London has 64 night bus routes, numbered with an N in front, and a further set of ordinary routes that simply never stop. They run every night of the week, not just at weekends, they charge the same £1.75 as a daytime bus, and most of them begin or end within a few hundred metres of Trafalgar Square. Between about half past midnight and half past five in the morning, this is how London gets home.
Our guide to London's buses explains how the buses work generally, and the Night Tube covers the five Underground lines that run on Friday and Saturday nights. The night bus network is the thing that fills every other night of the week, and it is much larger and better organised than most visitors assume.
Night buses at a glance
- Routes with an N prefix
- 64 (Transport for London route data, September 2026)
- When they run
- Every night of the week; first departures from about 23:30 to 00:40, last from about 05:10 to 05:40
- Fare
- £1.75 per journey, the same as by day, rising to £1.85 on 1 November 2026
- Daily cap
- £5.25 for buses and trams, counted against the day that began at 04:30
- Hopper fare
- Any further bus or tram within an hour costs nothing extra
- Payment
- Contactless, phone or Oyster only. No cash is accepted
How the network is shaped
Night buses are not scattered at random. Almost all of them run like spokes, out from the middle of London to a suburb, and back. Of the 64 N routes, 19 have Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, Whitehall, Northumberland Avenue or Horse Guards Parade as one end of the line, and another 15 finish on or beside Oxford Street. A handful more terminate at Aldwych, Victoria or Holborn.
That has a practical consequence worth remembering at two in the morning. If you are anywhere in the West End and you do not know which bus you need, walk to Trafalgar Square. Almost every part of London is reachable from there on a single night bus, and the stops around the square carry route lists you can read while you decide.
The numbering helps too. A night route usually shares its number with a daytime route and follows roughly the same road, so the N29 runs the corridor of the 29, and the N15 the corridor of the 15. If you know the bus you took during the day, the N version of it will get you back.
The routes that never stop
Some London bus routes have no night version because they run all twenty-four hours, with the same number by day and by night. Routes 24, 149, 176, 214, 243, 344 and 453 all work this way, with departures beginning around midnight and running right through. They keep their ordinary number, so nothing on the front of the bus tells you they are a night service.
Route 24, between Hampstead and Pimlico by way of Camden, Tottenham Court Road, Trafalgar Square and Victoria, is the one most visitors stumble across, because it links a string of central places at an hour when nothing else is running.
How often they actually come
The gap between night routes is wide, and this is what decides whether waiting is sensible or not. These are the numbers of journeys each route runs in one night, taken from TfL's published timetables in September 2026.
| Route | Runs between | Journeys per night | Roughly every |
|---|---|---|---|
| N29 Trafalgar Square to Enfield | 00:15 to 05:15 | 31 | 10 minutes |
| N15 Oxford Circus to Romford | 00:17 to 04:36 | 26 to 33 | 10 minutes |
| N207 High Holborn to Uxbridge | 23:50 to 05:15 | 22 to 33 | 10 to 15 minutes |
| N155 Aldwych to Morden | 23:52 to 05:12 | 17 | 20 minutes |
| N38 Victoria to Walthamstow | 00:40 to 05:40 | 12 to 16 | 20 to 25 minutes |
| N11 Horse Guards Parade to Ealing | 00:05 to 04:05 | 9 | 30 minutes |
A route running every ten minutes is a perfectly good way to get home. A route running every half hour is not something to gamble on in the cold, and the difference is impossible to guess from the map. Check the live times in TfL Go or on the countdown display at the stop before you commit.
Friday and Saturday nights have more buses than Tuesday nights. Several routes add extra journeys at weekends: the N15 runs 33 times on a Friday or Saturday night against 26 on a weekday night, and the N207 runs 33 against 22. The network exists every night, but the waits are shorter when London is actually out.
Getting on one
The mechanics differ slightly from a daytime bus, and one detail causes most of the trouble.
- Hold your arm out. At night, drivers will not stop unless someone signals, even at a stop with a shelter. Stand where the driver can see you and put your hand out as the bus approaches.
- Board at the front only. The middle doors are not used for boarding after dark on most routes.
- Touch in once and do not touch out. Buses charge a flat fare regardless of distance, so there is only one reader, by the driver.
- No cash, at any hour. Have a contactless card, a phone or an Oyster card in your hand before you board.
- Check the destination on the front. Night routes are long, and some run only part of the way at certain hours.
One useful safety net: an Oyster card that does not have enough credit is allowed one more bus journey before it must be topped up. That rule has rescued a great many people at 3am, but it works once, and then the card has to be topped up at a station or an Oyster Ticket Stop. Our explainer on how pay as you go charging works covers the rest.
What a night out costs on the bus
A night bus costs £1.75, the same as any other bus, and there is no night surcharge of any kind. If you change buses, the Hopper fare means the second journey within an hour is free, so most journeys home across London cost £1.75 in total even with a change at Trafalgar Square.
The travel day runs from 04:30 to 04:29, so a bus you catch at 2am counts against the previous day's bus cap of £5.25. If you already reached that cap during the day, the ride home costs nothing at all. Our guide to London's zones and caps explains the timing.
Set that against the alternative. A black cab across central London at night runs on a higher tariff, and Transport for London's own guide fares put a four-mile daytime trip at £21 to £31 before the night rate is applied. For two people the bus is a saving of about £20 and costs perhaps twenty minutes; for four people at 3am in the rain, a taxi starts to look reasonable. Our guide to black cabs, minicabs and Uber covers booking one safely.
The airport route: the N9
One night bus is genuinely useful to visitors rather than to Londoners. The N9 runs between Heathrow Terminal 5, Heathrow Central Bus Station and Aldwych, passing Hammersmith, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
It runs every night. First departures are at about 23:43 or 23:45 and the last leaves at around 04:45, or 05:15 on a Sunday morning. There are only 11 to 16 journeys a night, so the gap is roughly twenty minutes, and the whole trip takes well over an hour. At £1.75 it is by a wide margin the cheapest way between Heathrow and central London at any hour, and for an early flight it fills the gap before the first Piccadilly line train.
It is not comfortable with large suitcases, and the upstairs deck is not the place to take them. Our comparison of late-night and early-morning airport transport sets the N9 against the alternatives at all five London airports, and first and last Tube trains tells you when the rail options restart.
Is it safe?
Night buses in London are busy, lit, driven by a professional and covered by cameras. They are used by thousands of people a night, including a great many women travelling alone, and most of the time they are unremarkable.
The things that make them feel better are small. The lower deck near the driver is the calmest part of the bus. The front seats upstairs are the best view in London at night and the furthest from help, which is a trade-off you can make consciously. Know your stop before you board, because working out where you are from a moving bus at 3am is harder than it sounds, and dozing off is the most common way people end up at a bus garage in Walthamstow.
If something happens, call 999 in an emergency, or 101 for the police when it is not urgent. TfL's own advice for buses is to speak to the driver. Our pages on how safe London is and how pickpockets work cover the wider picture, and emergency numbers in London lists who to call for what.
The last night bus is earlier than you think. Most N routes make their final departure from the centre between 05:10 and 05:40, and the gap before the first daytime buses is short but real. If you are out until dawn, check the last departure of your route rather than assuming buses run continuously into the morning.
Planning a night out around the buses
The practical approach is to decide your route home before you go out, not after. Put your accommodation into TfL Go or Journey Planner at around the time you expect to leave, note the route number and the stop letter, and screenshot it. Bus stops in London are identified by a letter on the flag, and at a large interchange such as Trafalgar Square the difference between stop F and stop N is a two-minute walk you will not want to make twice.
If your evening ends in Soho, you are five minutes' walk from the biggest concentration of night routes in the city, which is one more argument for finishing the night in the West End rather than on the far side of a river crossing. Our guides to where to go out in London and London after dark cover the evening itself, and late-night food deals with the hour before the bus.
Frequently asked questions
Do London night buses run every night?
Yes. Unlike the Night Tube, which runs only on Friday and Saturday nights, the night bus network operates seven nights a week. Timetables are thinner on Monday to Thursday nights than at weekends, with some routes running a third fewer journeys, but every N route runs every night.
How much does a night bus cost in London?
£1.75 per journey, the same as a daytime bus, rising to £1.85 on 1 November 2026. There is no night surcharge. The Hopper fare makes any further bus journey within an hour free, and the £5.25 daily bus cap applies to the travel day that started at 04:30.
Where do night buses leave from in central London?
Trafalgar Square is the main hub: 19 of the 64 night routes have one end of the line there or immediately around it, at Charing Cross, Whitehall, Northumberland Avenue or Horse Guards Parade. Another 15 finish on Oxford Street, and a few use Aldwych, Victoria or Holborn.
Can I get from Heathrow to central London by night bus?
Yes, on the N9, which runs every night between Heathrow Terminal 5, Heathrow Central Bus Station and Aldwych via Hammersmith and Piccadilly Circus. First departures are at about 23:45 and the last is around 04:45. It costs £1.75, takes well over an hour and is hard work with large luggage.
Do I need to signal for a night bus to stop?
Yes. At night, drivers stop only if someone clearly signals, so hold your arm out as the bus approaches, even at a stop with a shelter. Board at the front door, touch in once on the yellow reader, and do not touch out when you get off.
Sources
- Transport for London Unified API - bus route data (night route count and termini) (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - bus timetables (journey counts for N5, N9, N11, N15, N29, N38, N155, N207 and 24-hour routes) (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Bus and tram fares and the Hopper fare (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Night Tube (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Taxi fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Bus maps (checked September 2026)