Heathrow to Gatwick airport taxis: every option compared, and how long to actually allow

How Long to Allow Between Heathrow and Gatwick

This is the number people argue with, and the argument usually comes from assuming the transfer is the journey. It is not. It is one component of six.

Add the middle of each range and you are already past three hours before anything goes wrong. The four-hour figure is not caution, it is arithmetic with a small margin on the end.

When Four Hours Is Not Enough

Five hours on a Friday, during school holidays, or for anything departing before 9am or after 3pm on a weekday, because those are the windows when the M25 stops behaving.

Five to six with children, with checked luggage to reclaim and re-check, or where security has to be cleared from scratch — which an international self-connection almost always requires.

Bag Drop Closes Before the Flight Does

Bag drop, not the flight. Check-in for the onward departure shuts forty to sixty minutes before wheels-up, so the clock you are racing is not the departure time printed on the ticket — it is roughly an hour earlier than that.

Which means a four-hour gap is really a three-hour gap once the closing desk is accounted for. Our South Terminal guide covers where bag drop sits and how long the walk to it takes.

A Booked Car Does Not Shorten the Queues

It removes one variable, which is whether transport exists when you emerge. It does not touch immigration, reclaim, bag drop or security, and any operator suggesting otherwise is overselling. What it does is make the one controllable stage predictable, and start it the moment you are actually out rather than at a time printed on a coach ticket.

Self-Connecting Heathrow to Gatwick: What You Give Up

Booking two separate flights makes this a self-connection, and that word carries a legal meaning most passengers never encounter until it matters.

Every line in the right-hand column is the same word. That is why the recommended buffer here is hours rather than the fifty minutes an airline might allow within its own network: the airline is insuring the risk, and on a self-connection you are.

Why Two Separate Tickets Cost Less

The saving is real and so is what you gave up for it. If the numbers only work because the gap is two hours, the saving is smaller than it looks.

None of this argues against self-connecting. Plenty of people do it and it works. It argues for treating the four hours as the price of the cheaper ticket rather than as an inconvenience to be trimmed.

The Heathrow to Gatwick Coach Stop at T5 Guides Deny

Worth correcting because it costs people fifteen minutes for no reason, and it appears on pages that otherwise look authoritative.

National Express picks up at three separate points across Heathrow, and Terminal 5 is one of them. There is no need to shuttle to the Central Bus Station first.

Services run roughly every fifteen minutes and call at both Gatwick terminals, so a coach booked to the wrong one is recoverable in about five minutes on the shuttle train.

National Express Fares and Frequency

From £13.20 to £14.90 one way booked ahead, plus a £1.50 booking fee unless you are signed into an account. Walk-up fares on the day sit higher.

Those are per-person figures. Two people reach roughly £30 and four about £60 before anyone has moved, which is where a per-vehicle price stops looking like the expensive option.

Luggage on the Coach

One large case or two medium ones per passenger, plus a soft bag, into the hold beneath the coach. That is generous by coach standards and still means loading and unloading twice, with a walk at each end.

Every ticket carries a guaranteed seat, and the fare allows boarding a similar service up to three hours either side of the booked departure — useful when reclaim runs slow. What each car class holds is listed on the fleet page if you are weighing that against a coach seat.

Heathrow to Gatwick: Every Option Compared

Four options, and one of them is worse than it looks on paper.

Row three is the one that looks reasonable until you picture it. Nothing runs straight between them; every option detours through the capital, and the published hour and sixteen minutes presumes you stride between platforms with nobody ahead of you at the lift.

When the Coach Beats a Car

One or two people with manageable luggage and time on the clock. At around fifteen pounds a head against ninety-five for a car, this hardly needs deliberating, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

Where it stops winning is a family of four with cases, or an arrival at an hour when services thin out, or a connection tight enough that a missed departure matters. Our comparison of rail against road runs the same arithmetic for the Gatwick to London leg.

The Heathrow to Gatwick Rail Route Worth Knowing

Most guides dismiss rail on this route, and most guides are describing the wrong version of it. There are two, and the difference between them is roughly an hour.

That top entry is the one to know. Thameslink runs from Farringdon straight into Gatwick, so the Elizabeth line does the Heathrow end and one change covers the rest — no Underground crossing with cases, and no Victoria at rush hour.

Why Most Pages Describe the Slow Version

Because Paddington is the obvious exit from Heathrow and Victoria is the obvious entrance to Gatwick, so the routing writes itself. It is also the one that involves dragging luggage across central London on the Underground.

Farringdon is less intuitive and considerably better. Worth checking against your actual arrival time, since Thameslink frequency varies through the day and the advantage disappears if you land into a thin period.

Rail Still Loses on a Tight Connection

Even the good version has a change, a platform to find and a timetable that does not know your flight is late. On a four-hour buffer that is manageable; on anything shorter it is a variable you did not need to add.

Late arrivals remove the option entirely. After around eleven at night services thin out or stop, which is where the coach and the road are the only things left running.

A Cheaper Coach Route Than the Direct Heathrow Service

Counter-intuitive and well documented: the direct Heathrow to Gatwick coach is the only through public service, and it is not the cheapest way to travel by coach.

Buying a Heathrow to Victoria ticket and a Victoria to Gatwick ticket separately often costs less than the single through fare, on the same operator's own services. It is the sort of pricing quirk that exists because the routes are sold as different products.

When the Saving Is Not Worth It

On a connection. Two coach legs with a coach station in between introduces a second departure to miss, and Victoria at five in the afternoon is not where you want to discover the first one ran late.

For an unhurried journey with time to spare it is real money. Where a flight waits at the far end, the through service or a booked car is the sensible call.

Other Operators Run This Route Too

Megabus and Terravision both cover Heathrow to Gatwick alongside National Express, and prices move between them. Comparing all three takes a minute and occasionally halves the fare.

Frequency is the reason National Express usually wins anyway: up to fifty-six departures a day, as many as five an hour at peak, with the first leaving Heathrow at 00:40 and reaching Gatwick North at 01:45. That night coverage is the part no rail option matches.

Two Drop-Off Charges on One Heathrow to Gatwick Trip

An inter-airport journey is the only kind that pays both, and it is a line item most quotes handle differently.

Seventeen pounds across one journey, which a single-airport transfer never encounters. On a metered trip or an app booking both arrive separately at the end.

Heathrow Bans Kerbside Pickup Entirely

This catches people out because the drop-off arrangement exists and the pickup one does not. Arriving passengers are collected from the car parks, or met inside by a pre-booked driver.

It removes an option that exists at other airports, and it is worth knowing before somebody offers to swing by and collect you. Charges across every UK airport sit in our forecourt pricing comparison.

Arriving at Gatwick South Terminal by Road

Gatwick is two separate buildings, and the one you need decides more than it appears to.

The last row matters if anything goes wrong: South Terminal has rail underneath it and North does not, so a fallback into London is only immediately available from one of the two.

Gatwick South to North Takes Five Minutes

The free inter-terminal shuttle runs frequently and takes about five minutes, so arriving at the wrong building is recoverable. It still comes out of your connection buffer though, which is another small reason the four hours is not generous.

Why Gatwick South Is the Safer Arrival

Not comfort, contingency. If the onward flight goes wrong at South Terminal you can be on a train into London within minutes, because the station sits directly beneath the building. From North the same fallback needs the shuttle first.

That rarely matters and occasionally matters enormously, which is a fair description of most contingency planning. It is also why a booking should name the terminal rather than just the airport, and why we take the flight number instead.

Detail on both sits in our South Terminal guide and North Terminal guide.

Heathrow to Gatwick Times and Costs: What Is Wrong Online

Set the published pages for this route side by side and the figures stop agreeing, sometimes within a single article.

The coach timing is the one worth correcting. Three quarters of an hour is the realistic figure and fifty minutes is achievable on a clear road, not the hour and a half that circulates widely.

Why the Slower Numbers Persist

Because they were true once, and because pages get updated less often than timetables change. A figure written when services ran a different pattern survives every subsequent copy.

It matters on a connection. Planning around ninety minutes when the coach takes fifty means either an unnecessarily early departure or a buffer that was never really as thin as it looked.

What We Charge, and What That Buys

Around £95 for a standard saloon with both airport charges inside the figure. The coach operator itself puts private hire at £80 to £150 for this route, so that sits at the lower end of the published range rather than below it.

What the difference buys is a vehicle timed to your landing rather than to a timetable, luggage handled once, and no departure to miss. For one or two travellers with light bags the coach still wins and our Heathrow transfers page will tell you the same.

Every Heathrow Terminal, and Which Gatwick You Need

Heathrow has four passenger terminals and Gatwick has two, which makes eight possible pairings. The road is the same for all of them; what differs is where you start and how the opening few minutes go.

Three of the four have a coach stop at the door. Only Terminals 2 and 3 share one, and since they occupy the same building that is a short covered walk rather than a shuttle ride.

Terminals 2 and 3 Share a Building

They sit next to each other in the central area, joined by a covered walkway, with the Central Bus Station serving both. From either arrivals hall it is a short indoor walk to the coach stands rather than a shuttle ride.

Terminal 2 is the newer of the pair and handles most Star Alliance carriers — Lufthansa, United, Air Canada, Singapore, Turkish. Terminal 3 takes Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, American, Delta and several Oneworld partners. Both feed the same bus station, so the arriving terminal changes the walk and nothing else.

Terminal 3 Reclaims Can Run Long

It handles a heavy share of long-haul widebodies, and a full A380 or 777 puts several hundred bags on one belt at once. That is where the reclaim end of the buffer gets used up, and it is worth an extra half hour in the plan if you are landing into T3 from a long sector.

Terminal 2 tends to move faster on European arrivals with lighter loads. Neither is a rule, and both sit inside the same four-hour recommendation, but a long-haul T3 landing is the one most likely to test it.

Where a Booked Car Meets You at Each

At every Heathrow terminal you are met on foot inside the terminal by someone showing your name on a board, never out at the kerb, because Heathrow does not permit forecourt collection anywhere on site. From T2 and T3 the walk to the car park is a few minutes indoors.

That applies equally at T4 and T5. The difference between terminals is walking distance rather than procedure, and it is already inside the ten minutes meet-and-greet usually takes. Terminal-by-terminal pickup detail also appears in our Heathrow to Gatwick taxi guide, and on our Heathrow transfers page.

By Road the Terminal Barely Matters

A booked vehicle collects wherever you are, so the terminal moves the pickup point and almost nothing else. Allow five to ten minutes extra for T4, which sits off the main approach.

What does vary is the walk from aircraft to exit. T5 is large, and a distant gate can add a quarter of an hour before you have reached anything — time that belongs in the buffer rather than in the drive. Our Heathrow transfers page covers pickups from all four.

Terminal 4 Is the Quiet Exception

It sits apart from the central campus, so the free inter-terminal shuttle between T4 and the rest takes longer than most people expect. Anyone connecting from T4 towards a coach at Central would lose time they had not budgeted, which is precisely why the T4 stop matters as much as the T5 one.

Gatwick South or North: Which One You Actually Need

Gatwick is two buildings with no road between them, and the coach calls at both. Getting it wrong costs about five minutes on the shuttle, survivable but taken out of your connection.

The station row is what counts on a connection. Should the onward flight collapse at South you are aboard a train within minutes; from North that same escape needs the shuttle first.

Check the Terminal, Not the Airline

Allocations shift between seasons, and a carrier using one building last year may use the other now. The flight number settles it, which is why a booking should carry that rather than a terminal typed from memory.

Both buildings are covered in our South Terminal guide and North Terminal guide, with walking times and where bag drop sits in each.

Eight Pairings, One Road

Four Heathrow terminals against two at Gatwick makes eight combinations, and every one uses the same stretch of M25 and M23. Drive time is effectively identical; the variation lives entirely at the two ends.

Our dedicated taxi guide for this pairing prices it out in more detail. That is useful when comparing quotes. An operator pricing T4 to Gatwick North differently from T5 to Gatwick South is charging for the walk, not for the journey.

Heathrow to Gatwick Taxi Prices, and Which Vehicle

Published saloon fares for this route sit between roughly £73 and £108. The spread is not really about the driving, since every operator uses the same motorway.

Ask what sits inside the number. Heathrow takes £7 and Gatwick £10, so a quote £20 below another that adds those afterwards has closed most of the gap before you have moved.

One Operator Publishes Two Different Answers

Worth knowing how loosely these pages are maintained. One company's own site gives this route as 31 miles, 55 minutes, from £75 on one page, and 46 miles, 70 minutes, from £95 on another.

Fifteen miles and twenty pounds apart, same road, same firm. Route data puts the actual road distance around 36 to 40 miles depending on the terminals, so one of those pages is wrong in each direction.

Which Vehicle for This Route

What decides it is boot space rather than seat count. On a forty-mile motorway run an extra bag has no home, and the remedy is a whole second car. Our companion guide to Heathrow to Gatwick taxis goes further on vehicles, and capacities per class are on the fleet page.

Booking a Heathrow to Gatwick Transfer: What to Get Right

Four practical points that decide whether the booking works, none of which appear on most operator pages.

The last row is not upselling. On a self-connection the vehicle is the one component you can fix in advance, which the complete taxi guide works through, so fixing it early removes a variable from a journey that already has several.

Child Seats Are Requested, Not Carried

Fitting happens back at base, which means a seat requested on the pavement is simply not there. Raise it at booking, with the number and roughly what ages.

Each seat also occupies a passenger space, so four people needing a pair of them usually move up a class from a saloon. That is a vehicle decision rather than an extra, and getting it wrong at Heathrow arrivals is an expensive place to discover it.

Give the Flight Number, Not the Time

A time typed into a form is a guess about a future that has not happened. A flight number brings the building, the timetabled arrival and the live position with it, and it stays correct when the airline moves the gate or the aircraft runs late.

It is also what makes the waiting allowance meaningful, since minutes counted from an actual landing are worth considerably more than minutes counted from a booking slot. How the market handles this is set out in our late-inbound guide.

Confirm What the Price Includes

Both forecourt charges, the waiting allowance and what applies once it lapses. Three questions, one message, and it settles every difference between the quotes above.

Ours are fixed at booking with both levies inside the figure, and the full taxi guide for this route sets out how the service works end to end. Where a coach or the train serves you better we have said so plainly further up this page, and a quote costs nothing to compare.

What the Airlines Themselves Say About This Transfer

Two things are worth taking from the airlines rather than from transfer companies, ourselves included, because they are the parties who decide what happens when it goes wrong.

The baggage line is the one people miss. Nothing travels onward by itself on separate tickets: every bag comes off at Heathrow, goes with you in the vehicle, and gets checked in again at Gatwick.

Three Hours or Four?

British Airways says three as a minimum. We say four, and we would rather be the ones telling you to leave earlier than the ones explaining why you did not.

Three works when everything behaves: hand luggage only, a quiet border, no delay. Four covers a slow belt or a bad hour on the M25, which is the situation this transfer actually meets most often.

If You Miss the Onward Flight

Go to the airline desk in the terminal rather than trying to fix it on a phone. Where the two flights are on one ticket the airline rebooks you; on separate tickets they are not obliged to, but they are still the only people who can.

Coming back afterwards, allow the standard published run-up: three hours before a long-haul departure, two before short-haul. Nobody sleeps in a Heathrow terminal overnight, so a long gap means a hotel rather than a bench, and a booked car timed to the new departure rather than the old one.

Left Luggage and Long Gaps Between Flights

Six hours between landing and departing is not a transfer problem, it is a day to fill, and the first question is always what to do with the bags.

The condition in the middle row catches people. Staffed left baggage is for passengers who have arrived into the UK, so you clear passport control and customs first, then deposit.

A Long Gap Is Worth Using

Store the bags and central London is roughly forty minutes away on the Elizabeth line, which turns dead time into an afternoon. Six hours is enough for that; four is not, once you have added getting back and clearing security again.

Some operators sell a transfer with a few hours in London built into it, driving between the airports with a stop rather than straight through. That runs well above a straight-through fare and suits one particular kind of traveller. Our chauffeur service can be booked by the hour if that is what you want.

Meet and Greet Takes About Ten Minutes

Worth building in. A driver meets you as you come out of customs and walks you to the vehicle, and between finding each other and reaching the car park that is usually ten minutes rather than instant.

Nobody should approach you before that. Touting for business at a UK airport is illegal, and a firm refusal is the correct response regardless of what identification is produced. The checks worth making are in our vehicle-verification guide.

Gatwick to Heathrow: the Same Road, Different Rules

Everything above assumes you land at Heathrow. Plenty of people do it the other way, and while the tarmac is identical the practicalities are not.

Two rows deserve attention. Coaches leave Gatwick more often but take longer, because the South Terminal service picks up at Heathrow's terminals in sequence rather than running straight through.

Heathrow Gives You Ten Minutes, Not Thirty

Arriving at Gatwick a driver has half an hour before the charge escalates. Arriving at Heathrow the maximum stay is ten minutes, introduced in 2026, so a leisurely goodbye at the kerb is no longer an option.

It rarely affects a booked transfer, where the driver sets down and leaves. The taxi guide for this route covers what a booked driver does instead. It matters a great deal if a friend is driving you, and it is the most common way people meet that charge unexpectedly. Figures for both are in our kerbside comparison.

Terminal 5 Is a Long Building

Going towards Heathrow the terminal matters more than it did coming away, because T5 is large and the walk from set-down to a distant gate can run to a quarter of an hour on top of check-in and security.

Budget that separately from the drive. A booking that gets you to the kerb at exactly the right minute has still not got you to the aircraft, and our Heathrow page works backwards from the gate rather than the door.

The Buffer Runs the Other Way Too

Landing at Gatwick and flying from Heathrow on separate tickets carries exactly the same four-hour minimum, and for the same reasons: immigration, reclaim, the drive, then check-in and security at the far end.

One difference is worth noting. Gatwick South has its rail station underneath, so if the road fails you there is an immediate alternative into London and onward. Leaving from Gatwick North that fallback needs the shuttle first, which is a small argument for allowing a few extra minutes when departing from the northern building.

If Your Heathrow Flight Lands Late

The two ways of crossing behave completely differently when a flight slips, and the difference is not price.

That bottom entry is where the honesty sits. Neither arrangement shields the departure at the far end on a self-connection, which is exactly what the four-hour buffer exists to do.

No Clock Runs Before You Land

On a booked transfer no counter starts before the wheels are down, since nobody has been sent out yet, so the pickup slides across to fit. The stretch that counts begins once you are down, timed from the instant of touchdown.

Our guide to waiting after a late arrival sets out what the UK market includes and charges beyond it.