewhere, even in Gulf News’s own guide. The published timetable gives 64 minutes for every one of the ten services, which matches the operator’s 1 hour 4 minutes.
The Dubai station is officially Al Yalayis Station. It stands in Jumeirah Golf Estates, beside Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, the E311. Khaleej Times gives 29 minutes by car to Dubai Mall and 40 to Dubai International Airport, and a footbridge of about 400 metres links the station to Jumeirah Golf Estates Metro Station on the Red Line. That matters when you weigh the train against the options in our guide to travelling from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, or plan the first leg on the Dubai Metro. The station itself, with its timetable, parking and Metro link, has its own Etihad Rail Dubai station guide.
Fujairah is priced differently, and the position there is less clear. June reporting put the Abu Dhabi to Fujairah route at AED 109 in Comfort and AED 239 in Premium. Those were halved to AED 55 and AED 120 as an opening offer. No source since has said whether the offer still runs, so treat the full fares as the safer assumption.
Booking, and what the official pages do not show
Tickets are sold through the Etihad Rail website and the Etihad Rail mobile app. Khaleej Times and Gulf News both name those two channels and no others.
On 23 September the operator’s bookings page rendered as an empty shell, and its passenger section returned a page-not-found error.
In practice the app is the only place a specific departure can be confirmed, so check it rather than a third-party timetable. Sharjah is also worth a second look before you book a flight. It gets two stations on different dates, Al Dhaid on 30 September and University City in March 2027, which is a long wait if you land at Sharjah International Airport and expect the train to be running.
Common questions
Which Etihad Rail stations are open?
Four: Abu Dhabi and Fujairah since 30 June 2026, then Dubai and Al Dhaid since 30 September 2026. The remaining seven are scheduled for December 2026 or March 2027, or carry no published date.
Where is the Dubai Etihad Rail station?
Al Yalayis Station sits in Jumeirah Golf Estates, beside Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, the E311. A footbridge of about 400 metres links it to Jumeirah Golf Estates Metro Station on the Red Line, and Khaleej Times gives 29 minutes by car to Dubai Mall.
How much is a ticket from Dubai to Abu Dhabi?
Fares were reported on 22 September 2026 as starting at AED 39 in Comfort class and AED 109 in Premium. The journey is given as 1 hour 4 minutes, and the published timetable bears that out. Five services run in each direction.
What is the route of Etihad Rail?
The passenger line runs coast to coast. It reaches from Al Sila near the Saudi border, across Abu Dhabi and Dubai, to Al Dhaid in Sharjah and Sakamkam in Fujairah. Four stations carry passengers so far: Abu Dhabi, Fujairah, Dubai and Al Dhaid.
Will Etihad Rail take passengers?
It already does. Passenger services began on 30 June 2026 between Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, after years of freight-only operation. The Dubai station joined on 30 September 2026.
The first train out of Dubai left Al Yalayis at 06:14 on 30 September and reached Abu Dhabi at 07:18, a run of 64 minutes against the hour and four minutes the operator had quoted. Gulf News reported the departure. The next column to change is December, when the Al Dhafra stations are due.
