Event & venue transfers
City of London to Stansted Airport runs to roughly 36.0 miles and 1h 05m off-peak. We quote £135 and that is the number you pay, whatever the traffic does.
A taxi from City of London to Stansted Airport is £135 in a saloon, £170 in a 6-seat MPV and £190 in an 8-seater. It is about 36.0 miles and 1h 05m off-peak, or 1h 35m in traffic. The fare is fixed at the moment you book and covers tolls, the driver's waiting time and your luggage.
| Vehicle | Capacity | Fixed fare |
|---|---|---|
| Saloon | up to 4 passengers, 2 large cases | from £135 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £170 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £190 |
Per vehicle, not per person. Tolls, congestion and crossing charges are already inside the price, and it does not change on the day.
Meet and greet in the arrivals hall, or the short-stay pickup area. Stansted's drop-off charge and the airport approach fee are already inside the fixed fare. Your driver sends the exact standing point and the registration before they set off, so you are not circling a car park looking for a number plate.
Address: London Stansted Airport, Essex, CM24 1QW.
Parking at Stansted Airport is limited and the surrounding streets are metered or permit-only, so self-driving usually costs more in time than the fare saves. A drop-off and a booked return sidesteps it entirely.
There is one sensible way out of City of London and the driver already knows it. The run is the Limehouse Link and A13, or the A12 from Bow, then M11 Junction 4, which is about 36.0 miles and 1h 05m on a clear road.
The variable is not distance, it is Aldgate and Bow Roundabout in both peaks. That is where 1h 05m turns into 1h 35m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
Weekend nights out of the City are fast, which suits the early Sunday departures.
If the road turns, the driver turns with it. The price you were quoted is the price either way.
Worth doing the sums rather than taking our word for it. From City of London the public transport route is the Stansted Express direct from Liverpool Street, no change at all, with no change at all, and it runs about 50 minutes station to terminal. The fare is 24.50 pounds on the Express.
The car is 1h 05m off-peak and 1h 35m at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4. On time alone the train is competitive, and if you are travelling light and alone it is a fair choice.
The timetable hides two things. The first train is 04:40 from Liverpool Street and the last is 00:30, which rules rail out for a large slice of what Stansted Airport actually flies - the early bank needs you airside before the network wakes up. The second is luggage: the Stansted Express has luggage racks but they fill by Tottenham Hale, and the walk from the platform up into the terminal is longer than the signage suggests with two cases in hand.
Split three ways the car matches the train, and that is before the bags you did not carry up a staircase. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £135, or about £45 each between three.
The departure leg barely needs explaining. Stansted has one terminal, so there is no wrong door - the set-down bay sits directly in front of departures and the walk to check-in is under three minutes. Set-down is charged by the airport and that charge is inside your fare, not added at the barrier.
Inbound, look for the car at the short-stay car park opposite the terminal, bays signed for pre-booked cars. The exact bay and the registration reach you by text before you land, so there is no hunting along a rank and no call to a switchboard.
Sixty minutes of free waiting are included from the moment the flight lands, which is the realistic figure for a full A320 clearing the hall. You walk out to a car, which is the whole reason people book the return leg too.
We track the inbound flight number, so an early landing or a two-hour delay changes the driver's schedule and not your fare. Stansted bunches its arrivals, so a plane that lands on time can still take fifty minutes to reach the concourse. We build that in rather than start a clock the second the wheels touch.
Stansted Airport front-loads its day, and City of London feels that at four in the morning. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - Weekend nights out of the City are fast, which suits the early Sunday departures. The building is the problem, not the route. Night entrances replace main doors, barriers that are open by day are down, and a driver who has not been told which side of the block you are on will circle.
The fix is one line of detail at booking. The side entrance, the service road, the one with the step - that goes to the driver with the job. They message rather than ring a bell at four in the morning, and the free waiting time runs from the booked hour, not from whenever they happen to arrive.
We cover the whole of City of London for this route: EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4. Homes, hotels, offices, hospitals and station forecourts all work as pickup points, and the fare from any of them is the one you were quoted.
If there is a legal bay, that is where the car waits. Where there is not, the driver names a spot a few steps away that a car can legally stop in and messages you with it, rather than parking on a red route and hoping. It is a small thing, and it removes most of the stress from the first five minutes of a journey to Stansted Airport.
Most of this route's traffic traces back to: the Square Mile banks and law firms, Barbican residents, St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Broadgate offices. That mix gives the route three peaks: business before dawn, families through the morning in term breaks, and a steady evening run.
If you are collected near St Paul's Cathedral, or anywhere else in EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4, it is the same fixed fare. One price across the borough, whatever the street looks like. the City of London Corporation area, one price, quoted before you commit.
The classes differ by boot space far more than by comfort. A Saloon at £135 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £170 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £190 takes seven and seven large cases.
Seats are the easy number; luggage is the one that catches people. Four adults with four large cases are an MPV booking whatever the seat count says. Tell us the bag count and we size it properly rather than sending a car that cannot close.
Child seats and boosters are free but need naming in advance, with the child's age, because the seat has to be fitted before the car leaves. Skis, bikes, instruments and wheelchairs all travel if you say so at booking. Parties over seven go in several vehicles routed together, so everyone reaches the same kerb within a minute of each other.
£135 in a saloon, £170 in a 6-seat MPV and £190 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 1h 05m off-peak. The rail alternative is St Paul's to Stansted Airport plus the walk, which is competitive going out and considerably slower coming back.
Meet and greet in the arrivals hall, or the short-stay pickup area. You get the exact point and the registration by text beforehand.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
Yes, and it is the leg worth booking. The driver is in position before you come out instead of you joining the queue that forms the moment it ends.
The driver waits. We watch venue finish times rather than working to a fixed clock, so a late curtain does not leave you stranded or cost you extra.
A 6-seat MPV is £170 and an 8-seater £190. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
A day ahead is plenty for a Saloon. Book earlier for an eight-seater or anything before 05:00, because those go first out of City of London.
That is the off-peak figure for the 36.0-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 35m, mostly because of Aldgate and Bow Roundabout in both peaks. We set the airport cutoff from the worse of the two, not the better one.
Nothing happens to the fare - it was fixed when you booked. If the road goes badly wrong the driver re-routes, and on an airport run we would rather you left City of London half an hour early than argue about whose fault the A-road was. Give us the flight time and we set the pickup from it.
Card, bank transfer or cash, and nothing is added at the end. The £135 Saloon fare from City of London covers the driver, the vehicle, tolls on the route, the airport set-down charge, and the free waiting time. No meter, no booking fee at checkout, no surge at any hour.
Fares are fixed at booking and shown per vehicle. Distances and journey times are approximate and vary with traffic and the exact pickup address. Page reviewed 14 September 2026.