Visiting the Tower of London
Nine centuries of building sit inside two rings of wall, and the ticket that gets you through the gate already includes a guide. Here is what to know before you pick a date.
Opening hours, and the one to check
The fortress opens at 9am and closes at 5:30pm, seven days a week, on the figures the operators and the Google listing both carry. Published hours move with the season and the day of the week, and the last admission is earlier than the closing time. There is one evening entry as well: the Ceremony of the Keys, at 9.52pm, which runs on its own ticket.
| Day | Opens | Closes | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Sunday | 9:00am | 5:30pm | Last entry falls before closing; the Jewel House stops admitting first |
| Winter months | 9:00am | Earlier | Shorter afternoons; the Wall Walk closes first in bad weather |
| Ceremony of the Keys | 9:30pm | 10:05pm | A separate evening entry, free by ballot or bundled with one tour here |
Hours as listed on 26 August 2026. Confirm the exact date you are travelling on the official Historic Royal Palaces page before you set an alarm.
Hours here come from the Google Business Profile the operator supplied, not from the attraction’s own site, which our checks could not reach on the day this page was written. Treat them as a guide and confirm on hrp.org.uk, or book a tour with a fixed start time and let the operator handle it — every Tower of London tour and ticket is compared side by side.
Admission and tickets — what you pay, and where
There are three ways in, and they suit different people. Buying from the attraction gets you the lowest fare and nothing else. Buying a tour that bundles the ticket costs more and hands you a booked slot, a guide and sometimes early entry. Turning up at the gate works outside the peak and is a gamble in August.
| How you buy | Typical price | What it includes | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| A day ticket | $51 | All-day entry, the Crown Jewels, the free Warder tour | Independent visitors setting their own pace |
| A guided departure | $87 to $220 | Admission plus a guide outside the walls, often a booked slot | First visits, and anyone who wants the history told |
| A private guide | $353 to $360 | Admission and a guide for your party alone | Families and small groups who want the pace set around them |
| At the gate | Attraction’s own price | Admission only, subject to queue | Quiet months and flexible plans |
Prices are the operators’ own, captured on 26 August 2026, and every one refunds in full up to 24 hours before the start. The attraction sets its own admission price separately; check it on the official site.
The Yeoman Warder tour, which costs nothing
This is the part most commercial pages leave out. A Yeoman Warder tour is included with every admission ticket. Departures leave the moat every 30 minutes and are signposted the moment you come in, and a member of the admissions team will point you at the next one. They last about an hour and they are the reason a plain ticket is better value than it looks.
What a paid tour adds is a booked slot, a guide before you go through the gate, and on four departures entry an hour before the public. What no tour adds is guiding inside the Jewel House or the keep, because the venue does not permit it. If you want to hear a tower of london early access tour talked through by a Warder, you already have that.
Decide which way in suits you
Sixteen ways through the gate, compared on price, how long they put you inside the walls and what the guide is allowed to show you.
How long the Tower takes
Set the day around the Crown Jewels. The queue for the Jewel House is ten minutes at opening and can be an hour by noon in August. Everything else is flexible.
| If you have | Do this | Skip |
|---|---|---|
| 90 minutes | The Crown Jewels, then the White Tower | The Wall Walk, the Medieval Palace |
| 3 hours | Crown Jewels, keep, Tower Green, the chapel, a Warder’s tour | The Fusilier Museum |
| A full day | All of the above, the Wall Walk and the Medieval Palace, with lunch inside | Nothing |
Times assume you arrive at opening. Add half an hour in July and August.
What you cannot bring in
Three rules catch people out, and all three come straight from the attraction’s own listing.
- No luggage. There are no luggage facilities and large items are prohibited. Leave the case at your hotel or a station locker; there is nowhere on site.
- No re-entry. Once you walk back out through the gate, the ticket is spent. Eat inside if you plan a long visit.
- No strollers in the White Tower. A soft carrier solves it, and the rest of the grounds are fine.
Eating, shopping and facilities
There are cafes inside the walls, and using them is how you keep a day ticket alive, since leaving ends it. Water bottle refill points are on the grounds. The main shop sits by the entrance and there is a second one near the Jewel House. Toilets are at several points inside the curtain walls, and the busiest are the ones nearest the Crown Jewels.
Groups and schools
Group caps on the tours listed here run from six travellers to two hundred and fifty, so the format matters more than the price if you are organising for a party. A private guide takes up to twelve. The small-group tour caps at twelve as well. The river cruise carries far more, and the full-day coach tours sit at twenty. Two of the private departures meet at the Learning and Community Groups Centre rather than the public entrance, which is worth knowing if you are shepherding children.
The quietest hours
First thing, and the last ninety minutes. The middle of the day is when coach parties and school groups overlap, and August is the peak of it. Weekdays beat weekends by a wide margin.
| Time | The Jewel House | The grounds |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 to 10:00 | Shortest queue of the day | Quiet |
| 10:00 to 15:00 | Longest queue, up to an hour in August | Busy, and busiest around the keep |
| 15:00 to closing | Short again | Quiet, and the light is better |
Crowd pressure through the day, from the pattern the operators’ own early-access products are built to solve.
If you can only come in the middle of the day in summer, a departure that goes in before the public is the one thing that fixes it. The four of them are compared on the early access page, and the cheapest is under $90.
More on getting to the gate is on the transport page, and where each individual tour meets is set out on the meeting points page. Every option, with prices and what is included, is on Tower of London Tours.