Is it cheaper to park or get dropped off at London Gatwick?
If you're only dropping someone off at London Gatwick, the £10 forecourt charge is far cheaper than £230 to park for 7 days. But if you're parking for the trip anyway, £230 is the price — and one drop-off (£10) buys you about 438 minutes of drive-up parking.
- Drop-off (one visit): £10
- Drive-up parking (7 days): £230
- Drive-up gate rate: about £32.86 per 24 hours
- One drop-off ≈ 438 minutes of drive-up parking
- One drop-off
- £10Forecourt, per visit
- Park 7 days
- £230Drive-up gate rate
- Gate rate
- £32.86/dayImplied per 24h
At London Gatwick's drive-up gate rate (£32.86/24h), 438 minutes of parking costs the same as one £10 drop-off.
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Should I park or get dropped off at London Gatwick?
It depends on the trip. London Gatwick charges £10 for a single forecourt drop-off, while drive-up parking is £230 for 7 days — about £32.86 per 24 hours. For a quick airport run where you're not leaving the car, the drop-off charge is the smaller outlay. But if you're flying yourself and need to leave the car for the trip, parking is what you pay — and a single drop-off only buys about 438 minutes of that drive-up parking. Both figures are official, date-stamped snapshots read from the airport's own pages and verified 2026-06-10. We never republish unverified prices.
London Gatwick: one forecourt drop-off vs the official drive-up gate parking price by duration. Verified 2026-06-10.
| 3 days | 7 days | 14 days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive-up parking (gate) | £102 | £230 | £454 |
| One drop-off | £10 | £10 | £10 |
- 7 days
- £230
- 14 days
- £454
- 7 days
- £10
- 14 days
- £10
Short trip or long stay — which is cheaper, by the day?
At London Gatwick, the drive-up gate per-day rate changes with trip length — see the table for the exact rate at each duration. We hold no verified pre-book price that beats it yet.
| Trip length | Gate (total) | Gate (per day) | Pre-book | Cheaper for this trip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 days | £102 | £34/day | No verified snapshot | Gate (only verified figure) |
| 7 days | £230 | £32.86/day | No verified snapshot | Gate (only verified figure) |
| 14 days | £454 | £32.43/day | No verified snapshot | Gate (only verified figure) |
Gate prices are London Gatwick's official drive-up tariff at each duration. A pre-book figure is shown only where we hold a dated snapshot at that exact trip length — we never scale a snapshot from a different duration onto these rows. Verified 2026-06-10.
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Also from Holiday Extras: airport lounges · airport transfers
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Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to park or get dropped off at London Gatwick?
For a quick drop-off, the £10 forecourt charge is cheaper than £230 to park for 7 days. If you're leaving the car for the trip, £230 is what drive-up parking costs (verified 2026-06-10).
How much parking do I get for the price of a London Gatwick drop-off?
At the £32.86-per-24h drive-up gate rate, one £10 drop-off buys about 438 minutes of parking at London Gatwick.
London Gatwick: drop off vs park — when is each cheaper?
Drop off when you're only running someone to the terminal and leaving: the £10 forecourt charge is a one-off and beats paying for parking you won't use. Park when you're flying yourself and the car has to stay — 7-day drive-up parking is £230 (about £32.86 per 24h), and a single £10 drop-off only covers about 438 minutes of it. Pre-booking parking online is usually cheaper than the drive-up gate price. Both figures verified 2026-06-10 against the airport's own pages.
Is there a way to avoid the London Gatwick drop-off charge altogether?
Yes — the Long Stay car park gives you 120 minutes free. Free for up to two hours, with a free shuttle bus to the terminals (Verified 2026-06-10.)
Where do these London Gatwick parking and drop-off prices come from?
The drop-off fee is read from the airport's official drop-off page; the drive-up parking price is the airport's own published gate tariff. Both are date-stamped snapshots, re-verified on the date shown — never scraped from third-party sites.
Sources & method
- Official London Gatwick drop-off page — verified 2026-06-10
- Official London Gatwick parking page — verified 2026-06-10
The drop-off fee and the drive-up gate parking price are read from the airport's own official pages and re-verified on the dates shown. The per-day rate and minutes-equivalence are exact arithmetic from those two figures. We never republish unverified prices.
Independent: we are not owned by any airport, network or booking site. Any affiliate links are labelled Ad and earn us a commission — this never affects the figures we publish or which option we show as cheapest.