London's Christmas Lights: Where and When

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

Carnaby Street turns its lights on first, on Wednesday 4 November 2026, and Covent Garden follows on Thursday 12 November. Regent Street and Oxford Street had not published their 2026 dates when we checked in September, which is normal: they announce late, and Oxford Street often has no public ceremony at all. All of the displays are free to walk under, and all of them stay lit into the first week of January.

London's Christmas lights are not one event. Each shopping street is run by a different landlord or business association, each pays for its own scheme, and each switches on separately, so the season arrives in instalments over about three weeks in November. Once they are all on, the whole set sits within a walk of under an hour.

Our guide to Christmas in London covers the season as a whole, from the fairs to what closes on 25 December. This page is only about the lights: which street has what, when each one starts, what time of evening to go, and the order to walk them in.

Regent Street: sixteen angels and the oldest display in the city

Regent Street was the first street in central London to hang Christmas lights, in 1954, and it still has the largest scheme. The Crown Estate, which owns the street, calls the installation The Spirit of Christmas, and it is worth knowing what you are looking at before you crane your neck.

The display is a single canopy running the whole length of the street, from Langham Place at the top to Waterloo Place at the bottom of Regent Street St James's. Inside it hang sixteen sculpted figures, hand-made in London, each with a wingspan of 17 metres. They are lit from below by spotlights and studded with small LED lamps that ripple in sequence along the street. The design is a modern version of the trumpeting angels the street used in the 1950s.

Two things follow from the way it is built. First, the best view is from the middle of the road looking north or south along the curve, not from the pavement underneath, which is why the crossings at Oxford Circus and outside Hamleys are permanently full of people with phones. Second, the lights run on a timer from early evening rather than staying on all day, so there is no point arriving at three in the afternoon in December and wondering why nothing is lit. The Crown Estate also decorates the smaller streets nearby, including Glasshouse Street, Swallow Street, Quadrant Arcade, Jermyn Street and St James's Market, and those are far quieter. Our guide to shopping on Regent Street covers what is behind the shopfronts.

Oxford Street: the first Christmas without traffic

Oxford Street's display is run by New West End Company, the business association that also looks after Bond Street, and it is the plainest of the big four: a long run of repeated motifs above the traffic rather than a single sculptural idea.

The traffic is the part that changes this year. Transport for London says preparatory work is already under way, with the target of removing traffic from the stretch that runs from Orchard Street in the west to Great Portland Street in the east by the end of October 2026. That would put the change in place just before the lights go on. Buses are being altered in phases and some routes move away from the street; taxis and private hire vehicles keep operating in the area, though pick-up points shift while the layout changes. If it lands on schedule, walking the lights here will be a different experience from every previous December: no bus lanes to cross, and the whole width of the road available for standing still.

Carnaby Street: one street, one idea, every year

Carnaby switches on earliest, on Wednesday 4 November 2026, and it is the display that changes most from year to year. Rather than hanging lights along the street, Carnaby builds a single large object across it, usually tied to a theme announced a few weeks beforehand, and repeats smaller versions through the surrounding lanes and Kingly Court.

It is also the easiest of the four to photograph, because the street is pedestrianised, short and narrow: you can stand in the middle of it without anybody hooting at you. Come on a weekday evening and you will have space; come on a December Saturday and you will not. Our guide to Carnaby Street and Soho shopping explains what else is on the street, and Liberty, whose Tudor-revival frontage is two minutes away, dresses its windows for the season and costs nothing to walk into.

Covent Garden: the Piazza, and the one with a proper ceremony

Covent Garden holds the switch-on that is actually worth attending as an event. On Thursday 12 November 2026 the estate lights the Piazza and the surrounding streets with live performances and a countdown to the button being pressed. The 2026 theme is "The Theatre of Christmas", which suits an area that has been the centre of London theatre for three centuries.

The Covent Garden scheme is the most three-dimensional of the four. Instead of overhead strings, the estate hangs oversized decorations in the Piazza itself and puts a very large tree in the middle of it, so the lights are at eye level and in the market building rather than above your head. That makes it the best of the four for photographs with people in them, and the worst for crowds, because everybody is standing in the same square rather than spread along a street.

If you want the display without the crush, come on a weekday morning: the decorations are up all day even when the lights are off, and the Piazza before 10am belongs to delivery vans and street cleaners. Our guides to shopping in Covent Garden and Seven Dials and to the Seven Dials lanes cover the streets leading off it, which have their own smaller schemes.

The Trafalgar Square tree, and the part most visitors miss

The tree is a gift from Norway, given every year since 1947, and our page on the wider festive season explains why. What is less well known is how much of the process is public.

According to City Hall, the tree is a Norway spruce of over 20 metres, between 50 and 60 years old, chosen from the forests around Oslo years in advance. It is felled in November at a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor of Westminster, the British ambassador to Norway and the Mayor of Oslo, comes to Britain by sea and then by lorry, and is put up in the square with a hydraulic crane. It is decorated in the Norwegian manner, with vertical strings of energy-efficient bulbs and nothing else, and the lighting itself is a December ceremony of its own.

Then come the choirs. City Hall runs hour-long carol singing sessions at the foot of the tree throughout December, performed by choirs who apply for a slot in advance, and anyone can stand and listen. This is the closest thing London has to free live Christmas music on a fixed schedule, and it is the reason to come back to Trafalgar Square in the evening rather than passing through it in daylight. When the season ends the tree is taken down just before Twelfth Night, chipped and composted.

The walk: all four displays in about an hour

The four main schemes sit in a rough square, and this is the order that works. It starts at the top, goes downhill, and ends at the tree.

1. Oxford Circus. Arrive by Tube and start at the crossroads, where two of the four schemes meet at right angles. Ten minutes.
2. West along Oxford Street to Selfridges and back, or skip it if you have no interest in the shops. Twenty minutes there and back.
3. Turn south and follow Regent Street downhill as far as Piccadilly Circus, with the curve of the facades pulling the canopy of lights into one long line ahead of you. Fifteen minutes at a slow pace.
4. Turn off into Carnaby at the Great Marlborough Street end, then come back out through Kingly Court. Ten minutes.
5. East through Soho and Leicester Square to Covent Garden. Twelve minutes.
6. South-west to Trafalgar Square for the tree. Eight minutes.

Done without stopping, that is about fifty minutes of walking. Done properly, with a detour into Liberty and a stop for something hot, it fills an evening. Our guide to walking in central London makes the general case that the Tube is slower than it looks between these particular stations, and in December, with the platforms full of shopping bags, it is slower still.

What time to go, and the evenings to avoid

By late November it is dark in London before 4.30pm, so the lights are effective from mid-afternoon onwards. The useful window is between about 4.30pm and 6pm: dark enough for the display, early enough that the offices have not emptied.

After 6pm on a weekday the pavements fill with people going home and people going out at the same time. Saturdays from the end of November onwards are the worst of all, and the middle of December is worse again; our guide to Christmas shopping in London names the exact days to keep clear of. Sunday evenings are the quietest: the large shops must close by 6pm under English trading law, so the streets empty early while the lights stay on.

Lights that are not in the West End

Three other kinds of display are worth knowing about, and they behave differently from the shopping streets.

Ticketed light trails. These are evening walks through a garden or estate with installations along the route, and they cost money, sell out and need booking weeks ahead. Kew's is the best known; our guide to Kew at Christmas and London's light trails covers the options and what they cost.

Riverside and South Bank. The stretch between the London Eye and the Southbank Centre puts up a winter market with its own lighting each year, and the walk along the river is wider, flatter and far less crowded than Oxford Street. It also gives you the best free night view in London, across the water to Westminster.

Mayfair and the quieter squares. Bond Street's scheme is run by the same organisation as Oxford Street's and is usually the most restrained in the city; see our guide to Bond Street and Mayfair. The garden squares behind it are dark and empty, which is exactly why some people prefer them.

When they go up and when they come down

The pattern is stable from year to year even when the exact dates are not. Installation crews start hanging the schemes in the second half of October, which is why you may see scaffolding and cherry pickers over Regent Street while Halloween is still going on. The switch-ons run from the first week of November to about the middle of the month.

The displays then stay lit every evening, including on 25 December when almost everything else in London is shut and the streets are empty enough to photograph. They are usually still on for the Boxing Day sales, and come down in the first week of January. If your trip is in the first week of the new year, check the individual street's website rather than assuming: the schemes switch off on different dates.

For the wider calendar either side of the lights, see our month guides to November and December, and our list of things to do in London that cost nothing.

Frequently asked questions

When do London's Christmas lights get switched on in 2026?

Carnaby Street switches on on Wednesday 4 November 2026 and Covent Garden on Thursday 12 November 2026. Regent Street and Oxford Street had not published their dates in September 2026; both normally light in the first half of November, and Oxford Street usually has no public ceremony.

Are the Christmas lights in London free to see?

Yes. The four big schemes are all hung over public highway, in Covent Garden and on Regent, Oxford and Carnaby streets, and the Trafalgar Square tree and its carol singing are free as well. Only the garden light trails, such as the one at Kew, charge for entry, and those need booking in advance.

What time do the Christmas lights come on in London?

From early evening, on timers rather than all day. In practice they are useful from about 4pm in late November and December, when it is already dark. The quietest hour to walk them is between roughly 4.30pm and 6pm on a weekday, before the after-work crowds build.

How long does it take to walk all of London's Christmas lights?

About fifty minutes of walking from Oxford Circus down Regent Street, through Carnaby Street and Soho to Covent Garden, and on to Trafalgar Square. Allow two to three hours if you want to stop, look in the shop windows and eat something on the way.

When are the Christmas lights taken down in London?

Usually in the first week of January, around Twelfth Night. The Trafalgar Square tree is removed just before Twelfth Night and recycled into wood chip and compost. The shopping streets set their own dates, so check the individual street's website if you are visiting in early January.

Sources

• Carnaby - Christmas on Carnaby Street and the light switch-on (checked September 2026)
• Covent Garden - Christmas Lights Switch On, 12 November 2026 (checked September 2026)
• The Crown Estate, Regent Street - The Spirit of Christmas lights (checked September 2026)
• Regent Street - Christmas on Regent Street (checked September 2026)
• London City Hall - Christmas at Trafalgar Square (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Oxford Street area works (checked September 2026)
• New West End Company - Oxford Street and Bond Street (checked September 2026)
• legislation.gov.uk - Sunday Trading Act 1994, Schedule 1 (checked September 2026)