Cebu to Bohol ferry: sailing times, fares and which pier to use

Cebu City (Pier 1) → Tagbilaran daily departures

OceanJet fast craft, passengers only, every day. About two hours across, so add two hours to any time below for your arrival in Tagbilaran. Return sailings from Tagbilaran run to almost the same clock.

• 7:00 AMFirst trip
• 8:20 AM
• 9:20 AM
• 10:40 AM
• 11:40 AM
• 1:00 PM
• 2:00 PM
• 3:20 PM
• 4:20 PM
• 5:40 PMLast trip

These ten sailings appear on both OceanJet’s own published daily schedule and its live booking channels, re-checked 5 September 2026. One more, a 6:00 AM first boat, is on the operator’s posted schedule but not in its current bookable times, so we have left it out rather than send you to the pier at dawn for a sailing that may not run. Ask at the counter if you need it. This corridor was disrupted repeatedly through August 2026 (see below), so confirm your sailing with the operator the day before you travel.

The main crossing: Cebu City Pier 1 to Tagbilaran

For nearly every visitor, the crossing is the OceanJet fast ferry from Cebu City Pier 1 to Tagbilaran, Bohol’s capital and main gateway. It is a fast craft of about two hours each way, and the timetable above is dense enough that a Bohol day trip is possible at all: ten sailings between 7:00 AM and 5:40 PM, roughly one an hour. Take the 7:00 AM out and the 5:40 PM back and you get a full day on the island; miss a boat and the next one is rarely more than an hour away.

Pier 1 is in Cebu City’s port area, on the eastern waterfront facing the Mactan Channel. Tagbilaran on the Bohol side puts you closest to the classic countryside loop (Chocolate Hills, tarsiers, Loboc River) and to Panglao’s beaches, which is why it is the pier nearly everyone uses rather than the northern Tubigon crossing.

The northern alternative: Cebu to Tubigon

There is a second, shorter crossing from Cebu to Tubigon on Bohol’s north-west coast, useful if you are heading to the northern or eastern parts of the island rather than the Tagbilaran and Panglao side. It is a RORO crossing that carries vehicles as well as passengers.

• Heading to Tagbilaran, Panglao or the countryside loop? Use Pier 1 to Tagbilaran

  This is the crossing nearly all tourists want. It lands you closest to the Chocolate Hills, the tarsier sanctuaries, the Loboc River and Panglao’s beaches.

• Heading to north or east Bohol? Consider Tubigon

  If your destination is in the north of the island, the Tubigon crossing can save you road time on the Bohol side. We have not verified its current timetable and fares the way we have the Pier 1 crossing, so we do not print them; check with the operator.

• Already in south Cebu and heading for Panglao? There is a third crossing

  Apekop Travel sails one banca a day from Quartel Beach in Oslob straight to Momo Beach on Panglao - away at 11:30 AM, on the island about 1:00 PM - which skips Cebu City entirely and lands you on Panglao rather than at Tagbilaran port. It only makes sense if you are already down the south coast, it is beach to beach with wet feet at both ends, it carries no vehicles, and the operator says it may not suit young children, elderly or pregnant passengers. Full details on our Oslob route pages.

• Travelling with a vehicle?

  The Tubigon RORO carries cars and motorbikes, so it is the route if you are bringing a vehicle across. Most tourists travel on foot and take the fast ferry.

Fares: what the number is made of, and why every site quotes a different one

The ferry fare is a public fare set by the operator and bought separately from anything Cebu.travel arranges. It is worth understanding its shape, because the figures you will find online genuinely contradict each other and it is not because one of the sites is lying.

Search this crossing and you will be quoted somewhere between about ₱800 and ₱1,560 for the same two-hour boat. The spread is real and it has two causes: the class you book, and a fuel surcharge the operator revises on its own notice. The most recent of those notices is the reason most of the figures online are now low - OceanJet put a 10 percent fuel surcharge on this route effective 21 September 2026, which is more recent than almost anything a search will show you. Rather than pick one number and be confidently wrong, here is what each part is.

• The class you pick sets the base fare

  Cebu to Tagbilaran sells as open air or tourist class at the bottom and business class at the top, and business is roughly half again as much. The operator’s current notified fares are ₱960 open air or tourist and ₱1,440 business, one way, set by the 10 percent fuel surcharge OceanJet put into effect on 21 September 2026. Its older posted rate card had the two at about ₱800 and ₱1,200, and that is the basis most third-party listings are still on - so a fare you find online is more likely to be under the counter price than over it.

• A fuel surcharge sits on top, and it is why the sites disagree

  Philippine ferry fares carry a fuel surcharge that is revised separately from the base fare, and the operator moves it by public advisory. OceanJet’s 10 percent surcharge took effect on 21 September 2026 and was notified to MARINA Regional Office 7 on 16 September, five days ahead - operators must give that public notice at least three days before an increase, so the authoritative current figure is the notice posted at Pier 1. The same advisory moved Cebu-Ormoc, Cebu-Getafe and Tagbilaran-Siquijor too. Surcharges come down as well as up, so treat any fare online - including the ones on this page - as right for its date and not necessarily for yours.

• Discounts are statutory, not promotional

  Students, senior citizens and PWD passengers get a discount of up to about 20 per cent on presentation of valid ID. Bring the physical ID; the name on it has to match the name on the ticket.

• What is not in the ferry fare

  The ferry ticket is the crossing only. Getting to Pier 1 on the Cebu side and away from the port on the Bohol side are separate, and they are the parts that actually go wrong. That Cebu-side leg is what we quote.

When the boat does not sail

A timetable is only as good as the weather and the operator’s fleet, and this corridor had a rough 2026. Through August, OceanJet posted repeated cancellations and schedule adjustments across its central Visayas routes, including trips pulled for fuel conservation and a run of suspensions that were only resumed at the end of the month. None of that shows up on a timetable, and it is the single most common reason a carefully planned Bohol day comes apart.

Rough seas do the same thing faster. When the coastguard suspends sailings the fast craft stop first, because a small high-speed hull is the least comfortable thing on a bad strait. Plan accordingly rather than optimistically.

• Confirm the day before, not the week before

  Check the operator’s own advisories the evening before you travel. A schedule you verified when you booked three weeks ago tells you nothing about tomorrow.

• Do not put the ferry on the same day as your flight home

  If the last boat is cancelled you are sleeping in Tagbilaran. If you must fly out the same day, take a morning sailing back and leave hours of slack, not minutes.

• Ask us to hold the transfer rather than cancel it

  If your sailing moves, tell us. Re-timing a private transfer to a later boat is straightforward; finding a car at the pier at short notice on a day when three sailings were cancelled is not.

How to book

You can buy a ticket at the Pier 1 terminal on the day, which works fine for most of the ten sailings. OceanJet also sells online through its own site and booking channels, which is worth doing for the 7:00 AM and the 5:40 PM, on weekends and long weekends, and any time your plans on the Bohol side depend on a specific boat.

Check-in closes 30 minutes before departure, so treat that as the hard deadline rather than the sailing time itself. Bring the physical ID whose name matches the ticket, because they do check. Free baggage runs to 10 kg in open air and tourist class and 20 kg in business, each with one hand-carry, and anything over that is weighed and charged per kilo at the counter.

Getting to Pier 1 (the Cebu-side leg we arrange)

The one part of a Cebu to Bohol day that is easy to get wrong is the start: misjudge the traffic to Pier 1 and you miss your sailing. Pier 1 is a short 15 to 30 minute drive from most Cebu City hotels, or a longer run of around 30 to 60 minutes from the Mactan resorts and the airport across the bridge, depending on traffic.

• From a Cebu City hotel

  A private car or van collects you at the door and drops you at the terminal in good time, so you are not flagging a taxi with your bags or gambling on traffic.

• From Mactan-Cebu airport or a Mactan resort

  The transfer crosses the bridge, so allow more time, especially at rush hour. We time the pickup around your flight or your sailing.

  Quote airport to Pier 1

• Meeting part of your group at the airport and part at a hotel

  Put both pickup points, the arriving flight and the booked sailing in your quote request. We will work out whether one vehicle can collect everyone in sequence with enough time for the Pier 1 check-in, then confirm the pickup order in the quote.

• The Bohol side

  Once you land at Tagbilaran, our sister site bookbohol.com arranges the Bohol-side transfer from the port to your resort or into the countryside loop.