What changed
Reported on 11 September 2026: London Luton has raised its drop-off charge from £7 to £9 for up to 12 minutes (then £1 per minute to a 30-minute maximum). It was £5 until late September 2025, so the charge has risen 80% in about a year, and at £9 Luton is now the third-most-expensive UK drop-off, behind only Gatwick and Stansted at £10.
Reported 11 Sep 2026; see the change log. The figures below are from today's data, checked against London Luton Airport's own pages on 25 Oct 2026.
The key facts
- Airport
- London Luton
- The charge now
- £9 for up to 12 minutes
- Before
- £7 (the charge in 2025)
- The rise
- +29%
- Reported
- 11 Sep 2026
- Source
- www.london-luton.co.uk
- Last checked
- 25 Oct 2026
How Luton now compares
At £9, London Luton is the 3rd most expensive of the 29 UK airports we track, £2.26 above the UK average of £6.74. See every airport ranked in the price index. Nothing is paid at the zone: pay by midnight the following day, as set out in how to pay at Luton.
| Nearby airport | Drop-off charge | Time allowed |
|---|---|---|
| London Stansted | £10 | 15 minutes |
| London Heathrow | £7 | Charged per entry |
| London Gatwick | £10 | 10 minutes |
| London City | £8 | 5 minutes |
| London Southend | £8 | 10 minutes |
How to avoid paying it
London Luton's free alternative is Long Stay car park: 2 hours free, bus to terminal. The London Luton drop-off guide has directions, pick-up rules and the Blue Badge position, and the free drop-off guide covers every airport.
What a lift there and back now costs
£18 in charges: dropped off and collected at the Drop Off Zone (12 minutes each time). That is still less than a day in the cheapest official car park (£35 at turn-up prices). Park or drop off at Luton compares the two by trip length.
Every change we've logged at Luton
- 25 Oct 2026: Luton's fee history corrected: before the current £9 for 12 minutes, the charge was £7 for 10 minutes from late September 2025 (and £5 before that), so the latest rise is about 29%. Our record had listed £5 as the previous fee.
- 2 Oct 2026: Luton corrected: the pick-up note still quoted the old charge of £7 for 10 minutes. Pick-ups use the same Drop Off and Pick Up Zone at the current £9 for up to 12 minutes.
- 11 Sep 2026: Reported on 11 September 2026: London Luton has raised its drop-off charge from £7 to £9 for up to 12 minutes (then £1 per minute to a 30-minute maximum). It was £5 until late September 2025, so the charge has risen 80% in about a year, and at £9 Luton is now the third-most-expensive UK drop-off, behind only Gatwick and Stansted at £10.
All changes at every airport are in the change log. If you're writing about this, the figures are free to quote under CC BY 4.0: see the press page.
Luton drop-off charge: your questions
How much is drop-off at London Luton Airport now?
£9 for up to 12 minutes, checked against London Luton Airport's own pages on 25 Oct 2026.
When did London Luton raise its drop-off charge?
It was reported on 11 Sep 2026. Reported on 11 September 2026: London Luton has raised its drop-off charge from £7 to £9 for up to 12 minutes (then £1 per minute to a 30-minute maximum). It was £5 until late September 2025, so the charge has risen 80% in about a year, and at £9 Luton is now the third-most-expensive UK drop-off, behind only Gatwick and Stansted at £10.
Method & corrections
Every charge on this page is checked against the airport's own published charges and stamped with the date we checked it. We re-verify the full dataset quarterly, and after any reported change — see how we check every figure and who maintains the site.
Spotted an error? Email hello@airportdropoffcharges.co.uk — corrections are made visibly and dated. The dataset behind this page is free to reuse with attribution: JSON · CSV (CC BY 4.0) — about the data.