Live sailing times Dover - Calais
Choose your date to see every sailing in both directions with operator, arrival time and duration. The times are loaded live from the current schedule of the route as carried in our ferry database. In strong winds or during berth maintenance, operators retime or cancel individual sailings - on the day you travel, check the operator status pages collected on the live updates page and reconfirm with your operator.
The Channel's metronome
Dover - Calais is the busiest ferry route in Europe, and the timetable above shows exactly this one crossing. Three operators share the day between them, the ships run around the clock, and the interval between sailings is short enough that you rarely have to plan the day around the boat.
That changes how you use a timetable here. On most routes you pick a sailing and build the journey around it; on this one you drive to the port and take the next departure. The one thing to check is your ticket: a fixed fare can tie you to a specific sailing even when the next one leaves an hour later.
What to watch out for in the timetable
The route runs all year. In high season and over holiday weekends the operators add sailings; in winter the night pattern thins out. Set your actual date above rather than carrying over a frequency from another month.
For the opposite direction, switch the timetable to the return leg. The two directions have their own lists of departures and are not a mirror image of each other.
Allow for border control. It happens before boarding, on both sides, and it is what actually determines how early you need to be at the port, not the departure time in the table.
FAQ
Frequent questions about the timetable
How often do the ferries sail? +
Across P&O Ferries, DFDS and Irish Ferries the route sees more than 30 sailings a day in each direction in the main season, spread from before dawn to late at night. The reliable answer for your travel day is the date picker above.
How long is the crossing? +
Around 90 minutes with P&O Ferries and Irish Ferries, and around 100 minutes on DFDS sailings. Add the operator's check-in deadline to plan the whole port stop; see the check-in page.
Are these live sailing times? +
The departures are loaded from the current published schedule for your date. What they cannot show is a delay that starts an hour before sailing; for that, the operator status pages, the port webcams and the Dover Strait wind forecast are collected on live updates and weather.
Do Dover and Calais show local time? +
Yes - departures are local to the port, and France is one hour ahead of the UK. A 12:00 departure from Dover arriving "14:30" in Calais is still a roughly 90-minute crossing; the missing hour is the time-zone change.
Does the timetable cover the return leg? +
Yes, the overview shows both directions, from Dover and from Calais.
What if I miss my ferry? +
That depends on your ticket. Flexible fares move you to a later sailing; restricted fares are tied to the booked departure. The fare ladder is explained on the prices page, and your operator's conditions are binding.