Cost of a Taxi Ride in London: A Guide to Taxi Fares

There are two very different pricing models on London’s roads, and knowing which one you are paying is the single most useful thing when it comes to cost. A black cab (a Hackney carriage, the type you can hail on the street) runs on a taximeter set by Transport for London. The meter starts at a minimum fare and then climbs based on distance and time, using one of three tariffs — Tariff 1 for weekday daytimes, Tariff 2 for evenings and weekends, and Tariff 3 for late nights and public holidays. Because part of the fare is charged on time, heavy traffic directly increases what you pay.

A minicab or private hire vehicle (PHV) works differently. It cannot be hailed on the street and must always be booked in advance, but in return the operator can give you a fixed fare for the whole journey before you travel. That is how Airport Move prices work: you enter your pickup and destination, receive a set price, and that price does not move — regardless of traffic, the time of day, or how many flights land at once.

For short hops around the centre — say a mile or two between a station, a hotel and a meeting — a black cab typically starts from its minimum fare of around £3–£4 and rises from there. A journey of a few miles across central London commonly lands somewhere in the region of £10–£30 depending on distance, the time of day and how much of it is spent stationary in traffic. These are indicative ranges, not quotes: the meter is the final word on a black cab, so the same route can cost noticeably more at 5pm than at 5am.

The practical takeaway is that a metered fare is genuinely unpredictable on a busy route, while a pre-booked minicab removes that variable entirely. If knowing the price up front matters to you, a fixed fare is the more reliable option. You can see how our fixed fares work or get an exact price for your journey in under two minutes.

Airport runs are where the difference between metered and fixed pricing matters most, because the distances are long and the routes are traffic-heavy. As a rough guide for a metered black cab into central London: Heathrow commonly runs £50–£100, Gatwick often £90–£140, Stansted and Luton broadly £90–£150, and London City around £30–£60 given it is much closer in. Actual figures swing with traffic, terminal and time of day.

A pre-booked Airport Move transfer instead gives you one fixed fare for the door-to-door journey, with flight tracking included so a delayed landing does not cost extra. Compare the options for each airport on our Heathrow and airport transfers pages, or read our guide to pre-booked minicabs versus Uber.

Several factors push the final cost of a taxi above the base fare, and most of them apply to metered and on-demand rides rather than fixed-fare bookings. Being aware of them helps you avoid a surprise at the end of the trip.

There is no single cheapest option for every trip — it depends on the journey. For a short, spontaneous ride in the centre with no luggage, hailing a black cab or opening an app is convenient and the cost is usually modest. For a longer, planned journey — especially an airport or cruise-port run with bags and a schedule to keep — a pre-booked fixed fare is usually both cheaper and far more predictable, because you avoid meter creep in traffic and app surge pricing at peak times. The honest rule of thumb: the more that timing, distance and certainty matter, the more a fixed fare works in your favour.

You cannot control London traffic, but you can control how exposed your fare is to it. Pre-booking a fixed price is the most effective step: it converts an open-ended metered or surge-priced ride into a single known number. Sharing a larger vehicle across a group, travelling slightly outside the worst peaks where your plans allow, and booking airport runs in advance with flight tracking all help keep the real cost down and remove nasty surprises.

For anyone who travels regularly — commuters, business flyers, or families with recurring trips — a fixed-fare account also removes the need to check prices before every journey, because the rate is already agreed. Get a fixed fare for your next trip, or call our team on +44 (0) 1582 824631.