Free Things to Do in London (2026)

Free museums and galleries. The permanent collections of London's national museums cost nothing to see, and many of the smaller ones are free too. What costs money is the blockbuster show in the special exhibition gallery, and the price of that varies a lot.

The British Museum is the free museum I'd put first. The Egyptian mummies, the treasure from the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Islamic world galleries are all free. The paid ticket this year is the Bayeux Tapestry, on loan from France until July 2027: £33 standard or £27 off-peak, and sold out to the end of 2026 (January to March 2027 tickets go on sale 21 October). Korea (£20, from 1 October) is the other paid show. American readers will like the free display Declaring independence: USA 250, on until 29 November.

Free: everything except those two exhibitions. Book: a free timed ticket; walk-ups wait when it's busy. Allow: two to three hours, and pick a few rooms rather than trying to see it all. Tube: Tottenham Court Road or Holborn. No wheeled suitcases.

The National Gallery fills Trafalgar Square's north side with European painting up to 1900, and all of it is free, from Turner's Fighting Temeraire (Room 40) to Holbein's The Ambassadors (Room 4) and Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks (Room 51). Two big names are away on loan this autumn: Van Gogh's Sunflowers is in Philadelphia until 11 October and Constable's Hay Wain in Ipswich until 4 October, so check a painting's page before you go. The first paid show of the autumn, Renoir and Love, opens on 3 October (£20 Sunday to Thursday, £25 Friday, Saturday and the first two weeks). Van Eyck: The Portraits follows on 21 November at £18.

Free: the whole collection. Book: optional; a free ticket gets you the fast-track line. Allow: an hour and a half. Late: Fridays to 9pm. Tube: Charing Cross or Leicester Square. The drawback: building work runs to 2028, so a painting you've come for may have moved.

Round the corner, the National Portrait Gallery is faces, from the Tudors to people you'll recognise from the news. It's a smaller, quicker visit than its neighbour, and it opens at 10.30am. Tim Walker's Fairyland (£23 Monday to Thursday, £25 Friday to Sunday) opens on 9 October, and the photo portrait prize, now called the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize, costs £10 to £12 from 5 November.

Free: the collection. Book: a free ticket is recommended. Allow: an hour or so. Late: Fridays and Saturdays to 9pm. Tube: Leicester Square or Charing Cross. Three first-floor rooms (30 to 32) are shut until 8 October.

Tate Modern is the one where the free part is huge. You can walk straight into the Turbine Hall, where a new commission by Tarek Atoui opens on 13 October. The collection displays (Picasso, Matisse, Kusama) are free too, with free tours most days at 12pm, 1pm and 2pm. The paid shows right now are Frida: The Making of an Icon (£25, to 3 January), Ana Mendieta (£18), Julio Le Parc (£15) and, from 14 October, Light and Magic (£20).

Free: the building and collection, no booking. Allow: an hour and a half. Late: Fridays and Saturdays to 9pm. Tube: Southwark or Blackfriars. The catch is bags: the cloakroom has closed, lockers cost £4 to £8, and anything larger than a cabin bag is turned away.

Tate Britain is much quieter than Tate Modern and has, in its own words, the world's largest free display of paintings by Turner. The rest is five centuries of British art, through the Pre-Raphaelites to Hockney. Chris Ofili's Requiem and Zineb Sedira's commission are free. The 90s (£22) opens on 8 October; Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (£20) on 12 November.

Free: the collection, no booking, plus tours at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm most days. Allow: an hour and a half. Tube: Pimlico (Victoria). Heads-up: the grand Millbank steps are closed until 2027, so go round to the Manton Entrance on Atterbury Street.

The V&A is London's museum of art and design on a giant scale, from fashion and jewellery to furniture and ceramics. It runs a long list of free displays too, including The Burberry Trench (to 3 January) and, from 24 October, Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things. The paid ones are Schiaparelli (£28 weekdays, £30 weekends, to 15 November), Rising Voices (£17) and, from 7 November, Constantinople to Istanbul (£25 to £27).

Free: everything else, no booking. Allow: two hours. Late: Fridays to 10pm. Tube: South Kensington.

Next door, the Natural History Museum is the free day out children ask for: Hope, the blue whale skeleton over the main hall, and the dinosaur gallery. Two exhibitions charge. Jurassic Oceans runs to 3 January (off-peak from £15), and Wildlife Photographer of the Year opens on 16 October (off-peak from £17, £21 peak).

Free: all the permanent galleries. Book: a free ticket at weekends and in school holidays, or queue. Allow: two to three hours. Tube: South Kensington, then the pedestrian tunnel. It's closed all day on Friday 9 October 2026.

The Science Museum completes the South Kensington trio: the Space, Flight and Information Age galleries are the headline free ones. Here booking isn't optional: every visitor needs a pre-booked free ticket. The bit children beg for, the hands-on Wonderlab gallery, costs from £13.50. From 23 October, the free exhibition Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation needs its own free ticket.

Free: the main galleries, with a booked ticket. Allow: about two hours. Tube: South Kensington. Closed all day on Wednesday 11 November.

The Imperial War Museum in Lambeth is the free museum I'd send more people to. The First World War galleries hold over 1,300 objects, and the Second World War and Holocaust galleries are as serious as museums get. Both current exhibitions are free: Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art (to 1 November) and Childhood in War (to 28 February, recommended for 8+).

Free: everything, no booking. Allow: two to three hours. Tube: Lambeth North (Bakerloo). It's slightly off the tourist map, which is why it's calmer, and it closes early at 4pm on 1 October.

The British Library is a working library with a free museum inside. The Treasures gallery holds Magna Carta, the Beowulf manuscript and Shakespeare, alongside Monty Python and Andrea Levy. It's dim and cool to protect the pages. A big Agatha Christie exhibition opens on 30 October; check its ticket price before you plan around it.

Free: the building and the Treasures gallery, no booking. Allow: under an hour. Open: until 8pm Monday to Thursday. Tube: King's Cross St Pancras. Pair it with the Wellcome Collection, under ten minutes away.

Sir John Soane's Museum is the oddest free visit I know of in London: an architect's home packed floor to ceiling with antiquities, casts and paintings, left as he arranged it. At 2pm the Picture Room's hinged walls open to show Hogarth's A Rake's Progress. There are free tours too: the private apartments on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 2pm, first come first served.

Free: everything, including the exhibition, and you can't book general entry. Allow: an hour, plus the queue. Open: Wednesday to Sunday only. Tube: Holborn. The drawback: it's small, so it fills up and closes the door, and large bags and rucksacks aren't allowed (small items go in a clear plastic bag they give you).

The Wallace Collection is a Marylebone mansion full of 18th-century French painting, porcelain and whole galleries of arms and armour, and Fragonard's The Swing is the painting everyone comes for. Winston Churchill: The Painter is the paid show (£18, to 29 November). Rachel Kneebone's porcelain sculptures, spread through the galleries, are free.

Free: the permanent collection. Allow: an hour or so. Tube: Bond Street (Central, Jubilee, Elizabeth). It's a quiet alternative when the South Kensington museums are heaving.

The Wellcome Collection, opposite Euston station, is about health and being human, and every exhibition is free, no exceptions. Being Human is the permanent gallery; The Coming of Age runs to 29 November. The Reading Room is a good place to sit on a wet afternoon.

Free: everything. Allow: an hour or so. Closed: Mondays. Tube: Euston Square or Euston.

Ceremonies, Parliament and Evensong. A few of the free things are events, not buildings, so they run to a timetable. Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace is the famous one: bearskins, a band and about 45 minutes of drill. The guard change is listed at 11am, and the soldiers form up from 10am, so be in place by 10.30. In October 2026 it runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with Sunday parades at 10am on 18 and 25 October; later dates aren't out yet. Wet weather can cancel it as late as 10.45am.

Free: yes, no ticket. Allow: 45 minutes, plus waiting time for a good spot. Tube: Green Park or St James's Park. Honest take: the crowd at the front is deep, and the band marching up the Mall is easier to see than the ceremony in the forecourt.

Watching a real debate from the public galleries in Parliament costs nothing, and it's easy to overlook. You don't need a ticket for general debates in the Commons or the Lords; queue at Cromwell Green and go through security. Prime Minister's Questions (Wednesdays at noon) is ticketed for UK residents, and overseas visitors can only queue for leftover seats.

Free: yes. When: only when the Houses sit, which rules out the conference recess to 12 October 2026, early November, and 17 December to 5 January. Allow: an hour or two with the queue. Tube: Westminster.

Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey is the free way into a building that otherwise costs £32. It's a service, not a tour, so you sit in the Quire for about 45 minutes while the choir sings, and you can't wander off to the tombs. It's usually at 5pm on weekdays and 3pm at weekends, but some days have a different service, so check that week's list.

Free: yes. Allow: about an hour. Enter: by the Great West Door. Tube: Westminster or St James's Park. St Paul's Cathedral does the same thing for free, with Evensong at 5pm Monday to Saturday and 3pm on Sunday.

Free views. You don't need to pay for the London Eye or the Shard to see London from above. The Sky Garden is a garden under glass 35 floors above the City, with an outdoor terrace when the weather allows. Of the two free viewpoints, it's the one I'd book. Slots for a whole week open each Monday morning, three weeks out, so book the moment your dates are fixed.

Free: yes, with a timed ticket, or as a walk-in when there's room. Allow: an hour. Late: to 9pm at weekends. Tube: Monument. Check the closure dates before you book: there's no free daytime entry on the maintenance days (5 October, 16 November, 7 December) and it shuts early for private hire on several others.

Horizon 22, on Level 58 of 22 Bishopsgate, is higher than the Sky Garden and bills itself as London's highest free viewing platform. It's all glass and no garden, but you can stay as long as you like. Free tickets drop every Monday at 10am for the next 14 days, and there are a few walk-in places on the day.

Free: standard daytime entry, 10am to 5pm; the audio-visual guide is £5 extra. Allow: under an hour. Tube: Liverpool Street or Bank. Bring photo ID, and pack light: there are no lockers. It's closed on Monday 5 October, the same day the Sky Garden loses its free hours, so don't plan a free view that day.

Hampstead Heath is the free view with grass under it. Climb Parliament Hill on its south side and the City and the West End are laid out in front of you. Then keep walking north across the Heath to Kenwood House, a free stately home with Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Two Circles on the wall.

Free: the Heath and Kenwood (book Kenwood online to guarantee entry). Allow: half a day for both. Getting there: Gospel Oak or Hampstead Heath on the Overground. It's exposed and muddy after rain, so wear proper shoes.

Parks and walks. The Royal Parks are free and open early. St James's Park sits between Buckingham Palace and Whitehall, with a lake, views of both and a colony of pelicans that has lived here since 1664. Feeding time is usually around 2.30pm each afternoon, and four chicks hatched this year (they're kept in a non-public area).

Free: yes. Allow: 30 to 45 minutes. Open: 5am to midnight. Tube: St James's Park. Combine it with Changing the Guard.

Kensington Gardens is the quieter western half of the Hyde Park green space, and it has free art in it. The two Serpentine galleries are free: Amar Kanwar at Serpentine North to 31 January, and Serpentine South reopening on 8 October with Justin Caguiat. The summer Pavilion stays up until 25 October. With children, the Diana Memorial Playground, reopened in August after a £3m renewal, is free.

Free: the park, the galleries and the playground. Allow: an hour or two. Tube: Lancaster Gate or Queensway. Watch the gate times: they close at 4.30pm from 2 November, and the galleries shut on Mondays.

For a free half-day outside the centre, my pick is Greenwich. The National Maritime Museum and the Queen's House are both free, and so are the riverside grounds of the Old Royal Naval College. Then climb Greenwich Park behind them for the view back over Canary Wharf and the City. The paid ones sit right beside them: the Cutty Sark is £22 and the Painted Hall £19, and the Observatory is £24 until it closes for refurbishment on 2 November 2026.

Free: the park and both museums (book free tickets). Allow: half a day. Getting there: the DLR to Cutty Sark; there's no Tube. The walk up to the Observatory is steep but short.

The South Bank walk along the Queen's Walk is the free walk I'd do first. Start at Westminster Bridge, pass the London Eye, the Southbank Centre and the second-hand book stalls under Waterloo Bridge, drop into Tate Modern, then carry on past Shakespeare's Globe to London Bridge and Tower Bridge. Most of the sights you pass charge; the view of them doesn't.

Free: the whole walk, plus free events at the Southbank Centre (Quentin Blake: The Southbank Parade runs to 8 November). Allow: an hour and a half to two hours at a stroll. Tube: Westminster to start, London Bridge to finish. Weekend afternoons are slow going around the Eye.

Markets to wander. Browsing costs nothing, and you only pay for what you eat or carry away. Columbia Road Flower Market is a single East End street of flower stalls on Sunday mornings, with traders shouting prices and cafés along both sides. It runs from 8am to about 3pm.

Free: to browse. Allow: an hour. Getting there: Hoxton (Overground). It's packed by late morning, so go early. On Saturday 31 October 2026 the street hosts London's Day of the Dead.

Camden Market is open every day, 10am to 7pm, and sprawls around Camden Lock: vintage clothes, food from everywhere, and the Regent's Canal through the middle. The souvenir stalls repeat themselves; the people-watching doesn't.

Free: to browse. Allow: an hour or two. Tube: Camden Town (Northern). Walk out along the canal towpath towards Primrose Hill or Little Venice for a free, quiet finish.

Portobello Road Market changes with the day. Monday to Thursday it's mostly fruit and veg; Friday and Saturday the whole street trades; and Saturday is the day that matters, because the antiques arcades open only then.

Free: to browse. Allow: an hour and a half. Tube: Notting Hill Gate or Ladbroke Grove. Saturday is also when it's busiest, so arrive before 10am.

Leadenhall Market is a covered market in the City with a market history going back to 1321. It stood in for the streets around the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The public areas are open 24 hours, and a free craft fair takes over on Saturdays 10 October, 14 November and 12 December (12pm to 5pm).

Free: to walk through. Allow: 20 to 30 minutes. Tube: Monument. It's a weekday place, full of City workers at lunch, and some scaffolding is up at the moment.