On this page (4 sections)
The airport left luggage desk
If you need to leave a bag at Stansted, there is one option inside the airport: the staffed left-luggage desk run by the Excess Baggage Company, in the arrivals hall and usually described as being near Costa Coffee. It is the same company that handles lost property and bag wrapping, so it is the one-stop baggage point landside. The airport's own page lists the Excess Baggage desk as open 06:00 to 22:00, but some third-party listings quote shorter hours, and one quotes a 24-hour service, so if you need it very early or very late, check it is open before you build a plan around it.
It is a counter, not a locker. There are no self-service luggage lockers at Stansted, or at most UK airports, because they were phased out for security years ago. So you hand the bag to a member of staff rather than feeding coins into a machine, which the next section explains.
How it works, and what you cannot leave
The desk works like any staffed left luggage. You bring the bag to the counter, where it is screened and tagged, you pay for the period you are leaving it, and you are given a receipt that you need to collect it again, so keep it safe. You can usually walk up, and the company also takes online bookings, which is worth doing at a busy arrival time to save queueing. Bags are taken for anything from a few hours to a longer stay.
There are limits on what you can leave, and they are common sense. Nothing dangerous or prohibited for a flight, no perishable food, and a weight limit per bag, so if a bag could not be checked in for a flight, it cannot be stored either. Valuables are left at your own risk, so carry anything fragile or important with you rather than leaving it at the desk. If you are trying to recover something rather than store it, that is the lost property route instead.
What it costs, and the cheaper alternative
The honest part. The airport does not publish a left-luggage price on its website, and the Excess Baggage Company charges per item for the time you leave it, so the figure depends on the bag and the hours. Ask at the desk or check the operator's site for the current rate rather than relying on a number quoted elsewhere.
For anything beyond a few hours, the cheaper route is usually an off-airport storage network. Services such as Stasher, Bounce, Radical Storage, LuggageHero and Nannybag partner with shops and hotels near the airport and around London, booked online, typically from a few pounds a bag a day, often with 24-hour access at the host's hours. They undercut the airport desk on a multi-day stay. The trade-off is simple: for a short wait between flights, the in-terminal desk wins on convenience; for a multi-day London visit, an off-airport network usually wins on cost, as long as the travel out to the drop point suits you. None of these is an airport service, so book directly with the provider and check the location before you travel.
Luggage allowances and packing
Storing a bag is not the same as the rules for the bag you take on the flight, which catch more people out. Luggage allowances at Stansted are set by your airline, not the airport: each carrier fixes its own hand and hold bag sizes, weights and fees, and on the budget airlines here those limits are strict and the fees for going over are steep, so check yours before you travel and at check-in.
The airport's part is the safety rules. Do not wrap gifts, because security may need to open them; keep hand-luggage liquids to the 100ml limit, covered on the liquids page; and do not pack prohibited items, like sharp objects or anything flammable, in either your hand or hold luggage, which the security page sets out. A name tag on the bag and pushed-in handles help it through the system and back to you. For the rest of the terminal, the airport services hub has the shops, food and the desks.