How much does laundry cost in Berlin?

Plan on about 11 to 12 euro for one full self-service load: 5.50 to 6 euro for a normal wash at the big chains, about 1.70 euro per 10 minutes of drying, and 0.55 to 0.70 euro for detergent. A 6 kg wash-and-fold service load is 11.90 euro at Freddy Leck in Moabit, 15.40 euro folded.

Are laundromats in Berlin open on Sundays?

Yes. The self-service chains run seven days a week, most from 06:00 to 22:00 or 23:00, and Sunday is one of the quietest times to go. Shops are closed that day, so a Sunday morning wash costs you very little sightseeing time.

Do Berlin laundromats take card payments?

Some do, many still run on coins. Eco-Express accepts cards at most branches, and Freddy Leck lets you pay at the counter. Carry a handful of 1 and 2 euro coins anyway, and note that the last coin insertion is often 21:00 even when the door closes later.

Is there a laundry service where someone washes my clothes for me?

Yes, it is called Service Light or wash-and-fold: you drop the bag, staff wash, dry and bag it, and you collect it about 4 to 6 hours later. At Freddy Leck a 6 kg load is 11.90 euro including detergent, almost the same as doing it yourself, which is why I recommend it to most visitors.

How long does a self-service wash take in Berlin?

Budget 75 to 95 minutes for one load: about 40 to 50 minutes of washing and 30 minutes of drying. The trick is to plan breakfast, a bakery run or your phone admin around the machine time instead of sitting and staring at the drum.

Are there laundromats near Alexanderplatz or in central Mitte?

Central Mitte around Alexanderplatz and Unter den Linden is thin on self-service laundromats. The practical move is a short U-Bahn hop: Eco-Express at Danziger Strasse 7 is about 120 m from U Eberswalder Strasse on the U2, two stops of tram or U-Bahn from the Alexanderplatz area.

Laundry in Berlin: How to Get Clean Clothes Without Losing Half a Day

Yusuf Ucuz

Aug 31

7 min read

Around day five of a Berlin trip, a quiet problem starts walking next to you: the clean side of the suitcase is empty. Maybe the weather turned and everything warm is already worn, maybe the kids found a puddle at Tempelhofer Feld, maybe you simply packed light because the airline made you. Then you look at the hotel laundry price list, see what one shirt costs, and quietly close the folder.

The good news is that Berlin is an excellent city to be out of clean clothes in. It has a dense net of self-service Waschsalons that run seven days a week from six in the morning, and a service option most visitors never hear about, where someone else washes, dries and bags the whole load for about the price of doing it yourself.

My advice: decide the route before you carry the bag anywhere. The choice between self-service and a wash-and-fold counter is a cost and time decision, and this guide gives you the real numbers, the way the machines actually work, and the addresses near the districts visitors stay in. I checked the posted prices on 31 August 2026.

A row of numbered washing machines with open doors at Freddy Leck sein Waschsalon in Berlin-Moabit

The machine row at Freddy Leck sein Waschsalon in Moabit, one of Berlin's friendliest places to lose an hour.

Three real ways to do laundry in Berlin

Once the bag is full, you have three workable routes, and one of them is usually wrong:

Self-service Waschsalon. You load the machine, feed it coins or a card, wait out the cycle, then move everything to a dryer. Budget about 75 to 95 minutes on site and roughly 11 to 12 euro for a full load including drying and detergent.
Wash-and-fold service. You hand the bag over a counter in the morning and collect it clean, dry and bagged about 4 to 6 hours later. At Freddy Leck sein Waschsalon in Moabit this costs 11.90 euro for a 6 kg load, detergent included, or 15.40 euro with everything folded ready for the shelf.
Hotel laundry. Priced per piece, and the pieces add up fast: a week of clothes for two people can come back costing more than a good dinner. It is the right route only when the hotel is your whole world that day, or when one specific shirt has to be perfect by the evening.

The surprise in those numbers is worth saying plainly: the wash-and-fold service costs almost exactly the same as doing it yourself. A self-service run at chain prices lands at about 11.80 euro once you add drying and detergent, ten cents less than Freddy's service price. Someone else does the work, your morning stays yours, and the price difference buys nothing. I point most visitors at the service counter for exactly this reason.

Two travellers with a suitcase waiting inside a Berlin self-service laundromat with red dryers

Waiting out a cycle in a Berlin self-service salon: bring a book, or better, plan your next two days.

How a Berlin Waschsalon actually works

If you take the self-service route, the machines are simple once you have seen the pattern. Most salons are unstaffed, so everything happens at a central pay station rather than at the machine itself:

Pick a machine, load it, close the door firmly. Normal drums take about 6 kg, the XXL drums 12 to 16 kg, which is a full family bag in one go.
Buy detergent at the vending machine for 0.55 to 0.70 euro if you did not bring any. There is no need to buy a supermarket box for one wash.
Pay at the central panel, typing the machine number and feeding in coins. Eco-Express takes cards at most branches, and at Freddy Leck you pay at the counter. Still, a handful of 1 and 2 euro coins makes every salon in the city work for you.
Washing runs about 40 to 50 minutes. Then you move the wet load to a dryer, which charges in 10-minute blocks, around 1.70 euro per block. Thirty minutes dries a normal load.
Watch the last-coin time. Many salons close at 22:00 or 23:00 but stop accepting coins around 21:00, so an evening wash needs to start by about 20:00.

One habit makes the whole visit calmer: treat the wash hour as planning time. The salon has a bench, often WiFi, sometimes a proper cafe corner. I map out the next two Berlin days while the drum turns, and the hour stops feeling lost.

Close-up of the stainless steel drum inside a front-loading washing machine

The business end of the trip: a front-loader drum takes about 6 kg, roughly one week of clothes for one person.

What laundry costs in Berlin

These are the posted tariffs at the two providers I checked directly, so you can sanity-check any salon you walk into:

Eco-Express, the biggest chain with 14 Berlin salons: normal wash 6.00 euro, or 5.50 euro before 10:00. XXL machines 12.00 euro, drying 1.70 euro per 10 minutes, detergent 0.70 euro. The Eco-Express Berlin page lists every branch. Their Danziger Strasse 7 salon in Prenzlauer Berg is the outlier bargain, with washes at 4.50 euro and drying at 1.00 euro per 10 minutes.
Freddy Leck sein Waschsalon in Moabit: self-service 6 kg wash 5.50 euro, 16 kg machine 12.80 euro, drying 1.75 euro per 10 minutes. Service Light, meaning washed, dried and bagged for you, is 11.90 euro per 6 kg load; Service Deluxe adds proper folding for 15.40 euro.

So a realistic full self-service load is wash plus about 30 minutes of drying plus detergent, roughly 11 to 12 euro. An early start saves a little, the Danziger Strasse salon saves more, and a big XXL drum beats running two small machines every time.

The calculator below does this arithmetic for your actual bag. Type the kilograms, and it draws what each route costs and how much of your day it takes:

Where to find a laundromat near where you are staying

Here is the honest geography: the tourist core of Mitte, around Alexanderplatz and Unter den Linden, has almost no self-service laundromats. Residential Berlin has them on every second corner, the museum quarter does not. The fix is a short U-Bahn hop to the nearest residential street:

Prenzlauer Berg: Eco-Express at Danziger Strasse 7, about 120 m from U Eberswalder Strasse on the U2, is the cheap one. Schnell & Sauber at Oderberger Strasse 1 runs 06:00 to 23:00 daily.
Kreuzberg: Eco-Express at Mehringdamm 122 to 126, right by U Platz der Luftbruecke on the U6, works well before or after a Bergmannkiez food afternoon.
Moabit, closest to the western centre: Freddy Leck at Gotzkowskystrasse 11, daily 08:00 to 22:00, with the wash-and-fold counter, a cafe corner and staff who speak English.
Schoeneberg: Eco-Express at Winterfeldtstrasse 6, a few minutes from U Buelowstrasse and next to Winterfeldtplatz, perfect on a Wednesday or Saturday when the market is running.
Neukoelln: Eco-Express at Hermannstrasse 74 and Schnell & Sauber at Karl-Marx-Strasse 243, the latter open to 23:00.

If you are staying in an apartment, check the kitchen first: many Berlin flats hide a washing machine under the counter, and then your only real question is drying, because almost none of them have a dryer. A folding rack and a warm room need a full day; the salon dryer needs thirty minutes.

A washing machine mounted as a shop sign above a Waschsalon storefront in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Kreuzberg wayfinding: when the shop sign is an actual washing machine, you are in the right place.

The Sunday trick

Berlin closes its shops on Sunday, and that closure quietly hands you the perfect laundry slot. The laundromat chains run seven days a week, most from 06:00 to 22:00 or 23:00, because the self-service floor is a service space, and a Sunday morning wash costs you almost no sightseeing time: the shops you would otherwise browse are shut anyway, and Sunday Berlin is about parks, museums and long breakfasts, all of which sit happily next to a 90-minute machine cycle.

The same logic covers a rainy day. A wash hour fits perfectly into the kind of morning where the city gives you nothing better to do, and my rainy-day Berlin plan pairs well with a dryer running two streets away.

A Berlin laundromat at night with its opening hours printed on the glass door

Open from 6 to 22, seven days a week: the hours on the door in Schoeneberg are typical for the whole city.

Make wash day a small errand, not a lost day

My standard shape for a mid-trip wash day: drop the bag at a wash-and-fold counter or start a machine before 10:00, when Eco-Express charges its early tariff and the salons are quiet. Spend the machine time at a bakery or planning the days ahead. By late morning you are done, the bag is clean, and the whole rest of the day is normal Berlin.

That afternoon is a good slot for the historic centre. My free walking tour covers the old heart of East Berlin in about 2 hours, 11 stops from the World Clock to Hackescher Markt, and you can check the calendar and book a spot or walk the same line self-guided with the route story map. Clean clothes in the wardrobe and the route done by sunset is a genuinely good Berlin day.

One simple move carries this whole guide: weigh the bag in your head, and if it is one load, hand it over in the morning and let Berlin wash it while you are out. The city has been doing its own laundry this way for a century; it is very good at it.

Image credits

Source and licence details for the 5 photographs used in this article.

The machine row inside Freddy Leck sein Waschsalon in Berlin-Moabit: Neuköllner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Travellers waiting inside a Berlin self-service laundromat: Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The drum of a front-loading washing machine: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A washing machine mounted as a Waschsalon shop sign in Berlin-Kreuzberg: Listening Eye, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A laundromat on Hauptstrasse in Berlin-Schoeneberg at night: Dirk Ingo Franke, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.