Gatwick short stay parking: hours, not days

Short stay charges by the hour and publishes its drive-up tariff, identical at both terminals. The premium tier buys the same clock with a shorter walk: bays on the terminal entrance level, two minutes from the doors and extra wide.

Published drive-up tariff, both terminals.

Two published deals undercut the clock. The evening special covers South Terminal short stay from 17:00 to 02:00 for £25 pre-booked, made for late arrivals and long send-offs. And pre-booking a day or more online always beats the £70 gate rate, usually by a wide margin. Before paying either way, check discount codes for Gatwick parking; it takes a minute.

The comparison this car park exists to win: the forecourt charges £10 for a maximum of ten minutes, camera enforced, and £1 a minute beyond that. Short stay charges £8 for half an hour. So if you are dropping someone at Gatwick and they can step out with their bags unaided, the forecourt is quicker and costs £2 more. The moment anyone needs help with luggage, a pushchair unfolded, or a goodbye longer than a hug, £8 in short stay buys 30 unhurried minutes and a walk to the doors.

Meeting a flight leans harder still towards parking, because arrivals rarely appear on the minute. Half an hour in short stay absorbs a slow bag reclaim; the forecourt cannot wait at all, and circling the roads to dodge the cameras is its own misery. The budget alternative is the long stay trick, two free hours and a ten-minute bus ride, and the pick-up guide weighs the two properly.

Short stay means car parks 1, 2 and 3 at the South Terminal and car parks 5 and 6 at North, each a covered walk of about four minutes to check-in, with the premium bays inside car park 3 at South and car park 5 at North sitting one level from the terminal entrance. Full maps of entrances, levels and walking routes live on the North Terminal parking and South Terminal parking pages.

Check your height before you commit an approach road. North's Car Park 5 takes nothing over 1.8m, Car Park 6 stretches to 2.1m, and the South Terminal short stays cap at 2m; a roof box or bike rack counts towards the figure, and bays measure 2.4m by 4.8m. Anything taller has two options: long stay, which has no height barrier, or the North Terminal's pre-book-only mid stay up to 2.4m.

The short stays are barrier controlled, and the barrier reads your number plate as you pull up. With a pre-booking against the plate it lifts and the visit is already paid; a drive-up visit is charged against the tariff above before you leave. That plate-matching is why the registration on a booking has to be exact, and why hire cars are best booked as drive-up or amended online once you know the plate; official bookings can be changed free of charge up to 24 hours before arrival.

For half-hour errands nobody pre-books, and the gate rate is the honest price of turning up. From a couple of hours upward, booking online first pays for the phone battery it costs, and for a full day it is not close. Cancellations refund in full down to 24 hours before arrival, so a speculative booking for a delayed-flight pick-up carries no risk.

The short stays hold most of the airport's small extras. Electric cars get four 22kW charging points in each terminal's short stay, first come, first served, better treated as a top-up than a plan. Motorbikes park free in the yellow-hatched bays along the sides of each level, with no booking and no anchor points, and a bike outside those bays pays car rates or gets removed. Blue badge bays exist in every short stay, charged at normal rates, and the airport also sells commuter season tickets, monthly to annual, for the South Terminal short stays a short walk from the railway station.

Against the clock it wins short and loses long. Under two hours, short stay is the best value at the airport unless you can spare the long stay bus ride, in which case the first two hours cost nothing at all. At £70 a day it becomes a distress purchase: long stay parking charges £38 then £32 at the gate and far less pre-booked, for the price of a 10 to 12 minute transfer. Days belong to long stay, hours to short stay; in between, compare the pre-book prices for your exact times before deciding.

Premium short stay buys two minutes and wider bays for £17.50 a day over standard, which makes sense with mobility needs or an armful of children and rarely otherwise. The full ladder, valet and meet and greet included, is compared across every parking option at Gatwick.