Customs at Heathrow
 

Can someone with Heathrow experience, tell me about how long it take to clear customs?
My flight arrives at terminal 3 at 10:40pm on a Wednesday evening.
Cheers!!

Customs? Two minutes, tops.

Immigration? Anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour, depending on how HM Immigration is staffed at the moment and how many passengers just landed.

Customs - probably no time at all. Immigration on the other hand could take longer.

It depends what passport you carry, how many other flights are landing at the same time, etc. No "standard" - just too many variables. I usually count on an hour from touchdown to being on whatever transport I'm using. Sometimes it is less, sometimes more.

And for anyone who cares the least little bit - I wasn't copying Mr. R.

I was posting at the same time (but of course, R. is right and I am wrong)

There are very few flights arriving at T3 that late. Almost all are from North America, meaning about half the flight will typically have European passports and most of the other half get processed practically instantly. There's little pressure on the baggage delivery systems, there's no hours of pre-landing circling and there's usually a gate available for the plane to go straight to after landing.

Arriving on one of those daytime flights, it's never taken me more than half an hour from touchdown to being on the tube or bus. The "non-European" passport queue seems to have always been short and fast moving. And there've always been non-Europeans in the baggage area before I get there.

These flights seem to arrive ahead of schedule surprisingly often. Even with checked bags, I've been out of Customs before the flight was due to arrive.

I'd budget 45 minutes for a non-European from scheduled landing to being on the tube.

But what do I know? I just shuffle through the European queue, grunting the normal pleasantries to the paper-checker. If someone emerges to say they really did take a long time on an AA/UA/VS/AC arrival at that time, you might want to allow a bit longer.

CS is probably right about arriving that late. I've only landed that late (actually about 9:45 p.m. of I remember right) and I breezed through. I'm on a US passport andl as I said I usually expect 60 minutes - but at that time of night maybe a bit less.