Harrods or Selfridges?

Published 21 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

If you only have time for one, go to Selfridges. It is easier to reach, easier to walk through, sits in the middle of the rest of your day, and asks nothing of you at the door. Go to Harrods instead if the Food Halls are the point, if you are already in Knightsbridge for the museums, or if you want the green bag as the souvenir.

They are both large department stores that cost nothing to enter and expect nothing from a visitor who buys only a postcard. Our separate guides to Harrods and Selfridges describe each building in detail. This page exists to make the choice, and to correct one thing most comparisons get wrong: these two are not on opposite sides of London.

They are a walk apart, not a journey apart

Guidebooks tend to describe Harrods and Selfridges as being at opposite ends of town. They are not. Brompton Road and Oxford Street are close to parallel, and the gap between the two front doors is about 2.2 kilometres, a little under a mile and a half.

TfL's journey planner gives three ways across it, checked in September 2026:

The bus beating the Tube is not a quirk of one journey. On short central hops with an interchange in the middle, the underground loses to the street more often than visitors expect, which our guide to when walking beats the Tube covers in more detail. Bus fares are capped separately from the Tube, and a second bus within the hour costs nothing under the Hopper rule.

The verdict, and the three cases where it flips

Selfridges is the better single visit for most people, for reasons that have little to do with what is on the shelves.

It stands on Oxford Street, which means you are already where you want to be next. Bond Street station below it is on three lines, including the Elizabeth line, so getting there from almost anywhere is one journey. The building stretches along a block rather than rising up a tower, so walking one floor from end to end shows you a lot without waiting for a lift. And the windows, which change several times a year, are free theatre from the pavement at any hour.

Choose Harrods instead in these three cases.

• You want the food halls as an experience rather than a shop. Harrods' ground-floor rooms, with their Edwardian tiling, are the better half-hour of the two. You can walk through without buying anything.
• Your day is already in Knightsbridge or South Kensington. Harrods is about fourteen minutes' walk from the V&A, and a little further from the Natural History Museum. Crossing town to Oxford Street and back costs you an hour.
• The souvenir is the point. A Harrods tin of tea or a branded bag carries a name people recognise. Selfridges has excellent own-brand goods but they do not read as "London" in the same way. Our list of souvenirs worth buying has better value alternatives.

The two food halls do different jobs

Both stores sell food on the ground or lower ground floor, and the similarity ends there.

Harrods is arranged as a series of specialist counters in decorated rooms: fish, meat, cheese, bread, chocolate, tea. It is closer to a covered market that happens to be inside a shop, and much of the pleasure is architectural. It is also where a small budget goes furthest in that building, because a bar of chocolate costs what a bar of chocolate costs.

Selfridges is a modern food hall with counters and eating spaces, better suited to actually having lunch than to looking at ceilings. If you want to sit down and eat something in the middle of an Oxford Street day, it works. If you want to photograph a tiled wall, it does not.

Neither is cheap eating. For that, our list of good places near Oxford Street is more useful than either food hall.

Sunday is the wrong day for both of them

Under the Sunday Trading Act 1994, a shop in England with more than 280 square metres of sales space may trade for only one continuous period of six hours between 10:00 and 18:00 on a Sunday. Both stores are far above that threshold, so both are affected, and both are closed on Easter Sunday and on Christmas Day by law.

The practical effect is that an entire weekend's worth of visitors compresses into six hours. Arriving at 16:00 on a Sunday gives you very little time. A weekday morning is the opposite experience in the same building.

Neither store's website would load for our automated checks in September 2026, so we do not print their daily hours here. Check harrods.com or selfridges.com before you set out, particularly around bank holidays and in December. Our guide to opening hours and Sunday trading explains the rules that apply across the city.

With children, a pushchair or a wheelchair

Selfridges is the easier building. It is wider, the aisles carry more people, and Bond Street station is step-free. Knightsbridge station became step-free in April 2025, which removed the old objection to Harrods, but the store itself has narrow aisles in some of the food rooms and a first visit with a double pushchair is hard work.

Harrods has the better toy department, which is a genuine argument in the other direction if you have a seven-year-old. Our guide to Hamleys and London's toy shops covers the alternatives, and step-free travel in London has the station detail.

Large suitcases are a bad idea in either store. If you are visiting on a travel day, leave the bags first: our page on left luggage at London's stations has the tariffs and locations.

What you will actually spend

Nothing, if you choose to. Both are free to enter and nobody polices browsing. The cost is transport and whatever you eat.

Two adults and two children going to Selfridges from a hotel in Bloomsbury and back pay nothing for the children, who travel free on the Tube when accompanied, and one Zone 1 fare each way for the adults. Two adults doing Harrods and then Selfridges by the 74 bus add £1.75 each. That is the whole transport cost of seeing both.

On prices inside: everything in both stores includes VAT at 20%, and visitors cannot reclaim it. Britain withdrew its VAT refund scheme for overseas visitors at the start of 2021, and VAT-free shopping in airport departure halls ended at the same time. The only route to a VAT-free purchase is if the store ships the goods directly to an address outside the UK, which is a store-by-store decision. Our guide to tax-free shopping in the UK sets out what is left of the rules.

Doing both in one day, properly

If you have half a day and genuinely want both, do them in this order.

1. Start at Harrods when the doors open. The food halls are calm for the first hour and impossible by mid-afternoon. Allow 45 minutes to an hour.
2. Walk north into Hyde Park and across to Marble Arch, or take the 74 if it is raining. Twenty-five to thirty-five minutes either way.
3. Arrive at Selfridges before lunch, use the Duke Street doors at the eastern end if you only want the food hall, and eat there.
4. Carry on east along Oxford Street to Oxford Circus and Regent Street, which is where the rest of the shopping is.

Doing it the other way round means finishing in Knightsbridge, which is a quieter place to be at 17:00 with nothing else planned. Our guide to Oxford Street covers what follows, and London's other department stores makes the case for Liberty and Fortnum & Mason, which several people prefer to both of these.

The honest case for skipping both

If your list is already full and you are not shopping, neither store will be the memory you take home. An hour in Harrods is an hour not spent in the Wallace Collection, ten minutes away from Selfridges and free, or in Marylebone, which is where Londoners actually shop in that part of town.

Go if the building interests you, if you want a gift with a name on the bag, or if it is raining and you need somewhere warm. Do not go because a list told you to. Our page on what to do in London when it rains has better wet-weather options than a crowded shop floor.

And if it is the labels rather than the buildings you are after, neither store is where Londoners buy them cheaply. Designer stock is sold off at short-notice warehouse events a few streets from both, usually at 50% to 80% below the shop price. Our guide to London's sample sales explains how they work and whether a visitor can realistically catch one.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better for a first-time visitor, Harrods or Selfridges?

Selfridges, for most people. It is on three Tube lines, it sits in the middle of the West End so the rest of your day follows naturally, and its window displays are free to look at from the street. Choose Harrods if the food halls are what you came for, or if you are already spending the day around the South Kensington museums.

How far apart are Harrods and Selfridges?

About 2.2 kilometres, a little under a mile and a half. TfL's journey planner gives 36 minutes on foot, 24 minutes on the 74 bus from Knightsbridge to Portman Street, and 29 minutes by Tube with a change at Green Park. The bus is the fastest and second cheapest of the three.

Is it free to walk around Harrods and Selfridges?

Yes. Both are ordinary shops, with no entry charge, no ticket and no booking. You can walk through the food halls, look at the architecture and use the toilets without buying anything. Both stores may carry out bag checks at busy times, and both can refuse entry to anyone they consider inappropriately dressed.

Can tourists get a VAT refund at Harrods or Selfridges?

No. The VAT refund scheme for international visitors ended in Great Britain on 1 January 2021, and there is no VAT-free shopping in UK airport departure halls either. The only way to buy without UK VAT is to have the store send the goods to an address outside the UK, which not every store or every item allows.

Why do London department stores close so early on Sundays?

English law limits a shop with more than 280 square metres of sales space to one continuous six-hour trading period between 10:00 and 18:00 on a Sunday. Large shops must also stay closed on Easter Sunday and, under a separate Act, on Christmas Day. Smaller shops are not affected, which is why a corner shop can open all day.

Sources

• Transport for London - Plan a journey (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Single fare finder (checked September 2026)
• Sunday Trading Act 1994, Schedule 1 (checked September 2026)
• Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004, section 1 (checked September 2026)
• GOV.UK - Tax on shopping and services: tax-free shopping (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Step-free access (checked September 2026)