Almost nothing has gone wrong. London keeps 64 N-prefixed bus routes running on all seven nights, at the ordinary daytime fare of £1.75, and between them they reach every part of the city the Underground reaches. The only question worth answering at half past midnight is which route replaces the line you meant to take, and this page answers it.
The three things that decide what you do are the night of the week, the direction you are going and how far. On Friday and Saturday nights five Underground lines and one Overground line keep running, so you may not need a bus at all. On the other five nights the bus is the answer, and the bus is cheap. A black cab is the expensive third option, and Transport for London's own guide fares show how expensive before the night tariff is applied.
Your options after the last train
- Friday and Saturday nights
- Night Tube on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines, plus the Overground's Windrush line. Off-peak fares, and daily caps still apply
- Sunday to Thursday nights
- Night buses, £1.75 a journey, with the Hopper fare covering any change within the hour
- Bus fare from 1 November 2026
- £1.85, with the daily bus cap rising from £5.25 to £5.55
- Black cab, four miles
- £21 to £31 on the weekday daytime tariff; the evening, weekend and night tariffs cost more
- Minimum taxi fare
- £4.40 at any hour
- Walking
- Free, and quicker than you think between some central stations
First, check what the last train from your station actually is
"Last Tube" is not a single time. It varies by line, by branch, by direction and by day, and Sunday evenings are much earlier than the rest of the week. The published times are usually the last departure from the outer end of the line, which is not the same as the last train through the station you are standing in. Our guide to first and last Tube trains sets out the real times line by line and explains how to look up your own station.
If you are reading this in a bar with twenty minutes to spare, the single most reliable move is to put your destination into TfL Go or Journey Planner with the actual time you expect to leave, not the time you wish you were leaving. It will offer the night bus automatically once the trains have stopped, and it will name the stop letter, which is the part people get wrong at a big interchange.
Friday and Saturday: which lines keep running
The Night Tube runs on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines and on the Windrush line of the Overground. Fares are charged at the off-peak rate and count towards the daily cap, stations are staffed while trains are running, and step-free access is the same as by day. Our page on the Night Tube has the frequencies and the Windrush line covers the Overground's night service.
There is one trap that catches arriving air passengers. The Piccadilly line's night service is a single branch, Cockfosters to Heathrow Terminal 5, covering 38 of the line's 53 stations. There is no night service to Terminal 4 and none on the Uxbridge branch. A passenger landing at Terminal 4 at three in the morning cannot use the Night Tube at all, and needs the N9 bus or a taxi instead; our comparison of late-night and early-morning airport transport covers every airport.
Which night bus replaces which line
Night routes usually share a number with a daytime route and follow roughly the same road, but that is not much help if you only know the Tube. The table below matches Underground branches to the night bus that covers the same ground, and every pairing in it was checked against Transport for London's own route data: in most cases the bus finishes at the same place the line does.
| If you wanted | Take | Which runs |
|---|---|---|
| Northern line to Morden | N155 | Aldwych, Westminster, Oval, Clapham North, Balham, Tooting, South Wimbledon, Morden station |
| Northern line to Edgware | N5 | Trafalgar Square, Euston, Camden Town, Chalk Farm, Hampstead, Golders Green, Hendon, Colindale, Edgware |
| Northern line to High Barnet | N20 | Whitehall to Barnet Hospital |
| Central line, east | N8 | Oxford Circus, Chancery Lane, St Paul's, Bethnal Green, Stratford, Ilford, Barkingside, Hainault |
| Central line, west | N207 | Tottenham Court Road, Marble Arch, Notting Hill, Shepherd's Bush, Acton, Hanger Lane, Ealing, Hayes, Uxbridge |
| Piccadilly line to Cockfosters | N91 | Trafalgar Square, King's Cross, Holloway, Bounds Green, Oakwood, Cockfosters station |
| Victoria line to Walthamstow | N73 | Oxford Circus, Warren Street, King's Cross, Angel, Stoke Newington, Tottenham Hale, Walthamstow |
| Victoria line to Brixton | N3 | Oxford Circus, Trafalgar Square, Westminster, Kennington, Brixton, Herne Hill, Crystal Palace |
| Jubilee line, north-west | N98 | Holborn, Selfridges, St John's Wood, Kilburn, Willesden Green, Kingsbury, Stanmore station |
| Circle and Hammersmith & City, north side | N205 | Paddington, Edgware Road, Euston Square, King's Cross, Old Street, Aldgate East, Bow |
| District line, east to Barking | N15 | Oxford Circus, Aldgate, Limehouse, Poplar, Canning Town, Plaistow, Barking, Romford |
| DLR to Canary Wharf | N550 | Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, Aldgate East, Limehouse, Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, Canning Town |
| Bakerloo line, north | N18 | Trafalgar Square, Baker Street, Edgware Road, Harlesden, Wembley, Harrow, Harrow Weald |
Two things follow from the table. First, if you are in the West End and cannot work out your route, walk to Trafalgar Square, because eight of these thirteen routes pass through it or start there. Second, the match is a corridor rather than a station-by-station copy: the N155 stops at Clapham North and Balham like the Northern line, but the N207 reaches Uxbridge by a different road from the Piccadilly line that also goes there. Check the destination on the front of the bus before you get on.
Some routes never stop and keep their ordinary number. The 24 between Pimlico and Hampstead and the 88 between Clapham and Parliament Hill Fields both run in every hour of the night, with no N in front and nothing on the bus to say so. Our pages on route 24 and route 88 have their overnight timetables.
What the bus costs, and what the caps do overnight
There is no night surcharge on a bus: the fare is the same £1.75 after midnight as at midday, and a change inside the hour is covered by the Hopper. What surprises people is which day the journey belongs to. Capping is calculated over a travel day that ends at 04:29, so a bus at two in the morning is still charged against yesterday. Anyone who has already spent £5.25 on buses during the day therefore rides home for nothing, and anyone starting a fresh night out at 05:00 has begun a new day's cap. Our explainer on how contactless caps work has the detail, and if your Oyster credit has run out, the rule that gets you one more bus journey is worth knowing before you need it. The wider night network, including how often each route comes, is in our guide to London's night buses.
What a taxi would cost instead
Transport for London publishes guide fares for licensed black cabs. These are the weekday daytime bands; the evening, weekend and night tariffs are higher, so treat them as the floor rather than the price.
| Distance | Guide fare, weekday daytime |
|---|---|
| 1 mile | £8.40 to £13.00 |
| 2 miles | £12.60 to £20.20 |
| 4 miles | £21 to £31 |
| 6 miles | £33 to £42 |
The minimum fare is £4.40 at any hour. Booking by phone or app can add up to £2, and there is a £4 surcharge at set times over Christmas and the New Year. Every licensed taxi must have a working card machine and accept contactless with no surcharge, so you should never be told the meter is cash-only. Drivers must accept any hire up to 12 miles or one hour within Greater London. For a group of four at three in the morning in the rain, a cab across central London is a defensible £30; for two people it is about £25 more than the bus. Our guides to black cabs, minicabs and Uber and finding a black cab cover the difference between a hailed taxi and a booked minicab, which matters more at night than at any other time.
When walking is the right answer
Central London is smaller than the Tube map makes it look, and after midnight the streets between Covent Garden, Soho, Holborn and the Strand are busy and lit. Several pairs of stations are quicker on foot than by train even in the daytime, and at night the calculation is not close: our list of stations it is quicker to walk between is the one to read before you wait twenty minutes for a bus that would carry you four hundred metres. Twenty-five minutes on foot from Soho to Waterloo beats the same trip by two buses. Sensible limits apply: know the route before you set off rather than following a phone screen, and see getting home late in London for the rest.
If you have a suitcase, a train to catch or an airport to reach
A night bus with luggage is hard work. There is no rack, the aisle is narrow and the top deck is the wrong place for a case; our guide to luggage on the Tube applies just as much to a bus at 2am. If you are heading for an early flight, the N9 between Aldwych and Heathrow runs every night, takes well over an hour and costs £1.75.
Main-line stations are a separate problem, because the last train out of London can be hours before the last Tube. One useful exception: Thameslink runs through the night on the route between London and Luton Airport Parkway, calling at St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars and London Bridge, so the north-south spine through the City has a train when the Underground does not. Thameslink explained sets out where it goes. For everything else, the honest answer is that you wait for the first train, and our guide to London after dark lists what is open while you do.
Frequently asked questions
Do London night buses run every night of the week?
Yes, all seven, which is the difference between them and the Night Tube. The trains run only on Friday and Saturday nights; the N-prefixed buses run on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights too. Some routes make about a third fewer journeys on a weekday night, so the waits are longer, but the fare is the same £1.75 on every one of them.
Which night bus goes to Morden, Edgware or Cockfosters?
The N155 from Aldwych finishes at Morden station, the N5 from Trafalgar Square finishes at Edgware, and the N91 from Whitehall finishes at Cockfosters station. In each case the bus ends at the same place as the Underground line, which makes them the simplest replacements to remember.
Is the Night Tube available from Heathrow?
Only from Terminal 5, and only on Friday and Saturday nights. The Piccadilly line's night service runs one branch, Cockfosters to Terminal 5, covering 38 of the line's 53 stations, with no service to Terminal 4 and none on the Uxbridge branch. From Terminal 4 at night the options are the N9 bus or a taxi.
How much is a taxi across London at night?
Transport for London's guide fares put four miles at £21 to £31 on the weekday daytime tariff, and the evening, weekend and night tariffs are higher, so budget above that range. The minimum fare is £4.40, booking by app can add up to £2, and every licensed taxi must accept contactless payment without a surcharge.
Do the daily fare caps still apply in the middle of the night?
Yes, but they belong to the previous day. The travel day runs from 04:30 to 04:29, so a bus taken at 02:00 counts towards the £5.25 bus cap for the day that began the previous morning. If you reached the cap before going out, the journey home is free.
Sources
- Transport for London - Night Tube lines and stations (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Unified API, every bus route with its origin and destination (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Unified API, night route stop sequences (N3, N5, N8, N15, N18, N91, N98, N155, N205, N207, N550) (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Taxi fares and guide fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Bus and tram fares and the Hopper fare (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Capping and the 04:30 travel day (checked September 2026)