Liverpool Street is now the busiest railway station in Britain: Network Rail's own figure is around 80 million passengers a year through 17 platforms on the eastern edge of the City of London. It is the London end of the Stansted Express, a main stop on the Elizabeth line, and about five minutes' walk from Spitalfields. It is also staffed 24 hours a day and has a ticket office that opens before four in the morning, which makes it the most useful terminal in London for an awkward flight.
Physically it is straightforward once you understand one thing: the platforms are below the level of the street entrances, so you come in at the top and go down. Everything else, the shops, the bus station, the Underground and the Elizabeth line, hangs off that arrangement. Which London station serves where is set out in our guide to London's main railway terminals.
Liverpool Street in the concourse
- Platforms
- 1 to 17, below the level of the main entrances
- Main destinations
- Stansted Airport, Cambridge, Norwich, Colchester, Ipswich, Southend and Essex
- Underground
- Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan
- Elizabeth line
- Deep platforms below the station, with a second exit at Moorgate
- Step-free rating
- Category A on the main line; no step-free access to the Central line or the westbound Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City platforms
- Ticket office
- By platform 10; from 03:10 on Monday, 04:00 Tuesday to Thursday and 03:40 Friday to Sunday, until 01:00
- Staff on duty
- 24 hours, every day
- Left luggage
- Daily 07:00-23:00, from £10.00 per item for up to 3 hours
- Lost property
- Daily 07:00-23:00, unlike most London terminals
- Toilets
- Free, outside the ticket barriers
Six exits, and the two that matter
The station map names six ways out, and they lead to places with quite different characters.
- Bishopsgate (West), exit 1. The main front door, out on to Bishopsgate itself. Turn left and north and you are at Spitalfields Market in about five minutes, with Brick Lane a few minutes further; turn right and south and you are walking into the City towards the Gherkin and Leadenhall Market.
- Bishopsgate (East), exit 2. The other side of the same street, closer to the bus stops.
- Old Broad Street, exit 3. South-west into the City, the shortest way to Bank and Threadneedle Street.
- Broadgate, exit 4. North-west into the office estate, past the sunken square that becomes an ice rink in winter.
- Sun Street, exit 5. From the Upper Balcony, the quietest exit and the one closest to the northern end of the Broadgate estate.
- Exchange Square. Also from the upper level, on to a raised garden square above the platforms with grass, benches and a view down on to the trains.
For Spitalfields, Brick Lane and the streets north of the station, take Bishopsgate West and walk north. Our guides to Shoreditch and to Dennis Severs' House, which is on Folgate Street two minutes from that exit, cover what is up there; the food is dealt with in eating near Liverpool Street.
Exchange Square is the best place in any London terminus to kill twenty minutes. Up the escalator to the Upper Balcony, out through the Exchange Square exit, and you are on a lawn above the platforms with seats, trees and nobody selling you anything. No charge, no roof, and ninety seconds from the concourse.
Photo: Øyvind Holmstad · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
The Underground, and the part of it that is not step-free
Four Underground lines meet here. The Central line has its own entrances and its own deep platforms; the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines share a pair of sub-surface platforms just below the main concourse, numbered as part of the station.
Network Rail states the position on access plainly: there is step-free access to all National Rail platforms, and none to the Central line or to the westbound Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City platforms. TfL's own station data agrees: only the eastbound sub-surface platform is step-free. So if you are travelling with wheels and heading west towards King's Cross or Paddington, this is not the station to change at; the Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City guide has the alternatives.
The Elizabeth line is the exception and the reason to come here at all with luggage. Its platforms lie deep below the station and are step-free from street to train, and they have two sets of exits: one into Liverpool Street and one that brings you up at Moorgate, several hundred metres away. A train shown as calling at "Liverpool Street" will also let you out at Moorgate, which is closer to the Barbican. Our page on how the Elizabeth line works explains the rest.
The Stansted Express: platform, fare and the tapping trap
Stansted Express trains leave from the eastern platforms and take 48 minutes to the airport, with departures every 15 minutes seven days a week. From Liverpool Street the first train leaves between 03:40 and 04:40 depending on the day, and the last at 23:25, which with a station that is staffed all night makes this a practical place to start a dawn flight.
The important detail is how you pay. Contactless cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay are valid on the Stansted Express and you tap in and out. Oyster is not valid to or from Stansted Airport, although it works perfectly well from Liverpool Street to anywhere in London. That difference between two cards that behave identically everywhere else is the single most common mistake made at this station.
There is a cheaper way, and it is not from here. Trains from Stansted also call at Tottenham Hale, which is about 37 minutes from the airport and sits on the Victoria line for King's Cross, Euston, Oxford Circus and Victoria. The full comparison, including what the coaches cost, is in Stansted to central London.
Where the platform appears
The main departure board hangs above the concourse at the head of the platforms, and because the concourse is wide and the platforms are all in front of you, the walk from board to train is short: two minutes to anything, three at the far ends. Platforms 1 to 10 are on the western side and 11 to 17 on the eastern.
Intercity trains to Norwich and Cambridge tend to be platformed several minutes ahead; the commuter services are announced later and change more often, because this station handles an extraordinary number of departures in the evening peak. Between 17:00 and 18:30 the concourse is full and the balcony above it is the only place with a clear view of the board.
Network Rail's station page listed no building work and no diverted entrances in September 2026, so the layout described here is what you will find. Long-term plans to build above the station have been debated for years; if they proceed, the entrances on Bishopsgate are the ones most likely to change, and it is worth a glance at the station's own signage on arrival.
Left luggage, toilets and lost property
The left luggage office is run by the Excess Baggage Company and opens every day from 07:00 to 23:00, from £10.00 per item for up to three hours and £15.00 for up to 24 hours, with screening on the way in. What sets Liverpool Street apart is lost property: it is open the same daily 07:00 to 23:00, where most London terminals run a weekday office from mid-morning to late afternoon. If you left a bag on an incoming train, this is the best station in London to have done it at. Anything left on the Underground goes through a different system, explained in lost property on London transport.
The toilets are free and outside the ticket barriers, with an accessible unisex toilet and baby changing. Lifts and escalators connect the concourse to the Upper Balcony, the shops and the bus station, and there is a customer information point on the main concourse opposite platforms 8 and 9, with a second assistance meeting point on the eastern side by platform 10.
The quiet coffee is upstairs and at the back. Every chain on the concourse is crowded from 07:00 to 19:00 because the station is a City commuter hub. The Upper Balcony has the same shops with half the people, and Exchange Square outside has none at all.
Step-free access and assistance
The main-line station is Category A: step-free to all 17 platforms, with lifts and escalators between the concourse, the balcony level and the bus station. Staff are on duty 24 hours and assistance can be arranged on the day without booking, or up to two hours ahead through the train operator.
Underground is the weak point, as above: the Central line and the westbound sub-surface platforms have no step-free route. The Elizabeth line is step-free throughout. Our guide to step-free and accessible transport in London covers how to book help and what turn-up-and-go involves.
Frequently asked questions
Is Liverpool Street the busiest station in Britain?
Yes, on Network Rail's own figures: it describes Liverpool Street as Britain's busiest station, serving around 80 million passengers a year. Waterloo held the title for decades and has more platforms, but no longer carries the most people.
Does Oyster work on the Stansted Express?
No. Contactless cards and phone wallets are valid to and from Stansted Airport and you tap in and out, but Oyster is not valid on that stretch. Oyster works normally for journeys from Liverpool Street within London. Trains take 48 minutes to the airport and run every 15 minutes.
Is Liverpool Street station step-free?
The main-line station is, on Network Rail's Category A rating, and so is the Elizabeth line. The Underground is not: Network Rail states there is no step-free access to the Central line or to the westbound Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City platforms, and only the eastbound sub-surface platform has a step-free route.
How far is Spitalfields Market from Liverpool Street station?
About five minutes on foot. Leave by the Bishopsgate (West) exit, turn north along Bishopsgate and take Brushfield Street on the right. Brick Lane is another five to ten minutes beyond it, and Dennis Severs' House on Folgate Street is closer still.
What time does Liverpool Street station open?
It is staffed 24 hours a day and the ticket office opens at 03:10 on Monday, 04:00 from Tuesday to Thursday and 03:40 from Friday to Sunday, closing at 01:00. That makes it one of the few London terminals where you can sit inside in the middle of the night before an early flight.
Sources
- Network Rail - London Liverpool Street station information, passenger numbers and step-free notes (checked September 2026)
- National Rail - London Liverpool Street station facilities (checked September 2026)
- Network Rail - London Liverpool Street station map, July 2025 (checked September 2026)
- Stansted Airport - trains to and from the airport (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Stations, lifts, toilets and step-free data (checked September 2026)