On 17 September 2026 London Gatwick published a minimum £10 forecourt drop off charge covering 10 minutes, with a 30 minute maximum stay, against £8.00 for up to 30 minutes in Short Stay roll up. The car park is cheaper and three times longer, and you can walk to the doors.
Short Stay is cheaper. London Gatwick publishes £8.00 for up to 30 minutes in the Short Stay car parks, and a minimum £10 charge for the drop off zones on the forecourt, where that £10 covers 10 minutes. Both figures sat on the airport's own pages on 17 September 2026. The car park costs less, gives you three times the time, and lets you walk your passenger to the check in doors instead of waving from a bay.
No single page tells you this, because the two prices live in two places. The airport's drop off page prices the forecourt, then recommends the Short Stay car parks without printing a number. The roll up prices page prices the car parks and gives the forecourt one line. Neither sets the two rates side by side, so search results answer one question or the other.
Here is the crossover, built only from the rates the airport published on those two pages.
Below 30 minutes the forecourt never wins on price. Above 30 minutes it is not an option at all, because the drop off page sets a maximum length of stay of 30 minutes.
| How long you stay | Forecourt drop off zone | Short Stay car park |
|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | £10 minimum charge | £8.00 |
| 20 minutes | £10 plus £1 for each additional minute | £8.00 |
| 30 minutes | Maximum stay, day capped at £30 | £8.00 |
| 31 to 60 minutes | Not permitted | £14.00 |
| 1 to 2 hours | Not permitted | £18.00 |
| 2 to 3 hours | Not permitted | £21.50 |
The drop off zones sit on the forecourt outside the North and South Terminal entrances, a short walk from check in. There are no barriers, so you drive in, pull into a marked bay, drop your passenger and drive out, with the charge billed to the visit afterwards rather than collected on the spot. The published rates are
Nothing is collected at the kerb, which is where most of the trouble starts. The airport states the charge must be paid by midnight the day after you use the zones. You can pay online, through an automated payment line on 0330 174 4503, or automatically if you have registered the vehicle for an AutoPay account before you travel. Miss that deadline and the page says you can receive a Parking Charge Notice, administered by Times24 on the airport's behalf.
Blue badge holders are exempt from the drop off charge and can register a vehicle through Times24. That exemption is specific to the forecourt charge, it does not change the car park roll up rates, which are the same for every driver.
One line matters for anyone collecting rather than dropping. The express pick up bays inside the Short Stay car parks should not be used for dropping off passengers, and the forecourt zones are the other half of the same rule. If your trip is a pick up, you are in car park territory from the start.
Short Stay is a barrier controlled car park with 24 hour patrols at both terminals, with bays as close as a four minute walk from the terminal. The roll up rate is what you pay when you turn up without a booking, and the airport advertises savings of up to 60 percent for booking ahead rather than rolling up, without setting out a specific booking window or a guaranteed space. These are the roll up rates as published.
Premium Short Stay is the same car park with bays nearer the terminal and same level access, starting at £12.00 for up to 30 minutes. Unless that walk matters to you, the £8.00 tier does the same job for £4.00 less.
The practical read is that a 30 minute goodbye costs £8.00, an hour costs £14.00 and two hours costs £18.00. If a delayed inbound flight turns a 20 minute collection into 90 minutes, you pay £18.00 and nobody moves you on. On the forecourt the same delay puts you past a 30 minute maximum stay with no barrier to tell you so.
If you are the passenger and you arrive early, both terminals sell paid bag storage, so an early drop need not mean guarding suitcases at a coffee table. Our notes on luggage storage cover how those desks price a few hours against a full day.
| Time in the car park | Short Stay | Premium Short Stay |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 30 mins | £8.00 | £12.00 |
| 31 to 60 mins | £14.00 | £19.00 |
| 1 to 2 hours | £18.00 | £22.00 |
| 2 to 3 hours | £21.50 | £26.00 |
| 3 to 4 hours | £26.00 | £33.00 |
| 12 to 24 hours | £70.00 | £87.50 |
Yes, and it involves a bus. The airport says you can park in its Long Stay car parks free for two hours, with a free shuttle bus supplied to the terminals. The roll up page prices Long Stay at free for 0 to 2 hours, then £38.00 for 2 to 24 hours and £32.00 for each subsequent day. Stay inside two hours and the drop off costs nothing at all.
What you pay instead is time and handling. You park, wait for a shuttle, ride in, then repeat it in reverse. With one cabin bag and a long security queue ahead of your passenger, that is a fair trade for £8.00 saved. With three suitcases and a 6am departure, Short Stay buys back half an hour of a bad morning.
Either way the forecourt loses. A minimum £10 for 10 minutes is the most you can pay for the least time you can spend, and it is the only one of the three options with a clock that can generate a Parking Charge Notice weeks later.
Search the Gatwick Short Stay rate and most of what comes back is parking resellers and airport blogs, several of them still carrying a Short Stay price the airport has stopped charging. Drop off charges and roll up ladders at UK airports have moved more than once in recent years, and the pages that rank are rarely the pages that get maintained.
Only two sources settle it, the airport's roll up prices page and its drop off page, and checking both takes under a minute. If a third party page shows a figure that neither official page shows, the third party page is stale, not the airport. We read both on 17 September 2026 and note how we verify every number on our methodology page.
The same caution applies to this post. The car park beats the kerb at Gatwick today because £8.00 for 30 minutes sits below £10 for 10 minutes. That is a relationship between two published rates, not a rule of airports, so glance at the official page before you set off. Manchester prices the same problem differently, in pick up in the drop off zone.
Nothing here needs a booking, although booking Short Stay is cheaper than rolling up. The sequence is short.
If nobody can drive you at all, the arithmetic changes shape, and a prebooked car or a train often beats a lift plus the parking once you count both ends of the trip. That comparison is in our guide to airport transfers against a taxi. Two more UK ground transport prices we have checked sit in Victoria versus Heathrow for ten pounds and what a missed touch out in London costs.
Parking is cheaper for any length of stay. Gatwick's Short Stay roll up rate is £8.00 for up to 30 minutes, while the drop off zones carry a minimum £10 charge covering 10 minutes. Both rates were published on the airport's own pages on 17 September 2026, so the car park costs less and gives you three times as long.
The airport publishes £10 for 10 minutes, then £1 for each additional minute up to 20 minutes, with a maximum daily charge of £30 and a maximum length of stay of 30 minutes. The charge has to be paid by midnight the day after your visit, online, by phone or automatically through an AutoPay account.
Yes, from the Long Stay car parks. The airport states you can park there free for two hours with a free shuttle bus to the terminals, after which £38.00 applies for 2 to 24 hours. You trade the short walk to the doors for a bus ride each way, which suits light luggage better than heavy.
Thirty minutes. The drop off page sets a maximum length of stay of 30 minutes alongside a maximum daily charge of £30. No barrier stops you, the zones run without gates and the charge is billed to the visit afterwards, so the limit shows up as a bill rather than a closed exit. Anything longer belongs in a car park.
The airport says a late payment or a non payment can bring a Parking Charge Notice. The drop off service is administered by Times24 on Gatwick's behalf, and its site is where you pay or appeal a notice. Registering the vehicle for AutoPay before you travel removes the deadline, since payment happens after each visit.
The airport advertises savings of up to 60 percent for booking Short Stay parking in advance rather than rolling up, though it does not set out a specific booking window or guarantee a space. The £8.00 quoted here is the roll up price, which is what you pay on arrival with no booking, so a prebook should come in under it.