Stansted to London: The Fare They Never Print Is About £23

Stansted Express publishes two discount percentages and no standard fare. Work both of them backwards and they land on the same number, and that number is about £23.

That is what you pay if you walk up to the machine having just landed, and it is printed nowhere on their website. Their advance ticket page says you save up to 57 percent at £9.90. Their group page says you save up to 45 percent at £75.80 for three adults returning. Divide those out and the standard single comes to £23.02 by the first route and £22.97 by the second.

Here is that arithmetic in full, along with the rest of what the four operators selling this journey publish, contradict and quietly leave out.

The number they do not print

Advance tickets: from £9.90 one way, described as up to 57 percent off. If £9.90 is 57 percent off, the full fare is £23.02.

The Group Offer: £75.80 for three adults returning, or £101 for four, described as up to 45 percent off the standard adult price. That is £25.27 per person for a return on the three, and £25.25 on the four. If £25.26 is 55 percent of the standard, the standard return is £45.93, so £22.97 each way.

Two separate offers, two separate percentages, and the same answer to within five pence. The Anytime ticket page, which is where a walk up fare would sit, gives terms and conditions, a refund policy and no price at all.

The discount for two that costs more than the discount for three

The Duo ticket is £18.75 per person each way. Two adults returning on it pay £75.00.

The Group Offer is £75.80 return for three adults. So the third person costs eighty pence.

The Duo page describes these tickets as “discounted tickets for two Adults travelling together” that are “cheaper than buying Standard tickets separately”. Against the standard fare that is true. Against the same company’s own advance fare it is not close: two advance singles each way come to £39.60 for the pair returning, which is £35.40 less than the Duo.

The contactless page puts both in one sentence, advising that “Early bookers can travel from as little as £9.90 and if you’re travelling with others, you can save with our Duo and Group tickets”. One of those two savings is half the price of the other.

The rule: if you can book ahead, book singles. The Duo and Group tickets only make sense against a walk up fare, and only if you cannot get advance availability.

What the coach costs, and what the asterisk says

National Express no longer headlines £7 on its Stansted page. Its route table now shows no fare at all, only a footnote about a £1.50 booking fee, waived if you are logged into an account. Fares there are quoted as correct on 13 July 2026 for travel until 9 November 2026. An earlier version of this page quoted a £7 headline and a £9.50 lead fare in the small print; neither can be confirmed now.

The footnote reads that the £9.50 lead fare is available from selected stops including Stratford, Liverpool Street and Tottenham Hale, subject to availability, for travel until 13 September 2026, with fares correct as of 18 May 2026. That end date has already passed.

The airport used to advertise the same coach at £5, and that figure could not be found on its own pages this time. Treat any coach fare under £9.50 as unconfirmed until you see it at checkout.

FlixBus is the third operator and was the dearest at £10.99 when last checked; its site would not load this time, so confirm it, which is more than the train. It also states a minimum trip duration of 25 minutes, for a journey the railway takes 48 minutes to make.

Stratford, where the coach wins outright

This is the one comparison that settles itself.

The coach reaches Stratford in as little as 45 minutes, direct, from about £9.50.

The train reaches Stratford in 56 minutes, with a change at Tottenham Hale, from £9.90. Stansted Express’s own route page for this journey gives the time three ways on one screen: approximately one hour in the opening line, 56 minutes in the table, and 60 minutes in a heading further down.

So on this destination the coach is faster, cheaper and has no change in it, against a service whose homepage says there is “no quicker way to travel from Central London to Stansted Airport”.

Liverpool Street is the reverse and it is much closer. The train takes 48 minutes and the coach 55, for £9.90 against £7. Seven minutes for £2.90.

Your Oyster card does not work here

Oyster is not valid at Stansted Airport. Stansted Express states this on two separate pages, and it is the single most useful fact on this route.

Contactless is valid, on every Stansted Express service. Tap in with a card, phone or watch, tap out at the other end, and the fare is worked out afterwards. The charge comes from Transport for London rather than from the railway, which matters when something goes wrong.

Two groups lose money by tapping. The operator says so itself: child fares are not available on contactless, and Railcard discounts do not apply. A family with a ten year old pays an adult fare for them by tapping, and half that by buying a ticket.

If you are delayed, Delay Repay needs your journey details from your TfL account, because the railway does not hold the record of a contactless journey. Disputes, incomplete journeys and refunds all go through TfL too.

Luggage, which decides it for some people

The train has no luggage limit. Stansted Express states an unlimited baggage allowance on every ticket page, and repeats it against oversized bags.

The coach allows one large suitcase up to 20kg in the hold plus one soft item you carry on. More than that is bought as an extra when you book.

For one bag it does not matter. For a family moving four cases and a pushchair it decides the journey, and it is the clearest practical difference between the two.

Things that only appear in the small print

The railway station is inside the terminal. Under five minutes from customs, by the airport’s and the operator’s own account. There is no inter terminal shuttle to catch, which is the step that catches people at Gatwick.

There is no step free access to the Victoria line at Tottenham Hale. Stansted Express carries this as a standing notice on its homepage. If you are changing there with heavy luggage or with anything on wheels, that is a flight of stairs at the end of the journey.

The train reaches three London stations and markets five more. It runs to Liverpool Street, Tottenham Hale and Stratford. Its own popular destinations menu sells King’s Cross, Paddington, Victoria, St Pancras and Wembley Stadium, every one of which needs a change you make yourself.

Coach tickets are valid three hours either side of the departure you booked, which is the answer to a slow passport queue. Change and Go costs £5 and widens that to twelve hours.

National Express charges a £1.50 booking fee unless you are logged into an account, which is more than the gap between some of the fares above.

Any Stansted Express ticket bought on their own website carries 2FOR1 entry to a list of London attractions. It is on their site and almost nowhere else, and on a two person trip it is worth more than the ticket.

What to know

About £23 is the walk up single. Derived twice from their own discount percentages, printed nowhere.

Book singles, not the couples deal. £9.90 each against £18.75 each, for the same seats.

The coach runs all night and the train does not. Up to every nine minutes, 24 hours, against every fifteen minutes during the day.

Going to Stratford, take the coach. 45 minutes direct against 56 with a change.

Going to Liverpool Street, take the train. 48 minutes against 55, and no traffic in it.

Leave the Oyster in your pocket. It is not valid at this airport. Contactless is, unless you are travelling with a child or a Railcard, in which case buy a ticket.

Everything here was taken from the airport’s, the railway’s and the two coach companies’ own published pages, rechecked on 2 October 2026. The £23 figure is arithmetic done on their published discount percentages rather than a price any of them states. Where two sources disagree both figures are given. Fares change constantly, so check at the time of booking.

Where to go next

Gatwick to London is the same exercise at the other budget airport, where the operators publish one price between the four of them and the one journey time on offer contradicts itself by 35 minutes.

Heathrow Express is the airport railway that publishes everything, and the one where your Oyster card does work. Its carnets are cheaper than its own description of them.

London’s six airports covers which to fly into and where they actually are, since Stansted is in Essex rather than London.

What the tube costs covers the travel that starts once you arrive, and the daily cap that governs it, and the Night Tube covers the lines that run through the night for a coach that lands you at three in the morning.

Airport drop-off charges covers the one thing Stansted will not print: it publishes the £100 fine for not paying its drop-off charge without publishing the charge.

The Congestion Charge covers the cost of driving instead, which is £18 a day before the ULEZ charge and before parking.

The London Travelcard is worth reading before you buy one at the airport, because for a single traveller the daily cap beats it by £7.70.

Santander Cycles picks up where the coach drops you, and unlike the railway here it does take a tap of a card without any of the Oyster problems above.

Where to stay in London decides which of these stops you actually want, and the travel tips cover the rest of an arrival.

Luton to London is the same problem with the opposite answer: at Stansted the train usually wins, and at Luton the coach does, because the station is 2.3km from the terminal and the shuttle between them costs £4.90.

Questions we get asked

What is the cheapest way to get from Stansted to London?

Usually the coach, but its price is the one to confirm: National Express has stopped publishing a fare on its Stansted page, and the £7 and £9.50 figures this answer used to give could not be re-confirmed. The train starts at £9.90 if you book at least three months ahead. FlixBus was the dearest of the three at £10.99 when last checked. Buying a train ticket at the airport on the day costs about £23.

How much is the Stansted Express?

From £9.90 one way booked in advance, which Stansted Express describes as up to 57 percent off. The full fare is not published anywhere on their site, but it can be worked out twice over from their own discounts: £9.90 at 57 percent off implies £23.02, and their group return of £75.80 for three adults at up to 45 percent off implies £22.97 each way. Expect about £23 if you walk up.

Can you use an Oyster card at Stansted Airport?

No. Stansted Express states on more than one of its own pages that Oyster cards are not valid to or from Stansted Airport. Contactless pay as you go does work, on every Stansted Express service, using a bank card, phone or watch. Note that child fares and Railcard discounts do not apply on contactless, so anyone travelling with a five to fifteen year old should buy a ticket instead.

How long does the train take from Stansted to London?

48 minutes to Liverpool Street, with trains every fifteen minutes during the day, seven days a week. Stratford takes 56 minutes and involves a change at Tottenham Hale, although the operator’s own page for that journey gives the time as approximately one hour, 56 minutes and 60 minutes in three different places. There is no direct train to Victoria, Paddington or King’s Cross.

Is the coach or the train better from Stansted?

It depends entirely on where in London you are going. For Liverpool Street the train wins, 48 minutes against 55. For Stratford the coach wins outright, 45 minutes direct against 56 with a change, and it is cheaper. The coach also runs 24 hours a day at up to every nine minutes and reaches more than twenty stops. The train has no luggage limit, where the coach allows one case up to 20kg.

How far is Stansted Airport from London?

The airport says 40 miles from central London, off the M11. FlixBus states a minimum distance of 35 miles for the same journey, and Stansted Express gives 27 miles to Stratford. The practical answer is that it is the second furthest of the six London airports from the city and nothing about it is walkable, so the transfer is a real part of the trip rather than an afterthought.