Stansted to Gatwick Airport Taxi & Transfer
Fixed-price chauffeured taxi from London Stansted (STN) to London Gatwick (LGW) — roughly 72–76 miles and 100–130 minutes via the M11, the M25 and the M23. We meet you inside Stansted arrivals with a name board and drop you at the right Gatwick terminal, North or South. From £110, agreed at booking — Dartford Crossing toll included. Flight tracked, 60 minutes free waiting, no surge, no meter. TfL licensed, 24/7.
Stansted to Gatwick — two ways round London
Stansted is north-east of London in Essex; Gatwick is south of it on the Surrey–Sussex border. They sit on almost opposite corners of the M25, which makes this the longest and least predictable of the London airport-pair transfers — and the only one where the driver has a genuine strategic choice to make.
There are two legitimate routes, and they are 25 miles apart
Because Stansted and Gatwick are almost diametrically opposed on the orbital, you can go round either side. This is not a detail — it changes the distance by about a third and it is the single biggest factor in whether you make your flight.
| Route | Distance | Clear-road time | Toll | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East — via the Dartford Crossing M11 → M25 J27 clockwise → A282 Dartford → M25 J7 → M23 | 72–76 mi | ~1 hr 40 | £3.50 Dart Charge | The crossing is a single-point bottleneck — one incident and there is no alternative. |
| West — anti-clockwise past Heathrow M11 → M25 J27 anti-clockwise → J14 Heathrow → J7 → M23 | ~98–100 mi | ~2 hr 05 | None | Junctions 12–15 by Heathrow are among Europe's busiest motorway sections. |
Distances are indicative. The eastern route is the shorter one and the one routing engines default to; the western route becomes the better call when the crossing is closed or badly queued.
We take the east by default and switch when we need to. The Dartford route is roughly 25 miles and 25 minutes shorter on clear roads, and the £3.50 toll is inside your fare either way. But the QEII Bridge and the tunnels are a genuine single point of failure — height and hazardous-load restrictions, frequent incident closures, and no parallel road. When the crossing goes down, the western arc past Heathrow is the answer, and it costs you nothing extra because your price was fixed at booking.
That decision is exactly the sort of thing a meter or a surge app makes expensive and a fixed fare makes free.
How long it really takes
On genuinely clear roads the eastern route computes at about 1 hour 40. Ordinary daytime traffic makes it 1 hour 50 to 2 hours 10. Weekday peaks — 06:30 to 10:00 and 15:30 to 19:00 — can push it to two and a half or three hours, and late Sunday afternoon is quietly one of the worst windows of the week on this corridor.
You will see operators quoting 70 or 75 minutes for this journey. Against a computed free-flow time of over 100 minutes, that is not achievable, and booking a connection around it is how people miss flights. We would rather quote you the honest range.
| When you travel | Typical door-to-door | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| Before 06:00 | 1 hr 40 – 1 hr 50 | Clear, and the crossing is free before 06:00. |
| 06:30–10:00 weekday | 2 hr 15 – 3 hr | Morning peak on both the M11 and the crossing approach. |
| 10:00–15:00 | 1 hr 50 – 2 hr 10 | The most predictable window of the day. |
| 15:30–19:00 weekday | 2 hr 15 – 3 hr | Evening peak; the Dartford approach queues heavily. |
| Sunday afternoon | 2 hr – 2 hr 45 | Underrated. Weekend return traffic on the M25 east. |
| After 22:00 & overnight | 1 hr 35 – 1 hr 50 | Quiet, and the Dart Charge is free 22:00–06:00. |
Indicative door-to-door times, Stansted (STN) to Gatwick (LGW). Your fixed fare does not change with traffic, with the route we take, or with the toll.
The toll you never have to think about
The Dartford Crossing has no barriers and no toll booths. Cameras read your plate and you are expected to pay online afterwards — a system that catches out a remarkable number of people, because nothing at the crossing tells you that you owe anything.
| Dart Charge (2026) | Detail |
|---|---|
| Car, one-off payment | £3.50 per crossing (£2.80 on a pre-pay account). |
| Charging hours | 06:00 to 22:00, every day including weekends and bank holidays. Crossings between 22:00 and 06:00 are free. |
| Payment deadline | By midnight the day after you cross. There are no barriers — nothing is collected at the crossing itself. |
| If it isn't paid | £70 Penalty Charge Notice, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days, rising to £105 if left unpaid. |
The Dart Charge is set by National Highways, not by RushXO. On a RushXO booking it is inside your fixed fare — you never deal with the crossing payment or the deadline.
Why this matters if you are driving yourself
If you hire a car for this journey, the Dart Charge is your responsibility, and hire companies routinely add an administration fee on top of the penalty when a notice reaches them weeks later. On a RushXO booking, the crossing is our problem: the toll is inside the fixed fare and the deadline is ours to meet, not yours.
One terminal — a simple start
Stansted has a single passenger terminal, with three satellite buildings holding the departure gates and a shuttle between them. For a transfer that means there is nothing to get wrong: no terminal to choose, no wrong-hall risk. Your driver waits inside arrivals with a name board.
Ryanair overwhelmingly dominates Stansted — it is the airline's largest base, with well over a hundred destinations. Jet2 is a clear second. Worth noting because a lot of guides still say otherwise: easyJet closed its Stansted base in August 2020 and now serves only a handful of routes from here. If you are connecting to an easyJet flight, it is far more likely to be departing from Gatwick or Luton.
Arrivals meet-and-greet
Ryanair, Jet2 and a small number of other carriers.
Driver inside the arrivals hall with a name board, luggage carried to the car. We track the inbound flight, so an early landing or a long delay is handled without a call from you.
Stansted's drop-off charge, 2026
Relevant on the reverse leg, or if someone is dropping you.
The Express Set Down charge rose to £10 for up to 15 minutes on 19 March 2026, with a flat £28 beyond 15 minutes. Barrier-free and ANPR-enforced; payable by 23:59 the day after. Unpaid it becomes a £100 Parking Charge Notice, £60 within 14 days.
Charges are set by London Stansted Airport, not by RushXO, and can change. With a RushXO booking any applicable charge is accounted for at the time of booking.
North or South — straight to the right door
After two hours on the road the last thing you want is a shuttle ride between terminals with your cases. Tell us the terminal at booking — it is on your airline confirmation — and we take that terminal's spur off Airport Way.
North Terminal
British Airways (long-haul), TUI, Norwegian, WestJet and some easyJet routes.
Its own dedicated spur off Airport Way, with departures drop-off directly outside the check-in concourse.
South Terminal
easyJet (most routes), Ryanair, Vueling, British Airways short-haul and others.
The busier terminal at peak times, connected directly to Gatwick railway station. Departures drop-off is on the upper forecourt.
Gatwick's drop-off charge rose sharply in January 2026
Now £10 for up to 10 minutes, then £1 per additional minute to a £30 cap and a 30-minute maximum — up from £7, and double the 2024 price. ANPR-enforced, payable by midnight the following day, and unpaid it becomes a £100 Parking Charge Notice (£60 within 14 days). The Long Stay car parks are free for up to two hours with a shuttle. On a RushXO booking any applicable charge is inside your fixed fare. Full detail in our Gatwick drop-off charge guide.
Leave six hours on this one
Stansted to Gatwick is the connection we are most likely to advise against attempting on the same day, and it is worth being direct about why.
Stansted and Gatwick are separate airports on separate tickets. No baggage is forwarded, no airline protects the connection, and if you miss the second departure you are buying a new seat. On the shorter London pairs a five-hour buffer is comfortable. On this one it is not.
Our rule for this route
A minimum of six hours between your Stansted landing time and your Gatwick departure time. More in winter, over school holidays, or if either flight is a budget carrier on a tight turnaround. If you are relying on public transport rather than a car, treat six hours as an absolute floor with no contingency in it.
Where six hours goes
Up to 60 minutes at Stansted for taxiing, disembarking, immigration and baggage reclaim — and Stansted's reclaim can be slow on a busy evening bank. 100 to 180 minutes on the road, the widest range of any London airport pair, because the crossing and the M11 are both capable of adding an hour without warning. Two hours at Gatwick, which is what the airport asks for before a short-haul departure; bag drop closes 40 minutes before departure and does not reopen.
If your two flights are closer together than six hours, the honest answer is usually an overnight near Gatwick — Crawley and Horley are minutes from the terminals, and we can run you there and back on two short fixed fares. We would rather tell you that at booking than watch you sit in a queue at Dartford.
Fixed fares Stansted to Gatwick
Every fare is per vehicle, not per person, and is the exact total agreed at booking. It includes the Dartford Crossing toll and does not change with the route we take, the traffic, or the time of your flight. No night rate, no weekend rate, no bank holiday rate.
| Vehicle | Passengers | Large cases | From | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saloon | Up to 4 | 2 | £110 | Book → |
| Estate | Up to 4 | 3–4 | £125 | Book → |
| MPV 6-seater | Up to 6 | 5–6 | £140 | Book → |
| Executive (E-Class / 5 Series) | Up to 3 | 2 | £150 | Book → |
| 8-seater minibus | Up to 8 | 8 | £180 | Book → |
Stansted (STN) to Gatwick (LGW), either terminal. Dartford Crossing toll included. Fares fixed at booking. Child seats free on request.
What the fare already includes
The driver's time and fuel; the Dart Charge; meet-and-greet inside Stansted arrivals with a name board; luggage handling at both ends; real-time flight tracking with an automatic pickup adjustment; 60 minutes of free waiting after landing; and delivery to the correct Gatwick terminal door. No booking fee, no card surcharge, no toll or airport charge to settle on the day.
On a two-hour motorway run with a tolled crossing, that is the difference between a price and an estimate.
Car, train or coach — and one thing you may have been told wrongly
This is the worst-served of the London airport pairs by public transport, and the published guidance about it is unusually unreliable. Here is what actually runs.
| Option | Door-to-door | Cost | Charged | Changes | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RushXO fixed-price car | 1 hr 40 – 3 hr | from £110 per car | per vehicle | None | The only realistic option for a same-day connection |
| Train via Tottenham Hale | 2 hr 15 – 2 hr 45 | ~£30–45 pp | per person | 2 changes | Workable solo and light; hard work with cases |
| Coach | 3–5 hr | varies | per person | Change in London | Only if time genuinely does not matter |
Third-party times and fares are indicative and should be confirmed with the operator. Door-to-door figures include terminal walks, ticket queues and interchange time, which headline journey times exclude. Correct at time of writing.
The coach is no longer direct — whatever you may have read
This is the single most out-of-date piece of advice circulating about this route, and it appears on sites that ought to be reliable. National Express's own booking site states that its services between Gatwick and Stansted require a connection in London, and its route 727 — the one people remember as the airport link — now terminates at Heathrow Terminal 5 rather than continuing to Gatwick.
You will still find pages, including at least one airport's own website, describing a direct coach every two hours taking 2 hours 45. Current timetables do not show one. If you are planning around a direct coach, check it on National Express's site before you rely on it — a change at Heathrow or Victoria realistically puts the journey at three to five hours.
The train works, but take Tottenham Hale, not Liverpool Street
There is no direct train; every route needs two changes. The quickest chain is Stansted Express to Tottenham Hale (36 minutes), the Victoria line to Victoria (about 20 minutes, every few minutes), then Gatwick Express to Gatwick (30 minutes non-stop).
Most guides send you to Liverpool Street instead. That is 48 minutes on the Stansted Express rather than 36, and a longer cross-London leg afterwards — slower on both counts. Pure transit time via Tottenham Hale is about 86 minutes, but add terminal walks, ticket queues, waiting for connections and hauling cases through a Victoria line interchange and the realistic figure is 2 hours 15 to 2 hours 45, at roughly £30–45 a head.
When we would tell you to take the train
Travelling alone or as a pair, hand luggage only, in the daytime, with six hours or more of slack. Two changes with a cabin bag is perfectly manageable and it will cost you less than the car.
When the car is the only sensible answer
Two or more passengers — at £110 a car, three people already beat the train and arrive far sooner. Hold luggage, because you are carrying every bag through two interchanges otherwise. A landing before 05:00 or after 22:30, when the rail chain thins out badly. Any connection under six hours. And anyone travelling with children or with reduced mobility, for whom a two-change cross-London route with cases is not a realistic proposition.
Gatwick to Stansted — the same journey north
The reverse runs the same 72–76 miles: M23 north to M25 junction 7, anti-clockwise round the Kent side to the Dartford Crossing, then the M25 to junction 27 and the M11 north to Stansted. Same fixed fare, same toll included.
Coming out of Gatwick we meet you inside North or South arrivals with a name board and 60 minutes of free waiting from touchdown. Full detail on the Gatwick to Stansted transfer page.
Stansted to Gatwick frequently asked questions
How much is a taxi from Stansted to Gatwick?
How long does Stansted to Gatwick take?
Which route do you take — Dartford or past Heathrow?
Is the Dartford Crossing toll included?
Is there a direct train from Stansted to Gatwick?
Is there a direct coach between Stansted and Gatwick?
How much time should I leave between the two flights?
What is the Stansted drop-off charge in 2026?
Does Stansted have more than one terminal?
Do you charge extra at night or on bank holidays?
Book your Stansted to Gatwick transfer
One agreed fare for the whole run, Dartford Crossing toll included, meet-and-greet inside Stansted arrivals, flight tracked, luggage handled, delivered to the right Gatwick terminal. Saloon to 8-seater. TfL licensed.
More airport routes & guides
Airport to airport: Gatwick to Stansted · Luton to Gatwick · Heathrow to Gatwick · All routes
Guides: Gatwick Drop-Off Charge 2026 · Gatwick Parking Guide · Heathrow vs Gatwick
Airports: Stansted (STN) · Gatwick (LGW) · Heathrow (LHR) · Luton (LTN)