Shuttle bus
You park the car yourself and a transfer bus runs you to the terminal. Usually the cheapest per day, and the one that needs the most slack in your timings — budget for the wait as well as the ride, in both directions.
Airport parking at London Stansted
STNLondon, United Kingdom
Check prices for your dates
London
Just off the M11 in Essex, north-east of London, Stansted has one passenger terminal. The Express Set Down outside Departures charges for every visit, Mid Stay has a free pick-up and drop-off option, and you can walk from the Short Stay car parks to the terminal.
Before you fly
Airport guide: London Stansted
Driving to the airport
Approaching on the M11 from the London direction, leave at junction 8a; from the Cambridge side, use junction 8, which also connects the motorway with the A120. The Long Stay and Meet & Greet car parks are both reached from the M11's Stansted Airport exit.
Terminals
Directly beneath the terminal is the rail station, linked to it by lifts, escalators and ramps, and the bus and coach station stands opposite the main entrance. The drop-off area, the Express Set Down, is outside Departures.
Drop-off and pick-up
The Express Set Down is barrier-free: cameras record your number plate and a charge applies to each visit. You can pay only after the visit, online or by phone, or automatically through an AutoPay account, and Blue Badge holders are not exempt.
The Mid Stay car park allows pick-up and drop-off free of charge for a limited time, and its free shuttle bus serves the terminal. To meet arriving passengers inside the terminal, use a Short Stay car park.
The airport’s own car parks
The Short Stay car parks are close enough to walk to the terminal without a transfer bus, and are named by colour, Premium Orange being the closest. Free shuttle buses link Mid Stay and Long Stay with the terminal. Meet & Greet sits right beside the terminal, while Valet Parking drivers take your car from Zone C of the Express Set Down; on your return, it waits on the terminal forecourt.
Without a car
Stansted Express trains run from the station beneath the terminal to London Liverpool Street, also serving Tottenham Hale and Stratford, and CrossCountry and Greater Anglia trains call there too. From the bus and coach station, National Express routes A6, A8 and A9 head into London, and First Essex runs the X10, X20 and X30 to Basildon, Colchester and Southend.
Good to know
Oyster cards are not valid to or from Stansted Airport, but contactless bank cards and mobile wallets work on the Stansted Express and Greater Anglia; CrossCountry trains need a ticket bought online or at the station.
The Blue Badge scheme does not apply on the airport's roads, and unattended vehicles are towed away by police.
Official airport website stanstedairport.com
What Parkena guarantees
- Price locked at booking
- The operator is named before you pay
- A person read the listing before it appeared
What Parkena does not claim
- Not independently verified
- The handover is not recorded by Parkena
How Parkena lists
Choosing a car park at London Stansted
Parkena is not a directory of every space near London. It shows car parks an operator has put on sale and a Parkena reviewer has approved — and it prices them only for the dates you give it.
Listing
Approved operators only
A car park reaches this site once its operator has been approved by a Parkena reviewer, is still active, and has finished setting the lot up. All three are re-checked in the database every time results are asked for, so a listing that stops meeting any of them stops appearing.
Pricing
A price for your stay, never a headline rate
Your price depends on your exact dates, so enter your drop-off and pick-up and you will see the total for that stay — worked out from the operator’s own rate plan, in the currency that operator settles in. Before you name a stay there is no price to show, and that is why this page carries no “from” figure anywhere on it.
Charging
The amount is recomputed before it is charged
The total you agreed to is the total you are charged. Your price is never carried in the link: the booking page asks for it again, and the database works it out once more inside the same transaction that writes your reservation, then checks it against the figure you were shown. Match, and you are booked; differ by anything at all, and the booking is refused rather than quietly re-priced — so you are never charged a figure you were not shown.
Not claimed
What Parkena does not yet know about STN
You will not find a transfer time or a distance to Departures for any car park at London Stansted here: none has been mapped to a terminal yet, and Parkena will not print a number nobody has measured. What you can rely on is where they are — every listing appears because it is in or near London, and the results page says so on itself.
What is listed here
See what is available at London Stansted
Give Parkena your drop-off and pick-up and it asks every approved operator in or near the city what that stay costs, right now. Nothing on this page is a quote; that page is where a quote comes from.
Check prices for your dates
Takes you to the search. Your drop-off and pick-up are what produce a price.
STN
Illustration, not a map. Parkena lists car parks in and around London, and names each one and its operator on the results page.
Off-airport parking
Getting from the car park to the terminal
Off-airport parking comes in three shapes and they change the whole shape of your morning. Every listing at London Stansted states the handover — whether the car park takes your keys or you keep them — and the operator’s own arrival instructions — there before you book, and on your booking afterwards — tell you how you reach Departures.
Walk to terminal
The car park is close enough to walk in from. No bus, no waiting, and no transfer to get wrong on the way back at midnight. Typically the dearest of the three, and worth it with light luggage or a tight connection.
Attended handover
You hand the keys over on arrival and someone else parks the car. Every listing states whether a car park takes your keys or leaves them with you — that is the one fact about the handover the platform actually records.
Good to know
Questions, answered
How much does parking at London Stansted cost?
Prices depend on your dates. Enter your drop-off and pick-up in the search at the top of this page and every approved operator near London quotes that exact stay from its own rate plan, in the currency it settles in. That is also why there is no “from” figure for London Stansted on this site: a car park has no price until somebody names a stay, and no operator has agreed to one.
How are the days counted?
A started day is a charged day. A stay of exactly 24 hours is one day; 24 hours and one minute is two. That is why we ask for times, not just dates.
How do I get from the car park to the terminals at London Stansted?
Each listing at London Stansted states how the car changes hands — you park it yourself, or an attendant takes it — and the operator's own arrival instructions carry the rest. Parkena does not publish a transfer time or a distance for any car park, because the operator platform records neither; every listing shows what the operator declared and nothing else.
Can I charge an electric car, or hand the keys over, at London Stansted?
Only if the operator says so. A listing at London Stansted shows the facilities and the handover its operator has confirmed, and the search page lets you filter on them. An empty facilities list means unknown, not hidden — Parkena never fills one in.
Can I cancel or change a parking booking at London Stansted?
Cancellation works the same for every listing: the booking page shows the free-cancellation window and the processing fee in full before you confirm, and the terms recorded on your booking stay as recorded even if they change later. To cancel, look the booking up at /booking with your reference and the email you booked with — that works any time before check-in. Cancelling inside the free window refunds the total minus the processing fee; cancelling after it keeps the total instead, exactly as not arriving at all would. To change a booking, Parkena cannot help — new dates or a different car park is a fresh booking. The one exception is the vehicle registration, which you can correct at /booking until your stay begins.
How far ahead do I need to book at London Stansted?
That is each operator's own rule. Some car parks at London Stansted need notice before a stay starts and some set a minimum or maximum length; Parkena applies those rules when it quotes, so a stay the operator cannot accept is shown as not bookable, with the reason, rather than quoted and refused later.