Porubne – Siret border queue today

What kind of crossing this is

Chernivtsi region, on the M-19 (E85) towards Suceava and onwards to Bucharest — the principal crossing on the Romanian direction. Cars, scheduled coaches, lorries and pedestrians all pass through it, and for Bukovina it is effectively the only major way out to the south.

Porubne has the flattest week of any crossing we observe. There is neither a genuinely dead day nor a sharp peak: the gap between the lightest Monday and the heaviest Sunday is smaller than at any other post. For a large transit crossing that makes sense — the flow is made up of many independent reasons for travelling, and they smooth one another out.

For planning that is both good news and bad. The good part is that Porubne rarely springs unpleasant surprises: roughly what you usually see is what you will get. The bad part is that waiting for a favourable "window" is close to futile, because there isn't one — shifting your trip to another day will gain less here than at any neighbouring crossing. If saving time is the goal, it is more effective to look at hours: Thursday evening and Sunday morning are traditionally the hardest here.

This crossing handles: Cars, Buses, On foot.

You can cross here on foot — 5 of the 6 crossings on this border allow it.

Scheduled coaches have a lane of their own.

Right now it ranks 3 of the 5 crossings on this border that report data: 15 min outbound against 15 min at the fastest one (Diakivtsi – Rakovets).

Our calibration allows 6 minutes per car here. Across all crossings that constant runs from 4 to 10 minutes, and 4 of them are slower than this one.

Hence the formula for this crossing: 15 minutes for the crossing itself plus 6 minutes for every car ahead of you. Document checks, customs inspection and delays on the neighbouring side are not in that number — we count the queue only. The full method, and what this figure leaves out →