Driving from Calais to Lille

  • Driving guides
  • France
  • 5 min read
Driving from Calais to Lille

The capital of the Hauts-de-France region is just a short drive from the LeShuttle terminal. Here’s our guide to the best routes from Calais to Lille, and what to see on the way.

How to get to Lille from the UK

It really is very easy to travel to Lille from the UK on LeShuttle. From our Folkestone terminal, you can travel across the Channel in just 35 minutes, and the price of your ticket covers your vehicle and up to nine people. So you can make travelling to France even cheaper per person. There are up to four LeShuttle departures an hour, 365 days a year. Plus there are no baggage restrictions, and you can even bring your pets along!

How long does it take to drive from Calais to Lille?

The quickest way to drive from Calais to Lille is via the A16 and A25. It’s a journey of around 67 miles (109 km) and takes around an hour and 15 minutes. There are no tolls on this route!

How long does it take to drive from the UK to Lille?

It will obviously depend on where you are driving from in the UK, but the table below shows the distances and times for some major UK cities to Lille, via the LeShuttle crossing from Folkestone to Calais.

Cities in the UK DistanceDriving Time
London to Lille172 miles/276km4h 30m
Birmingham to Lille313 miles/503km5h 58m
Bristol to Lille300 miles/482km6h 21m
Leeds to Lille370 miles/595km7h 16m
Manchester to Lille381 miles/613km7h 52m

Please note: These distance and driving times from the UK to Paris are approximate and given as guidance only. Includes crossing times.

Things to see and do when visiting Lille

The Grand Place

Also known as Place du Général de Gaulle, the main city square in Lille is a perfect place for a spot of lunch or coffee. The focal point of the square is the Column of the Goddess, built to commemorate the resistance of Lille to the Austrian army’s siege of the city in 1792. 

Palais des Beaux-Arts 

Housed in a stunning neo-Baroque building on the Place de la République, the Palais des Beaux-Arts was one of the first ever French museums, founded in 1809 under the orders of Napoleon. While it first hung works of art seized by Napoleon’s armies, it became one of the most well developed and largest provincial art collections in France outside of Paris. It features works from Renaissance, early Modern and Modern artists, including Raphael, Donatello, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Goya, Delacroix and Toulouse-Lautrec. 

A large European city square with a monumental pillar and fountain and people walking and milling about

The quickest route to Lille – via the A16 & A25

Lille is a mere hour and 15 minutes drive from Calais if you take the A16 eastwards towards Dunkirk. Take the N225 road at Dunkirk and follow south-east. This becomes the A25, then follow all the way to Lille. There are no tolls on this route! 

Places to visit en-route

If you have a few hours to spare on your trip from Calais to Lille, stop at Dunkirk – it’s the main place of interest on your route. The seafaring city has plenty of museums and parks, but it’s probably the beaches and dunes that will capture your imagination. Here in 1940 over 300,000 Allied soldiers were rescued in the biggest military evacuation in history. The Operation Dynamo exhibition in Dunkirk tells the story of those historic events. Walking the beaches, you may even unearth fragments of the many ships that were wrecked during that fateful summer. 

A grand civic building with an ornate tower, with a marina and harbour with moored boats

The A26 and A25 via Saint-Omer 

This route from Calais to Lille will take around an hour and a half, and there are some tolls to pay along the way, but it has the advantage of taking you close to Saint-Omer. 

Points of interest en-route

With its wonderful wetlands and astonishing wartime heritage, the Saint-Omer region has much to offer. High on the checklist for most visitors are the wartime bunkers at Helfaut-Wizernes and Eperlecques, and messing about on a bacôve in the Audomarois marshes. 

Saint-Omer is also a great place for good food and drink, as well as a round of golf.  

An ugly featureless and windowless military building in a forest clearing. A person stands in front of it.

For those not in a hurry – via the A26 and A1

If you have more time, there is a more leisurely way to drive from Calais to Lille. It will still only take around an hour and 45 minutes. From Calais take the A26, but follow the motorway all the way down to Lens, before joining the A1 northwards to Lille. This route has tolls.  

Places to visit en-route

Beyond Saint-Omer, the city of Lens is the main reason to come this way from Calais to Lille. Lens has an industrial history, and suffered greatly in both World Wars, but in 2004 it was chosen to be the home of the Louvre-Lens museum. The first permanent satellite museum of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the striking glass and steel building is on the site of a former coal mining yard and set in 50 acres of parkland. 

Prestigious collections from the Louvre are on permanent display, as well as temporary exhibitions. Also close to Lens are several war memorials, including the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. 

A classic 1970s alpine building with large apex roof and dark wood balconies on each floorThe Time Gallery in the Louvre-Lens museum ('Musée du Louvre-Lens’, by Freddy de Hosdent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Do I need an emissions sticker for Lille? 

Yes, like many cities in France Lille has a permanent ZFE low emissions zone within the central part of the city. Drivers travelling from Calais to Lille will need to display a Crit’Air sticker, which indicates the polluting level of your vehicle. Each level has a number and a sticker colour. You find out what sticker you need by looking in your registration document for the Euro Type Approval Classification, or find a Euro emissions checker online. You will be fined if you are caught driving in the low emissions zone without a Crit’Air sticker, or in a vehicle with an emissions level that is banned in Lille. Here’s how to purchase your sticker. 

Drive to Lille with LeShuttle

LeShuttle can get you to Calais from Folkestone in just 35 minutes. The choice is yours on how you want to drive from Calais to Lille. In fact, Calais could be your starting point for all manner of destinations across France and Europe, and we have lots of other driving guides available to plan your trips.

Driving from Calais to Lille FAQs

Does LeShuttle (formerly Eurotunnel) go to Lille?
LeShuttle does not go to Lille. LeShuttle is a car train service that travels from Folkestone to Calais using the Eurotunnel. People who use the LeShuttle service then drive to their destination in France and beyond.
What is the cheapest way to get from Calais to Lille?
There are no tolls on the A16 route from Calais to Lille via Dunkirk, so driving is the cheapest way to get from Calais to Lille.
What is the fastest way to get from Calais to Lille
The quickest route is to drive via the A16 and A25. This takes around an hour and 15 minutes.
How far is it from Calais to Lille?
It's a journey of around 67 miles (109km)

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