Why London's museums charge nothing, and what you still pay for

In London you walk into the British Museum, the National Gallery, the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, Tate Modern and the National Portrait Gallery without a ticket and without being asked where you're from. That is not a gesture by the institutions but government policy a quarter of a century old, with a precise date, a specific legal clause and a cost that somebody else carries.

The 2001 decision and the clause that makes it work

Free entry to the national museums was restored in December 2001. What rarely gets mentioned is how it was engineered: alongside the decision sits section 33A of the Value Added Tax Act 1994, which lets designated free-admission museums and galleries reclaim the input VAT on their purchases from 1 April 2001. Without it, going free would mean losing the right to recover tax on everything the museum buys, from display cases to heating — so 'free' would cost more than charging. The rest comes from central government funding allocated in spending rounds.

The effect is measurable and published. In the decade after 2001 visits to the museums that had previously charged rose by roughly 150%; the Natural History Museum went from about 1.7 million to 4.8 million visits a year. Museums that had always been free, the British Museum among them, gained about 22% over the same period, simply because the whole city became a place where a museum is something you can open for an hour and then leave.

Which museums, and when they open

Every permanent collection below is free, every day, to every visitor. Opening hours are what separates a good plan from a bad one — the Friday late openings are the quietest hours of the week in the five museums that run them:

What you still pay for

The collection is free; the building is not. Money is asked for in five places inside these houses, and all five are legitimate:

• Temporary exhibitions. They are the entire business model: Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum and the big shows at the British Museum and Tate are ticketed, priced by the day. An exhibition ticket usually includes the permanent collection, which costs nothing anyway.
• Interactive galleries. At the Science Museum, Wonderlab, Power Up and the IMAX are ticketed separately and cheaper booked ahead than at the desk. With children this line can beat lunch.
• The cloakroom. Charged per item at the British Museum, the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery. Large rucksacks are often refused inside, so this is unavoidable rather than optional.
• The café and the restaurant. Museum prices in the bad sense; one block away everything is cheaper.
• The shop. Not a cost but income: what you spend in the bookshop stays with the institution that let you in for nothing.

Donations and the 'suggested contribution'

At the entrance to almost every one of these buildings sits a box or a card terminal with a suggested contribution. Nobody checks and nobody watches — but what goes into that box is the part of the budget the grant does not guarantee. Cards work everywhere; cash is rarely wanted.

How to build a day around them

The commonest mistake is trying to do two big museums in one day. The British Museum and the V&A are half a day each if taken seriously, and after three hours inside even the best collection in the world stops going in. A realistic shape is: one large museum in the morning, a break outdoors, then something small and narrow in the afternoon — the Portrait Gallery, one room at Tate, or nothing at all.

Geography helps. The Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V&A stand next to each other in South Kensington and share the same Tube exit, so with children you pick one and leave the next for tomorrow. The British Museum and the National Gallery are twenty minutes apart on foot through Covent Garden. Tate Modern is on the other bank, reached by the footbridge beside St Paul's — which is also the best way to arrive. From the tenth floor of Tate's Blavatnik Building the whole city is free to look at, with no booking, until five in the afternoon.

Two practical details you only learn at the door. First, every entrance has a walk-through metal detector and a large rucksack is often refused inside, so arriving without luggage beats paying for the cloakroom. Second, since May 2025 the main way into the National Gallery has been through the refurbished Sainsbury Wing, from Trafalgar Square.

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What could change

In March 2026, responding to an independent review of Arts Council England, the government said it would 'explore' charging international visitors at England's national museums, with an update promised before the end of the year. Nothing has been introduced, and there is no simple way to do it: a museum would have to check the residence status of everyone walking in. Until that changes, what the door says holds — entry is free to everyone, whatever the passport.

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