London Transport Museum does not sell a day ticket. The only way in is an Annual Pass, £27 for an adult, which then lets you visit as often as you like for twelve months. Everyone aged 17 and under goes free. You also need a free timed entry ticket for each visit, which confuses people at the door more than anything else about the place.
It sits on the east side of Covent Garden Piazza in the old flower market, and it is full of things you can climb into: a Victorian horse bus, early Underground carriages, trams, trolleybuses and the red buses your parents remember. It opens 362 days a year, from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:00.
This page covers what the pass actually costs for different people, which galleries reward the time, and the honest answer to the question every parent asks: how long will a seven-year-old last? For the network itself, our guide to using the London Underground is the practical companion.
London Transport Museum at a glance
- Address
- Covent Garden Piazza, London WC2E 7BB
- Adult admission
- £27 Unlimited Annual Pass (September 2026); no single-day ticket exists
- Children
- Free for everyone aged 17 and under
- Open
- Every day 10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:00; café closes at 17:00
- Nearest station
- Covent Garden, 2 minutes, not step-free; Tottenham Court Road, 12 minutes, step-free
- Time to allow
- Two hours for adults; three with children who like the Playzone
The annual pass, explained properly
The museum made the switch some years ago and it still surprises first-time visitors. There is no cheaper option for a one-off visit: £27 buys twelve months whether you use one day of it or twenty.
| Pass | Adult | Under 18 | Restriction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Annual Pass | £27.00 | Free | None |
| Concession (60+, students, disabled visitors) | £25.00 | Free | Carer or companion goes free |
| Local resident | £21.60 | Free | Westminster, Camden or Lambeth; bring proof of address |
| Universal or Pension Credit | £5.00 | Free | Bring proof of the benefit |
| Off Peak Annual Pass | £22.50 | Free | Weekdays after 2pm in term time and the summer holidays only |
| Annual Pass Plus | £75.00 | Free | Adds free entry to Depot Open Days for you and two children |
The Off Peak pass is worth reading twice, because its restriction is unusual. It admits you on weekdays after 2pm during term time and during the summer school holidays, and it specifically does not work during half terms or other school holidays. Saving £4.50 is rarely worth the risk of turning up on the wrong Tuesday in February.
Free entry also applies to Transport for London staff with a valid card, staff of the museum's corporate supporters, Friends, Patrons, carers and companions, and members of the Museums Association. All of them still need to book the free timed slot.
The pass is not the ticket. Whether you have bought a pass or qualify for free entry, you book a separate free timed entry ticket for the day you are coming, and you can only hold one at a time. Book the next one after the current visit date has passed.
Photo: CrisNYCa · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
What is actually on display
The collection runs chronologically down through the building, and the strength of it is that the objects are full-size and mostly open. The galleries worth knowing about by name:
- 19th Century London and Victorian Transport. Riverboats, the first omnibus, early trams and railways, in a city that was still largely walking.
- World's first Underground. The Metropolitan line, begun in 1860, with the only surviving steam locomotive of the 1860s from that railway.
- Digging Deeper. How the Greathead shield made deep tunnelling possible and produced the world's first electric railway.
- The formation of London Transport. How Lord Ashfield brought the capital's separate transport companies together in the early twentieth century.
- On the Surface. Two galleries, before and after 1945, taking in horse-drawn vehicles, trams, trolleybuses and motor buses.
- London by Design. The roundel, the Tube map, the typeface and the posters, which is the part designers come for.
- London's transport at war. What the network and its staff did in both world wars.
- Future Engineers. Interactive STEM exhibits aimed at older children.
- Global Poster Gallery. Currently showing Art deco: the golden age of poster design, with an audio-described guide available.
The single best thing in the museum is not a vehicle but the poster collection, which is among the most important bodies of twentieth-century commercial graphic design anywhere. If you have come with someone who is not interested in trains, send them there.
Will the children last?
Honestly: a two- to seven-year-old will last as long as the All Aboard Playzone holds them, which is usually about forty minutes, and then as long again wandering between the buses. That is a good two hours, and it costs nothing because under-18s are free.
All Aboard is a play area of mini vehicles and dressing-up aimed squarely at under-sevens, and it is the busiest part of the building at weekends and in school holidays. Older children divide: those who like machines will work steadily through Future Engineers and the interactive exhibits, while those who do not will find a museum of vehicles behind stanchions less engaging than the interactive science galleries in South Kensington.
Teenagers are a different proposition again, and the design and poster galleries do better with them than the rolling stock; our guide to London museums that work for teenagers has the comparisons. For a wet afternoon with younger children, see our list of rainy-day activities for children in London.
Two adults and three children pay £54 in total. Because every child under 18 is free, the museum gets cheaper per head the bigger the family. Against a paid attraction charging per child, the difference for a family of five is considerable, and the pass is still valid next year.
Practicalities inside the building
The cloakroom is free, which is unusual and useful in Covent Garden. The buggy park is just inside the entrance, opposite it. Toilets, including accessible and gender-neutral ones and baby changing, are on the ground floor, although in September 2026 they were being refurbished and temporary facilities were in the World City Walk, immediately on your left as you come in.
There is a baby feeding room on the ground floor, and breastfeeding is welcome anywhere. Canteen, the café bar, is above the shop and does an all-day menu. Picnics are allowed at weekends and during school holidays, in the Lower Deck café bar on the ground floor, which saves a family a good deal in this part of town.
On access: the building has lifts, but in September 2026 Lift 5, next to the information desk on Level 1, was only serving Level 1 and the mezzanine, with Lift 3 by the Photography Gallery needed to reach Level 0. Ask at the desk rather than working it out by trial.
Hidden London, the Depot and the other tickets
Two parts of the museum's programme are sold separately and are worth knowing about, because they sell out.
Hidden London takes visitors into disused parts of the Underground: closed stations, wartime shelters and abandoned passages. Aldwych, the best-known, has a family version aimed at ages 10 and over with clues and activities. These are tours with a fixed number of places and a separate ticket, and they are not covered by the Annual Pass.
The Museum Depot in Acton holds the bulk of the collection, the great majority of which will not fit into Covent Garden, and opens to the public on advertised Depot Open Days and for guided tours. The Annual Pass Plus at £75 includes Depot Open Day entry for you and two children, which is the only situation in which that pass makes obvious sense.
The museum also runs after-hours events, including Museum Lates and occasional silent discos among the vehicles. Our guide to museum late openings in London covers the wider evening programme.
Getting to Covent Garden Piazza
The museum is two minutes from Covent Garden station, and if you can use stairs that is the obvious route. If you cannot, it is a different journey entirely.
| Station | Walk | Step-free? |
|---|---|---|
| Covent Garden | 2 minutes | No |
| Leicester Square | 4 minutes | No |
| Holborn | 5 minutes | No |
| Charing Cross (rail and Tube) | 7 to 8 minutes | Rail yes, Tube no |
| Tottenham Court Road | 12 minutes | Yes |
| Waterloo | 17 minutes over the bridge | Yes |
Buses stop at Savoy Street, Southampton Street, Lancaster Place and Aldwych. Embankment Pier is about ten minutes away, and the museum sells a joint ticket with the river bus; our guide to Uber Boat by Thames Clippers explains how the boats work. Santander docking stations sit behind the museum on Tavistock Street and nearby on Wellington Street and Southampton Street. Parking is scarce, expensive and capped at about four hours.
Covent Garden station is the one place in London where the crowds are genuinely worse than the museum, particularly on a Saturday afternoon; our guide to Covent Garden explains when the piazza is bearable.
Making a day of it
Everything around the museum is within ten minutes. The market halls, the street performers and the shops are covered in our guide to shopping in Covent Garden and Seven Dials. The British Museum is fifteen minutes north on foot if you want a bigger afternoon.
For a second transport-related visit, the Postal Museum and Mail Rail near Farringdon is the natural pairing: another railway, another set of tunnels, and a ride in a miniature train. Before you buy anything, our guide to whether the London Pass is worth it is worth reading, because the annual pass here is not the kind of ticket a sightseeing pass replaces. For the practical business of moving around with children, see who travels free on London transport.
Frequently asked questions
How much does London Transport Museum cost?
£27 for an adult Unlimited Annual Pass in September 2026, which is the standard admission; there is no single-day ticket. Concessions are £25, local residents of Westminster, Camden and Lambeth pay £21.60, and visitors on Universal or Pension Credit pay £5. Everyone aged 17 and under is free.
Do children pay at London Transport Museum?
No. Every visitor aged 17 and under enters free, which makes it one of the better-value family museums in central London. Children still need a free timed entry ticket booked for the day, as every visitor does.
Can you go inside the vehicles at London Transport Museum?
Many of them, yes. Horse buses, early Underground carriages, trams and motor buses are open to climb into, which is what distinguishes the place from a display of rolling stock behind rope. Some vehicles are behind barriers for conservation.
Is London Transport Museum step-free?
The building has lifts, but the nearest step-free Underground station is Tottenham Court Road, twelve minutes away; Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Holborn are not step-free. Charing Cross and Waterloo main-line stations are step-free. Check the museum's accessibility page for current lift restrictions.
How long do you need at London Transport Museum?
Two hours is enough for adults who read the labels. With children who use the All Aboard Playzone, allow three. It is small enough to be done properly in a morning, which is why the annual pass works: most people come back rather than trying to see everything at once.
Sources
- London Transport Museum - Tickets and Annual Passes (checked September 2026)
- London Transport Museum - Museum guide and galleries (checked September 2026)
- London Transport Museum - Getting here (checked September 2026)
- London Transport Museum - Facilities (checked September 2026)
- London Transport Museum - Accessibility (checked September 2026)