Danube Delta

About Danube Delta

At a glance: Deltas in Tulcea County. Opening hours: daily open 24 hours. Ticket: 5 lei/day. The visit takes 7½ – 8 hours. Information verified on 23 September 2026.

At the end of the Danube's 2,860 km journey the river splits into three arms, Chilia, Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe, and leaves behind a maze of channels, backwaters, lakes and floating reed islands. The Danube Delta is Romania's youngest region, built over the last ten thousand years from the river's silt, and it still grows a few metres a year towards the sea. The Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, created in 1990, covers about 580,000 ha, and its core has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991 and a Ramsar wetland of international importance.

The delta holds the largest compact reed beds in the world and over 320 bird species, of which around 170 breed here: great white and Dalmatian pelicans, cormorants, egrets, herons, swans, glossy ibises, white-tailed eagles. It is also home to around 130 fish species, from the carp and pike of the lakes to the sturgeon that still come up from the sea. On the Letea and Caraorman sand banks grow oak forests draped in lianas; Letea forest was Romania's first nature reserve, in 1938.

Only a few thousand people live in the delta, in fishing villages of Lipovans, Ukrainians and Romanians such as Mila 23, Crișan, Sfântu Gheorghe and Letea, and in Sulina, a small port town on the arm of the same name, once the seat of the European Commission of the Danube, which still cannot be reached by road.

Good to know before you go

Getting there

By car: the gateway to the delta is Tulcea, ~290 km from Bucharest (A2 motorway to Cernavodă, then DN22 via Hârșova, ~4 hours), ~125 km from Constanța (DN22, ~2 hours) and ~90 km from Brăila/Galați with the ferry across the Danube at Smârdan. The car stays in Tulcea; you enter the delta only by water. Other gateways: Murighiol (40 km from Tulcea, for the southern lakes and Sfântu Gheorghe), Jurilovca (for Gura Portiței, across Lake Razim) and Chilia Veche, the only delta village with a road. Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe have no road at all.

Public transport: train to Tulcea (from Bucharest with a change at Medgidia, ~5–6 hours) or coach (~4 hours from Bucharest's Militari bus station, several a day). From Tulcea harbour, the Navrom Delta ships (tickets at the river station or online) and, from Port Tulcea Aval, the fast boats of guesthouses and private operators, which pick up passengers by name.

Where to park

At Port Tulcea Aval, where the private boats leave, the guarded car park cost ~40 lei a day in 2025. At the river station and along the Ivan Patzaichin embankment there are paid public car parks during the day, crowded in summer; some delta guesthouses have arrangements with car parks in town for longer stays (~15–20 lei a day). Do not leave the car on the riverbank or next to the reeds; it is forbidden and fined.

Fees & discounts

ARBDD tourist access permit: 5 lei per person per day, 15 lei a week, 30 lei a year; free for children, pupils, students, pensioners, people with disabilities and locals. Buy it at permise.ddbra.ro, by SMS to 7494 (code TUR1 or TUR7, ~6 lei with VAT), at the machine at the ARBDD headquarters in Tulcea or at the centres in Crișan, Sulina and Chilia Veche. Own boat: 20 lei per stay or 100 lei a year. Navrom Delta 2026, unsubsidised adult fares, one way: Sulina 66 lei (semi-fast 76), Sfântu Gheorghe 70 (80), Crișan 50 (56), Periprava 76 (86). A day by private boat from Tulcea or Murighiol costs ~100–150 lei per person in a group, more for a boat hired on your own.

Rules

Carry your ARBDD permit and ID; they are checked on the water. Keep to the approved routes; the strictly protected zones and bird colonies are off limits, do not approach nests and do not shout. Motorboat speed on the inner channels and lakes is limited (5 km/h in sensitive areas). Camp and light fires only in designated places; all rubbish leaves the delta with you. Do not pick plants or cut wood; recreational fishing needs a separate, free permit, with a 5 kg daily limit. The Letea and Caraorman forests are visited only on foot, on the marked path, no smoking. Drones and commercial filming need ARBDD authorisation. Life jackets are compulsory in boats.

Facilities

Guesthouses and fish restaurants in all the larger villages and in Sulina · ARBDD information centres in Tulcea, Crișan, Sulina and Chilia Veche · small shops in the villages, no cash machines in most of them (bring cash) · weak mobile signal on the channels and in the small villages · pharmacy and hospital only in Tulcea and Sulina · no step-free access on boats and pontoons · the Danube Delta Museum (Ecotourism Museum Centre) in Tulcea, with aquariums, good on a rainy day