The Royal Academy of Arts

Published 28 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

The Royal Academy is closed every Monday and open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, with a late night on Friday until 9pm. The courtyard and several displays cost nothing; the big exhibitions cost between £15 and £26. Until early 2027 the free part of the visit is the John Madejski Fine Rooms, not the Collection Gallery, which is shut while it is rebuilt.

It occupies Burlington House, the mansion set back behind a courtyard on the north side of Piccadilly, a few minutes from Piccadilly Circus and Green Park. Use the Piccadilly entrance: the back entrance at 6 Burlington Gardens is closed until spring 2027, and only ticket holders for events in the lecture theatres can get through it.

Our guide to Mayfair and St James's places the RA on its street. This page answers the narrower question people actually type: what can I see here without paying, what does the rest cost, and is the Summer Exhibition worth a ticket.

What is genuinely free here

More than most visitors realise. The Annenberg Courtyard, the paved space between Piccadilly and the front door, is open to anyone and usually holds a large commissioned sculpture. From 22 September 2026 to 5 February 2027 that is a major new work by the New York artist Nicole Eisenman.

Inside, free and needing no booking: the John Madejski Fine Rooms; the RA Schools exhibitions in the Weston Studio, which in autumn 2026 is a show called Day by three current students, on until 8 November 2026; and the featured selling displays, which are commercial hangs of work by individual Royal Academicians that anyone can walk into. Free drop-in drawing sessions also appear in the events calendar.

That is a decent hour without a ticket, in a building most people assume you have to pay to enter. It compares well with the entries on our list of free things to do in London, and unlike the national museums it is almost never crowded.

The Fine Rooms: a free display with an expiry date

This is the part to prioritise. The Fine Rooms are the Academy's own working rooms, normally closed to the public, where the Royal Academicians meet. Because the Collection Gallery is being expanded, the RA has opened them instead, free to everyone, from 16 December 2025 until early 2027.

They are open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm, and until 9pm on Fridays. Note the narrower window: they close two hours before the rest of the building. The rooms also shut entirely on scattered dates; the RA listed 2 October, 9 October, 6 November, 7 November, 19 November and 4 December 2026.

What hangs there: Gainsborough, Laura Knight, L.S. Lowry, Mary Moser, Frank Cadogan Cowper, and living Academicians including David Hockney, Nigel Hall, Olwyn Bowey and Diana Armfield. Still lifes in the General Assembly Room, the old banqueting space; landscape in the rooms next door; 20th-century work in the Reynolds Room, once a triple-cube ballroom; 19th-century pictures in the last room. Much of the decorative scheme goes back to Lady Juliana, Dowager Countess of Burlington, around 1710. There is a Sebastiano Ricci ceiling in the Richard Sharp Council Room.

The Collection Gallery, and why you will not find it

Older guides send you to the RA Collection Gallery at 6 Burlington Gardens, entered from the street behind. It is closed. The RA is running an expansion project there, and the whole Burlington Gardens building is out of use until spring 2027. If you arrive at the back door you will be turned round and sent to Piccadilly.

The Fine Rooms are the replacement, and they show works from the same collection. When the gallery reopens, the free offer will change again, so check before you rely on it.

What the paid exhibitions cost

The pattern is worth understanding before you book. A show in the Main Galleries, the big suite upstairs, costs roughly £24 to £26 and runs for four months. A show in the smaller top-floor galleries above them costs £15 to £17, and the listing for each exhibition names the space it is in. The RA's ticket prices also vary by day within a band, so a Tuesday morning is cheaper than a Saturday.

Peggy Guggenheim in London reunites work from her Cork Street gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, which opened in January 1938 a few streets away and held more than twenty exhibitions in eighteen months, including Kandinsky's first British solo show and the first exhibition of collage in Britain. Artists include Eileen Agar, Dalí, Hepworth, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. For £17 in the smaller galleries, that is the best-value exhibition ticket the RA sells this winter.

The Summer Exhibition: dates, and whether it is for you

The Summer Exhibition 2027 runs from 18 May to 15 August 2027 in the Main Galleries. Friends preview days are Saturday 15, Sunday 16 and Monday 17 May. Tickets had not gone on sale as of late September 2026.

It has been held every year since 1769 and is the oldest open-submission exhibition in the world: anyone may submit, Academicians select and hang it, and in recent years nearly two-thirds of the exhibits were by non-Academicians. Most of the work is for sale, with red dots beside the sold pieces, and thousands of works change hands each summer.

Put plainly: it is the most enjoyable exhibition in London if you treat it as a market and the most frustrating if you treat it as a museum show. If you only have one paid art ticket, the Courtauld or a Main Galleries show will give you more. If you want to see how the London art world talks to itself in public, this is the only place it happens.

Friday nights, and the hour to arrive

The RA stays open until 9pm every Friday, with the shops and cafés running late too. That is the best time to be here: the exhibitions are quieter than on a Saturday afternoon, and Piccadilly outside is at its liveliest. Some exhibitions extend the late night to Saturday as well, so check the individual exhibition page rather than the general opening times. Our guide to museum late openings lists the rest of London's evening options, and London at night covers what to do afterwards.

For a free visit, come between 11am and 4pm on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, because that is the only window in which the Fine Rooms, the student show, the selling displays and the courtyard are all open at once.

Bags, security and the cashless rule

Three practical things catch people out. There are additional security checks for all visitors on arrival, so allow a few minutes. Backpacks, suitcases and large bags cannot be brought into the galleries or stored, so do not arrive from a station with luggage; there are self-service lockers and a small cloakroom for ordinary coats and bags. And the RA is now cashless throughout, including the cafés and the shop.

Photography is allowed unless a sign says otherwise. Drawing in the galleries is encouraged, which is unusual and worth knowing if you sketch.

Getting there, and what to pair it with

Piccadilly Circus and Green Park are the nearest stations, both a few minutes' walk; the Piccadilly line serves both. Our page on Piccadilly Circus covers the junction at the eastern end of the street.

The natural half-day is the RA, then the arcades and galleries of Bond Street and Mayfair, then twenty minutes in Green Park. In bad weather the RA plus the National Gallery, fifteen minutes' walk east and free, will fill a day; our list of what to do when it rains has more. During London Fashion Week the RA is one of the venues used for events that the public can attend.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Royal Academy of Arts free to enter?

Partly. The courtyard, the John Madejski Fine Rooms, the RA Schools displays and the selling displays are free and need no booking. The major exhibitions are ticketed, at £15 to £26 for an adult in autumn 2026. Friends of the RA enter every exhibition free.

Is the Royal Academy open on Mondays?

No. The RA is closed every Monday. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm, with a late night until 9pm on Fridays. Note that the RA's own "Plan your visit" page lists "Tuesday to Saturday" and omits Sunday, while its exhibition pages all say Tuesday to Sunday; the exhibition pages are the ones to trust.

Where is the RA Collection Gallery?

Closed. The gallery at 6 Burlington Gardens is shut until spring 2027 while the RA expands it, and the whole Burlington Gardens entrance is out of use. Works from the collection are shown instead in the Fine Rooms inside Burlington House, free, from 11am to 4pm Tuesday to Sunday.

When is the Summer Exhibition 2027?

From 18 May to 15 August 2027 in the Main Galleries, with Friends preview days on 15, 16 and 17 May. Tickets were not yet on sale in late September 2026. It is an open-submission show, held every year since 1769, and most of the work in it is for sale.

Which entrance should I use at the Royal Academy?

The Burlington House entrance on Piccadilly, for everything including the Main Galleries and the top-floor galleries above them. The 6 Burlington Gardens entrance at the rear is closed until spring 2027; only people with tickets for events in the Clore or Benjamin West lecture theatres can use it.

Sources

• Royal Academy of Arts - Plan your visit (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - The John Madejski Fine Rooms (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - Exhibitions and events (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - Painting the French Riviera (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - Peggy Guggenheim in London (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - Summer Exhibition 2027 (checked September 2026)
• Royal Academy of Arts - About the Summer Exhibition (checked September 2026)