Free museums in London: the full list, and what still costs money

London has more free museums than any comparable city, and it is not a promotion or a concession: entry to the national collections has been free since 2001 and there is no ticket to buy. You can walk into the British Museum this afternoon and pay nothing.

Two things confuse people. The permanent collection is free; temporary exhibitions usually are not, and can run to £25. And several museums ask you to book a free timed slot at busy periods, which is not the same as charging.

The big nationals, all free

The British Museum, Great Russell Street. Free, open late on Fridays. The Bayeux Tapestry is here on a separate timed ticket from September 2026.

The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square. Free, open until nine on Fridays, and close to empty after seven.

The National Portrait Gallery, next door on St Martin’s Place. Free.

Tate Modern on Bankside and Tate Britain at Millbank. Both free, with a boat between them that is not.

The V and A, South Kensington. Free, with a Friday Late most months.

The Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, both on Exhibition Road, both free. The Natural History Museum is the busiest museum in the country at half term; go on a weekday afternoon in term time or not at all.

The Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road. Free, and the Holocaust Galleries are among the most serious things in any London museum.

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Free, though the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory next to it are ticketed.

London Museum Docklands, West India Quay. Free, and rarely busy on a weekday.

The RAF Museum, Colindale. Free, enormous, and a long way north.

The smaller free ones, which are often better

Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Free, and the strangest interior in London. The candlelit evenings on the first Tuesday of the month are also free but ticketed and go within hours.

The Wallace Collection, Manchester Square. Free, a Georgian townhouse full of armour and Fragonard, and almost never crowded.

The Wellcome Collection, Euston Road. Free, and the best small exhibitions programme in the city.

The Whitechapel Gallery and the Serpentine. Both free contemporary art, and the Serpentine’s summer pavilion in Kensington Gardens is free to walk into.

The Bank of England Museum, Threadneedle Street. Free, weekdays only, and you can lift a real gold bar.

Guildhall Art Gallery, with a Roman amphitheatre in the basement. Free.

The Horniman in Forest Hill. The museum and gardens are free; the aquarium and some exhibitions are ticketed.

What still costs money

Temporary exhibitions at almost all of the above, typically £15 to £25, with concessions and free entry for members. Membership pays for itself in about three exhibitions if you go regularly.

And a handful of museums are simply paid: the Courtauld, the Postal Museum, the Foundling Museum, the Churchill War Rooms, the Tower of London, and the palaces. Being paid does not make them worse; several are among the best in the city.

The free lates, which are the real tip

Several of these open in the evening for free, and an empty gallery at eight is a different experience from a full one at two. Tate Modern until nine every Friday and Saturday, the V and A’s Friday Late, the Science Museum’s adults-only Lates on the last Wednesday, and the National Gallery every Friday until nine.

The Science Museum Lates are free but ticketed and go the week before. The rest need no booking. Our museum lates guide has the full schedule and which ones sell out.

Practical

Most of these close at 17:30 or 18:00, so an afternoon visit is shorter than it sounds. Bags are searched at the big ones and large luggage is refused outright. And the donation boxes are real: free entry is funded partly by people who put five pounds in on the way out.