Ferries from Melilla

Melilla is Spain, on the coast of Morocco, and the ferry to Almería is a domestic crossing that happens to run between two continents. No passport is needed for the sea leg — the border here is the land one, a few hundred metres inland.

The crossing

Melilla to Almería takes about 6 hours, with 2 sailings in our timetable, operated by Trasmediterránea. 8 active sailings across the port.

Routes to Málaga — around 6.5 hours — and to Motril are listed but currently hold no active departures in our data. Both have operated; check with the operators for the current season.

⚠ Sailing here is domestic; leaving by land is not

Melilla is a Spanish autonomous city and a free port, so the boat from Almería is an internal Spanish journey. Crossing into Morocco by road from Melilla is a full international frontier with its own queues and rules.

Anyone planning to arrive by sea and continue overland into Morocco should research that land crossing separately — it is the part of the journey with the friction, not the ferry.

What the crossing carries

These are the city's supply line as much as a passenger service: vehicles, freight and residents travelling between the exclave and the peninsula. That keeps the boats running year round on a schedule set by logistics rather than tourism.

It also means the overnight sailings and the cabins fill with people who book routinely and early.

The city

Melilla has an old walled town above the harbour, Melilla la Vieja, and a startling quantity of early-twentieth-century modernist architecture in the newer quarters — the legacy of a building boom under Spanish administration. It is one of the more unexpected European city centres.

Season

Year round. Summer brings the same North African diaspora travel that fills the Almería and Málaga services to Morocco proper, and vehicle space in July and August is tight.