A do-it-yourself wash in a London launderette costs about £6 to £12 depending on the machine size, and a service wash, where staff wash, dry and fold it for you, runs from roughly £13 to £19 a load (September 2026). Hotel laundry is priced per item instead, which is why a single shirt can cost more than a whole launderette load.
Anyone staying longer than about ten days will need to wash something. So will anyone who spills coffee on their only jumper on day two. London has fewer launderettes than it did twenty years ago, and almost none in the tourist centre, but there are more than enough in the residential streets a stop or two out, and there are now collection services that will take a bag from your hotel and bring it back the next day.
This page is about the practical mechanics: what each option costs, how long it takes, and what goes wrong. If you are still deciding how much to bring, our guide to what to pack for London argues for packing a week and washing once, which is usually cheaper than the extra suitcase.
What laundry costs in London
- Self-service wash
- About £6 for a small machine, £8–£12 for larger ones
- Tumble dryer
- Often sold by time, for example 50p per five minutes
- Powder or liquid
- About £1 a sachet from the machine in the shop
- Service wash
- Roughly £13–£19 for a normal holiday load, same day if you drop it early
- Collection service
- From about £19 for 5–6 kg, collected and returned
- Hotel laundry
- Priced per item. Read the list in the wardrobe before you fill the bag
The five ways to get clothes clean here
They are not interchangeable, and the right one depends mostly on how long you are staying and where.
- Self-service launderette. Cheapest, but costs you two hours sitting in a shop. Good if you are staying nearby and have a wet afternoon to spend.
- Service wash. You hand over a bag and come back later. The best value for most visitors, and the option Londoners themselves use.
- Collection app. A driver takes the bag from your hotel and brings it back, usually within 24 hours. Convenient, more expensive, and dependent on your hotel accepting deliveries.
- Hotel laundry. Fastest and by far the dearest, charged item by item.
- Washing it yourself in the room. Free, and it works for underwear and t-shirts. It does not work for jeans, and British flats dry more slowly than you expect.
Self-catering changes the maths completely. Many London apartments and aparthotels have a washer-dryer in the flat, which costs nothing beyond the electricity and removes the problem entirely. If you are staying two weeks or more, that alone can justify choosing an apartment or short let or an aparthotel over a hotel room.
What a self-service wash really costs
Prices differ from street to street, so the two examples below are there to show the shape of the pricing rather than to recommend a particular shop. Both are real London launderettes and both publish their prices.
| Item | Launderette in SE1 (Borough) | Launderette in SW8 (South Lambeth) |
|---|---|---|
| Small machine | £6 (9 kg) | £8 (10 kg) |
| Large machine | £8 (13 kg) | £10 (15 kg) / £12 (20 kg) |
| Dryer | 50p per 5 minutes | Included in the service fee |
| Soap | £1 | Included |
| Service wash | £15 (9 kg) / £19 (13 kg) | Machine price plus £5–£7 |
Prices checked September 2026; check the shop's own window or website before you go. Add the cost of getting there, since a launderette two Tube stops away turns a £7 wash into a £13 outing.
The number that surprises people is the dryer. Sold by the minute, a proper dry of a full load can add £3 or £4, because British machines are gentle and a heavy load of jeans and towels can take 40 minutes. Budget for the drying as a separate cost, not an afterthought.
Payment is mixed. Older launderettes are still coin-operated and some have a change machine that only takes notes up to £10. Newer ones take contactless cards or run through an app on your phone. Assume you may need coins, and take some with you; our page on money in London explains where to get cash without paying a fee.
The service wash, and why Londoners use it
A service wash means you walk in with a bag, they weigh it, you pay, and you come back for a folded pile. Drop it off before about 10:00 in the morning and most shops will have it ready by late afternoon the same day; leave it later and it becomes next day.
At £15 for a nine-kilogram load, that is roughly what two people generate in ten days, washed, dried and folded, for less than the price of two theatre tickets in the upper circle. Compared with sitting in a launderette for two hours of a short holiday, it is the obvious choice.
Three practical points. You usually need to be able to collect during shop hours, which are often 08:00 to 18:00 and shorter on Sundays, so do not drop a bag off on the morning of your flight home. Anything you care about should be pointed out, because a service wash is a single temperature and a single programme. And keep the ticket, because most shops will not release a bag without it.
Ask for "no tumble drying" if you have anything that shrinks. Service washes dry everything together on a hot cycle by default. Wool jumpers and printed t-shirts come back smaller. Most shops will air-dry on request, though it may then take until the next day.
Collection services: convenient, and priced accordingly
Several companies collect laundry from a London address and return it, usually within 24 hours. They are the easiest option if you are working, travelling with children, or staying somewhere with no launderette nearby.
Published prices in September 2026 give you the range. One well-known collection service advertises wash and fold from £19.50 for six kilograms with free collection and delivery, and per-item ironing and dry cleaning from £1.95. Another London company charges £19.00 for a mixed bag up to five kilograms, then £3.80 a kilogram between five and ten, with a £25 minimum order and five shirts on hangers for £19.00. Check the current price on the company's own site before you book, and watch for the minimum order, which is the detail that catches people out.
Two things to sort out before you press the button. Ask your hotel whether reception will accept and hold a laundry bag, because many small hotels will not, and check the return time against your plans. A 24-hour turnaround becomes 36 hours if your collection slot is in the evening.
Hotel laundry: what you are paying for
Every hotel above the budget tier offers laundry, and almost all of them price it per item: so much for a shirt, so much for trousers, so much for a dress. The list lives in the wardrobe or in the room's directory, with a bag and a form. Fill in the form, leave the bag out before the morning deadline, and it usually comes back the same evening.
We do not publish hotel prices here, because every hotel sets its own and they change constantly. What is consistent is the shape: pricing an item at a time means a bag of holiday clothes adds up fast, and same-day or express service normally carries a surcharge on top. Read the list before you fill the bag, not afterwards.
Hotel laundry earns its price in exactly one situation: you need something specific, clean, pressed and back by tonight. For everything else, a service wash or a collection service costs a fraction as much. Our page on hotel extras and hidden costs covers the other charges that appear on the final bill.
Budget hotels and hostels take the opposite approach. Many hostels have coin or card-operated washers and dryers in the basement, typically a few pounds a load, which is the cheapest laundry in London if you are already staying there.
Washing things in your room, and getting them dry
Hand-washing works for socks, underwear and thin t-shirts. It does not work for jeans, thick jumpers or anything you need dry in a hurry.
The problem is drying, not washing. London air is damp for much of the year, and hotels increasingly disable openable windows in city-centre buildings. In summer the heating is off, so there is no warm radiator. Wring the item in a towel, hang it where air moves, and allow overnight at minimum.
Four things make this easier: a small tube of travel detergent, a length of cord or an elastic travel washing line, a couple of plastic clothes pegs, and the bathroom extractor fan left running. Do not hang wet clothes on a heated towel rail and then close the bathroom door, because the room simply becomes a damp box.
Hotels generally dislike wet washing hung over furniture, and some ask you not to. It is a small courtesy that costs nothing to observe.
Dry cleaning and the emergency clean shirt
Dry cleaners are easier to find than launderettes and are scattered through every high street. Standard turnaround is two to three working days; same-day and next-day services exist at a premium and are not offered everywhere.
The published London prices in September 2026 give a sense of scale: around £9 to £10 for trousers or a skirt, £11 to £12 for a jacket, £19 for a two-piece suit, and £18 to £25 for a coat, depending on the type. Expect the West End to charge more than the suburbs for identical work.
If you need a clean shirt tonight and nothing else will do, the honest answer is often to buy one. A plain shirt from a chain store on Oxford Street costs about the same as express hotel laundry and you keep the shirt.
Finding a launderette near where you are staying
There are very few launderettes in the middle of the West End, the City or Mayfair, because the rent makes them impossible. They cluster in residential streets: Bermondsey and Borough, Pimlico and Victoria, Bayswater, Earl's Court, Kentish Town, Hackney, Peckham and Stoke Newington.
The practical method is to search a map for "launderette" rather than "laundromat", which is the American word and returns less, and to search around your own postcode rather than around a landmark. Postcode districts in London are small, and the difference between SE1 and SE16 is a twenty-minute walk. Our page explaining how London postcodes work makes those distances easier to read.
Where you stay therefore decides how much of a problem laundry is. Staying in Bloomsbury or near Victoria puts you in reach of ordinary shops; staying on a hotel-only street in the middle of the West End does not.
Planning laundry into a longer trip
For a trip of up to about nine days, pack for the trip and do nothing. For anything longer, pack seven days of clothes and plan one wash in the middle, on a day you were going to spend near your hotel anyway. That keeps the suitcase small enough to carry up the stairs at a station without a lift, which matters more than it sounds; our guide to luggage on the Tube explains why.
Build the wash into a rest day rather than a sightseeing day. A wet Tuesday spent around your neighbourhood, with the bag dropped off in the morning and collected at five, costs you nothing in sightseeing. A sunny Saturday spent in a launderette costs you a day.
On the last day, do not leave a bag with anyone. Hotels will hold clean laundry, but a service wash that is not ready by check-out becomes a problem you cannot solve from an aeroplane. If your bags are the issue rather than the washing, our page on left luggage in London covers the storage options.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a load of washing cost in a London launderette?
Roughly £6 for a small machine and £8 to £12 for a larger one, plus the dryer, which is often sold by time at around 50p per five minutes, plus about £1 for soap. A full wash and dry usually lands between £8 and £15 in total, depending on the size of the load and how wet it is.
What is a service wash?
You leave a bag of laundry at the shop and staff wash, dry and fold it for you. In London this typically costs £13 to £19 for a normal holiday load. Drop it off before about 10:00 and many shops return it the same afternoon. Ask for air-drying if anything might shrink, and keep your ticket.
Is hotel laundry in London expensive?
Yes, compared with the alternatives, because it is charged item by item rather than by the load, and express service costs more again. It is worth it when you need one specific garment clean and pressed for the same evening. For a whole bag of holiday clothes, a service wash or a collection service costs far less.
Can I get laundry collected from my hotel in London?
Several companies do this, typically within 24 hours, with published prices in September 2026 starting around £19 for a five or six kilogram bag. Check the minimum order value, and ask your hotel first whether reception will accept and hold a laundry delivery, because smaller hotels often will not.
Will clothes dry overnight in a London hotel room?
Thin items usually will; jeans and jumpers will not. London air is damp, many hotel windows do not open, and in summer the heating is off. Roll the item in a towel to squeeze out water first, hang it where air moves, and leave the bathroom extractor fan running.
Sources
- Long Lane Launderette, SE1 - price list (checked September 2026)
- The Launderette SW8 - service washing prices (checked September 2026)
- Laundryheap - UK prices (checked September 2026)
- Love My Laundry - price list from 1 January 2026 (checked September 2026)