Hiring a car at London Airport Stansted

What this means for your booking

• The cheapest sticker is usually not the cheapest car. With 100% of suppliers charging about €124 for a second driver, two cars advertised a few euro apart can be €124 apart by the time you drive away. We put that fee into every price the moment you say you need one.
• Check your card limit before you travel. The typical hold here is €815 on the main driver's card. It is a pre-authorisation rather than a charge, but it has to fit.
• A month is not four times a week. The median week here is €312 and the median month €1598 — worse per day, which is why back-to-back rentals often beat one long booking on hires of 40 days or more.
• Airport or town desk? We have not measured which is cheaper yet, so we won't guess. We are measuring it now and will publish the numbers. See every pick-up point here.

Getting to the car

If you land late. 55% of the suppliers we priced shut by 22:00, and the typical desk closes at 22:00. A delayed flight is the difference between collecting your car and paying for a night you did not plan. 21% are open 24 hours, so a late flight does not rule out hiring — it rules out most of the choice.
What it costs. 55% of suppliers here will not collect a 23:30 arrival at all. Of those that will, 18% add a fee — typically €117 on top of the price you were quoted for a daytime pick-up. A 06:00 pick-up is similar, about €69, and 76% of suppliers do not offer one. Measured across 321 offers that publish their desk hours; a supplier that does not publish them is not counted as open.

Not every supplier here hands you the keys in the terminal. Across 44 searches, this is how collection splits:

• Free shuttle service 82%
• Outside of terminal 8%
• Meet & Greet 7%
• Car rental center 4%

Budget time for a shuttle. 82% of suppliers here are off-airport, which is usually why they are cheaper. It is a real cost in minutes at both ends, and worth weighing against the saving.

15 suppliers appeared here across our searches, at several separate pick-up points. See which is nearest you and what each costs.

The fine print, measured

These conditions vary more between airports than most people expect. We measure each of them everywhere we sweep: deposits · debit cards · second-driver fees · desk hours.

Deposit banding, as the suppliers classify it themselves: average deposit 38% · low deposit 30% · high deposit 18% · low deposit option available 14% · deposit-free option available 12% · no deposit 6%.

What each supplier actually costs here

15 suppliers appeared in our searches. These are the ones you are most likely to be offered — chosen by how often they came up, then ordered by what they really cost, which is rarely the same order as the advertised price.

Prices are for a one-week hire. Mixing rental lengths would make the column meaningless — a fee charged once per rental is a very different share of a week than of a month — so this table is built from week-long searches only.

Deposits vary far more than prices. DRIVUS holds €3,490 on the main driver's card against Europcar's €295. It is released after you return the car, but it has to fit.

"With 2nd driver" is the advertised rental plus that supplier's additional-driver fee — our definition of the total, and the only one we rank on. Full cover is quoted separately and never added in: many travellers hold annual excess insurance or rely on a card, and folding in an assumed purchase is precisely the trick this site exists to expose. Medians across 44 searches; a supplier that does not publish a fee is not counted as free. How we measure this.

What a rental costs at London Airport Stansted

Per day, from the searches we have run here. Cheapest found is the single cheapest car, at the price shown when booking (it appears once enough searches record it; the deposit and any desk charges are on each car in the search). Low end: only 1 car in 10 costs less than this. Middle is the typical car. + second driver and + full cover add each car's own quoted fee and DiscoverCars' Full Coverage price - only cars that quote them count, never as free; those rows appear as searches record them (from 27 September). The rental price only: a second driver, cover and fuel come on top, and prices move daily, so check your own dates.

How customers rate each supplier at London Airport Stansted

DiscoverCars customers' scores for each supplier's desk here, out of 10 - only suppliers with at least 30 local reviews. Scores under 6.5 are marked. The slowest pick-ups come first.

Source: DiscoverCars customer reviews of each supplier at this location, as shown with every search; medians across our searches. Scores change as new reviews come in.

London Airport Stansted against other airports

Across the 34 airports we measure, a second driver is cheapest at Tenerife Airport South (typically €7) and dearest at Kos Airport (€240). All second-driver fees.