The answer
Take the SKM train from Warszawa Lotnisko Chopina, the underground station inside the terminal — 4.40 zł for a 75-minute ZTM ticket that also covers every bus, tram and metro you change onto. About 20 minutes to the central stations (Warszawa Śródmieście and Warszawa Centralna), 16 to Warszawa Zachodnia.
Warsaw is one of the few big European airports with no airport supplement at all: the train, the buses and the metro all run on the same ordinary city ticket, and the station is inside the terminal.
Tight budget? Bus 175 from the arrivals level costs the same 4.40 zł and passes the Centrum metro stop and both central railway stations.
Landed after midnight? The N32 night bus is the only city line serving the airport overnight; otherwise it is a taxi, about 50 zł.
⚠️ The traps (walk past these)
The 20-minute ticket is 1 zł cheaper and gets you nowhere
A 20-minute ticket costs 3.40 zł against 4.40 zł for the 75-minute one, and both come from the same machines. The airport's own instruction is to buy at least a 75-minute ticket, because the run to the Centrum stop takes about 30 minutes — the 20-minute ticket expires along Żwirki i Wigury, and an expired or unvalidated ticket is a fine, not a top-up.
Do this: buy the 75-minute zone 1 ticket for 4.40 zł and validate it the moment you board
The bus out of the airport leaves from the arrivals level, not the departures level
ZTM buses arrive at the airport on the upper (departures) level and leave from the lower (arrivals) level — boarding on the departures level to leave the airport is not permitted. Travellers who follow the crowd upstairs watch the bus they wanted drive off from the floor below.
Do this: leave arrivals and find the Lotnisko Chopina – Przyloty stop on the lower level
The railway station is in the basement and easy to walk past
Warszawa Lotnisko Chopina station sits under Terminal A, reached by an underground passage from the arrivals hall — its entrance is beside the Lost & Found office in zone AB. Nothing outside says a train is down there, so people walk to the kerb and take the 30-minute bus instead of the 20-minute train.
Do this: follow the signs down to the SKM station before you leave the terminal
Anyone offering you a taxi inside arrivals is not the taxi rank
The airport advises passengers to use licensed taxis only and says the tariff must be displayed in the car window. The rank and the Uber and Bolt pickup points are outside the hall; a driver who approaches you at the baggage belt is selling a price of their own, well above the airport's 50 zł benchmark.
Do this: walk to the official rank or order in the app, and never follow someone who approaches you in the hall
A pick-up in the Kiss & Fly zone costs 30 zł if it runs past 7 minutes
The Kiss & Fly area in front of the terminal gives the first 7 minutes free, charges 30 zł for a stop of 7–15 minutes and 1 zł per minute beyond that. The free window only applies if the same car has not entered the zone in the previous 30 minutes.
Do this: wait at the kerb before your driver enters the zone, with the bags ready to load