UK Airport Parking
Live prices for airport parking at 17 UK airports, compared side by side. Cheapest right now is Glasgow at £6.68 a day. Meet and Greet, Park and Ride and on-airport parking, including direct rates from independent operators the big comparison sites do not list. Flat £1.49 booking fee, no hidden charges at checkout.
Everyone in this industry tells you to book early. We price the same stay at four booking lead times, and across 17 UK airports booking 30 days ahead is cheaper at only 5 of them. At 6 it costs more.
The UK Airport Parking Price Index
Every airport parking site in the country tells you to book early and save up to 70%. Nobody publishes the figures behind it. So we do: the identical 8-day stay, priced at 2, 14, 30, 60 days before travel, at every UK airport we cover, rebuilt automatically from live operator pricing.
It is mostly not true. Of the 17 airports we can price at both ends today, booking 30 days ahead is cheaper at 5. At 6 the price does not move at all, however far ahead you book. And at 6 the last-minute price is the cheaper one. Booking London Gatwick thirty days ahead costs £20.86 more than booking it two days out.
Where booking early does win, it wins properly: a median of £8.51 on a 8-day stay, around 11% off the late price. The point is not that advance booking is a con. It is that whether it helps depends entirely on which airport you are flying from, and nobody tells you which.
One pattern does hold, and it is not the one you get told. 60 days out is the outright cheapest of the four lead times at 8 of 17 airports, and cheapest or joint-cheapest at 14. Meanwhile 14 days and 30 days ahead are never the outright cheapest at a single airport we cover, and those are exactly the lead times "book early" gets read as. If your dates are fixed, two months out beats two weeks.
| Airport | 2d ahead | 14d ahead | 30d ahead | 60d ahead | Booking 30d vs 2d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London StanstedSTN | £106.48 | £70.48 | £70.48 | £59.48 | save £36.00 |
| DublinDUB | £94.48 | £78.33 | £78.33 | £72.35 | save £16.15 |
| East MidlandsEMA | £77.49 | £68.98 | £68.98 | £50.97 | save £8.51 |
| London LutonLTN | £93.97 | £103.97 | £88.97 | £83.97 | save £5.00 |
| NewcastleNCL | £118.97 | £113.97 | £113.97 | £108.97 | save £5.00 |
| London HeathrowLHR | £55.48 | £55.48 | £55.48 | £55.48 | same price |
| ManchesterMAN | £53.49 | £53.49 | £53.49 | £53.49 | same price |
| BristolBRS | £73.49 | £73.49 | £73.49 | £73.49 | same price |
| GlasgowGLA | £53.48 | £53.48 | £53.48 | £53.48 | same price |
| Leeds BradfordLBA | £77.98 | £77.98 | £77.98 | £83.98 | same price |
| ExeterEXT | £152.98 | £152.98 | £152.98 | £109.98 | same price |
| CardiffCWL | £83.98 | £94.98 | £94.98 | £91.98 | costs £11.00 more |
| BirminghamBHX | £83.97 | £95.19 | £95.19 | £53.97 | costs £11.22 more |
| EdinburghEDI | £73.97 | £83.97 | £88.97 | £73.97 | costs £15.00 more |
| LiverpoolLPL | £72.49 | £89.84 | £90.48 | £90.48 | costs £17.99 more |
| AberdeenABZ | £73.97 | £73.97 | £93.97 | £73.97 | costs £20.00 more |
| London GatwickLGW | £81.36 | £102.37 | £102.22 | £72.22 | costs £20.86 more |
This is the cheapest price we can sell at each airport, across every operator we are connected to, for one identical 8-day stay. It is a snapshot, not a long-run average, and it does not include drop-off or barrier charges paid to the airport itself. Prices move daily, so treat it as the shape of the market rather than a quote. Your exact price is confirmed live on the airport page and again at checkout. Biggest advance saving today: London Stansted, £106.48 at two days out against £70.48 at thirty, or £4.50 a day of the stay.
Free to reuse with credit under CC BY 4.0. If you are writing about the cost of travel and want the underlying figures or a breakdown for a particular airport, ask us and we will send them over.
Airport parking prices, every UK airport
Cheapest live price at each airport for a 8-day stay, all in. Updated hourly.
| Airport | Per day | 8 days | Car parks | Book |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glasgow Airport ParkingCheapest | £6.68 | £53.48 | 9 | Compare |
| Manchester Airport Parking | £6.69 | £53.49 | 26 | Compare |
| London Heathrow Airport Parking | £6.93 | £55.48 | 28 | Compare |
| Liverpool Airport Parking | £9.06 | £72.49 | 5 | Compare |
| Bristol Airport Parking | £9.19 | £73.49 | 9 | Compare |
| Edinburgh Airport Parking | £9.25 | £73.97 | 13 | Compare |
| Aberdeen Airport Parking | £9.25 | £73.97 | 1 | Compare |
| Dublin Airport Parking | £9.26 | £74.06 | 4 | Compare |
| East Midlands Airport Parking | £9.69 | £77.49 | 13 | Compare |
| Leeds Bradford Airport Parking | £9.75 | £77.98 | 4 | Compare |
| London Gatwick Airport Parking | £10.17 | £81.36 | 19 | Compare |
| Birmingham Airport Parking | £10.50 | £83.97 | 11 | Compare |
| London Luton Airport Parking | £11.12 | £88.97 | 7 | Compare |
| Cardiff Airport Parking | £11.87 | £94.98 | 4 | Compare |
| London Stansted Airport Parking | £13.31 | £106.48 | 20 | Compare |
| Newcastle Airport Parking | £14.87 | £118.97 | 6 | Compare |
| Exeter Airport Parking | £19.12 | £152.98 | 1 | Compare |
London
The UK's flagship hub. 80M+ passengers a year and the densest car-park supply in Europe.
Two terminals and aggressive shuttle frequencies, the most competitive parking market in the UK.
Low-cost capital. Smart park-and-ride lots 5-15 minutes from the terminal.
Compact site with the cheapest meet-and-greet rates in the South.
Midlands
Heart-of-England hub. Strong meet-and-greet supply and value undercover lots.
Best-value cargo & holiday hub. Plenty of long-stay options under £4/day.
South
Fast-growing South West gateway with smart silver-zone meet-and-greet.
North
The North of England's main gateway. Two terminals, frequent shuttles and the broadest long-haul network outside London.
Compact, friendly and quick. Walking-distance lots if you book early.
Yorkshire's hilltop hub, undercover options recommended in winter.
North-East gateway with free shuttles and Park Mark accredited operators.
Scotland
Wales
Ireland
Ireland's busiest airport, short-hop from the UK with two terminals and a strong long-haul network to North America.
How Park4Travels works
For every UK airport we cover, you can compare every car park in one place: Long Stay (on-airport, cheapest weekly rates), Meet and Greet (drive to the forecourt, hand keys to a driver), Park and Ride (off-airport with shuttle) and Short Stay multi-storey. Live prices from major operators including Bristol Sky Park, Midlands Airport Parking, Manchester Park & Ride and our P4T supplier network, plus direct rates from independent operators we list ourselves.
Honest pricing
Every booking through Park4Travels carries a flat £1.49 platform booking fee, disclosed on every listing card and again at the checkout step. We do not unbundle a "from" rate at the final screen. We do not change which result ranks where based on commercial relationships. The cheapest rate is the cheapest rate.
What's in each airport's buyer's guide
Where you see the Guide badge on an airport above, we've published a full in-depth buyer's guide covering every product type at that airport, the rules that move the price, when each product wins for your trip, the supplier landscape, and the common mistakes that make parking look more expensive than it is. Click through for the full breakdown.
Drop-off charges across the UK
Every major UK airport now charges to drop off at the terminal forecourt. Gatwick and Stansted are tied highest at £10 per visit (March 2026). Heathrow raised to £7 in January 2026. East Midlands at £5 is the cheapest. Full breakdown including the free alternative at each airport: UK Airport Drop Off Charges 2026.
UK airport parking, common questions
Does booking airport parking early actually save money?
Not as often as the industry claims. Of the 17 UK airports in our price index today, booking 30 days ahead rather than 2 is cheaper at 5. At 6 the price is identical however far ahead you book, because the operator sells a fixed rate card. At 6 the last-minute price is actually lower. The clearest example right now is London Gatwick, where booking a month ahead costs £20.86 more than booking two days out. Where advance booking does win, the median saving is £8.51 on a 8-day stay. The one pattern that does hold: 60 days ahead is the outright cheapest of the four lead times we sample at 8 of 17 airports, and cheapest or joint-cheapest at 14. By contrast 14 days and 30 days ahead is never the outright cheapest anywhere, which is awkward because that is what "book early" usually means in practice. If your dates are fixed, two months out beats two weeks. The table above shows every airport, priced at four booking lead times on the same stay.
How much is airport parking in the UK?
Right now the cheapest of the 17 UK airports we compare is Glasgow at £53.48 for 8 days, about £6.68 a day, everything included. Prices vary far more by airport than by how far ahead you book: the table above shows the live cheapest at each one, and our price index shows the same stay priced at four different booking lead times so you can see whether booking early helps at your airport.
Which UK airport is cheapest to park at?
Today it is Glasgow at about £6.68 a day, against £19.12 a day at Exeter, the most expensive of the airports we cover. There is no permanent answer, because operators reprice daily, so the live table above is the honest version rather than a fixed list.
Is it cheaper to book airport parking in advance or turn up on the day?
Pre-booking beats driving up to the barrier without a reservation almost every time, and that is the comparison the 'save up to 70%' claims are really making. Turning up unbooked at an on-airport car park is the single most expensive way to park. But that is a different question from how far ahead to pre-book: our price index above shows that once you are booking rather than turning up, booking a month ahead is only cheaper at some UK airports, identical at others, and occasionally worse. Book rather than turn up, then check the actual dates rather than assuming earlier is cheaper.
What is the difference between Park and Ride and Meet and Greet?
With Park and Ride you park in the operator's car park and take a shuttle bus to the terminal, which is the cheapest option at most UK airports. With Meet and Greet you drive to the terminal, a driver takes the car and parks it, and it is waiting when you land. Meet and Greet costs more and buys you the transfer time back, which matters most on early departures and with children.
Are there hidden charges on airport parking?
There should not be. Park4Travels charges a flat £1.49 booking fee that is shown in the price you see, and the total on screen is the total you pay. Watch for drop-off charges at the terminal, which are separate and now apply at most UK airports.