Journal 4 September 2026
Getting home after midnight in London
The night tube runs on five lines and only at weekends. The buses run every night and go everywhere. Knowing which is which saves a fare and an argument.
Most London pubs stop serving at eleven. What happens after that is a question of licences and of which line you live on, and it is worth deciding before you leave rather than at half past one.
What is still open
The late licences are concentrated in a few places: Soho, the top of Shoreditch, and Dalston. Last entry is often an hour before closing, which catches more people out than the closing time does.
The night tube, and its limits
It runs Friday and Saturday nights only, on the Victoria, Central, Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. Every other night of the week, whatever you have been told, it is buses.
The buses are the actual answer
Night buses run every night, go almost everywhere, and cost a single fare. They are slower than you want them to be and they are still running when nothing else is.
Everything we list that runs past eleven is flagged, and the late list is the page for it. If you are working out an evening from scratch, start at tonight or this weekend.
By Angela. Updated 5 September 2026.
More on after dark
All 5 piecesWhat is open when everything else has shut, where the late licences actually are, and how to get home once the last tube has gone.
- Where to eat late in London, when the kitchens have shut Most London kitchens stop at ten. A few streets do not, and knowing them is the difference between dinner and a bag...
- Soho after eleven, street by street A square half mile that holds most of London's late licences, and behaves differently on each of its streets.
- London after dark: what stays open, and until when Eleven is the licence most pubs hold. What happens after that is a matter of which streets, which night of the week,...
Where to go next
Everything above is drawn from the listings, which are dated and rebuilt as things change.