The UK government has confirmed that entry to the country’s 15 national museums will remain free for everyone, with plans to introduce admission charges for international visitors dropped.
The announcement was made by Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, at an event hosted by Art Fund and the Cultural Policy Unit at Tate Liverpool.
It comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of universal free entry to the permanent collections of national museums, a policy introduced on 1 December 2001.
The decision follows months of debate over the future of free admission. Earlier this year, the government said it would explore the possibility of charging international visitors as museums faced mounting financial pressures. Museum leaders and sector bodies had warned that such a move could affect visitor numbers, accessibility and the wider visitor economy.
The 15 DCMS-sponsored national museums currently provide free entry to their permanent collections. Government figures recorded 42 million visits across sponsored museums and galleries in 2024/25, while self-generated income across the institutions reached £563 million that year.
The institutions covered include the British Museum, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate, V&A, Wallace Collection, Imperial War Museums, Royal Museums Greenwich, Science Museum Group and Sir John Soane’s Museum, among others.
Free admission has long sat alongside income generated through ticketed exhibitions, shops, cafés, donations, memberships and private giving.
Nandy said:
“Our museums are the places that light up the world. They remind us of our shared history, and enable us to step outside the confines of our lives.”
She added that the national collections “must be free, forever, for everyone to access”, reaffirming the government’s commitment to the policy introduced by the previous Labour government in 2001.
The announcement also rules out a separate charging system for overseas visitors, an idea that had been under consideration as part of wider discussions around the financial sustainability of national museums.
The anniversary comes at a difficult moment for the sector, with national institutions facing increased running costs, pressure on public funding and continuing debate around how free access can be sustained over the long term. A parliamentary inquiry earlier this year highlighted the increasingly fragile financial environment facing DCMS-sponsored museums.
For now, however, one of the defining principles of the UK’s national museum system remains intact: access to permanent collections without an admission charge, regardless of where visitors come from.
Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director, National Gallery, said:
“Free entry to national museums is one of the UK’s greatest cultural assets: it enables millions to visit, enjoy and learn. Thanks to free entry our museums are a deeply integral part of national life and free entry to museums is widely admired among our museum peers internationally”
Dame Bridget Riley, artist, said:
“It is wonderful news that the National Museums Collections will maintain free entry. One cannot overestimate the immense value of being able to drop in to look at a painting and refresh the mind and spirit. We have done the right thing.”
