Buckingham Palace Opening Times 2026

Buckingham Palace is not a year-round attraction, and almost every page that treats it as one is quietly wrong. Here is what Royal Collection Trust has actually published for 2026, what is a pattern rather than a promise, and what is open on the days the State Rooms are not.

Status as of 1 August 2026. The summer opening dates are confirmed. The hourly times are widely reported but we could not read them on rct.uk directly, and we say so below rather than dress a secondary source up as a primary one.

Confirmed: 9 July – 27 September 2026

Royal Collection Trust’s own wording on its Buckingham Palace page is unambiguous: “Buckingham Palace’s magnificent State Rooms open to visitors each summer. Dates for 2026 are 9 July – 27 September. During the rest of the year the Palace only opens on selected dates for exclusive guided tours.”

Its press release of 8 July 2026 adds the days of the week:

• July and August — open seven days a week
• September — open five days a week, Thursday to Monday, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

That is eleven weeks of general public access in a 52-week year.

Hourly times — reported, not verified

Opening hours circulating consistently across travel sources put the Palace at 09:30–19:30 daily from 9 July to 31 August, and 09:30–18:30 Thursday–Monday from 1 to 27 September, with admission in 15-minute timed slots.

We could not load those hours on an rct.uk page directly, so treat them as medium confidence. What we can state from the primary source is the mechanism: entry is by a selected time slot, you are asked to arrive at the time on your ticket rather than earlier, and the platform listing states plainly that late arrivals cannot be admitted.

The pattern behind the dates

The summer opening has run every year since 1993, and the shape barely moves: a window of roughly ten to eleven weeks from mid-July to late September.

• 2026 — 9 July – 27 September (confirmed)
• 2025 — 10 July – 28 September
• 2023 — 14 July – 24 September

That is a pattern, not a schedule. It is useful for guessing whether a trip in, say, August 2027 is likely to work, and useless as a basis for booking anything. Royal Collection Trust sets the season around the Royal Household’s calendar, and it announces when it announces.

How long to allow once you are in

Royal Collection Trust’s own advice: between two and two and a half hours. That covers the 19 State Rooms at your own pace with the multimedia guide, plus the exit route, which is a walk of roughly half a kilometre through the garden on gravel rather than a door.

Add roughly half an hour for the queue on top — that is the figure recent reviewers keep citing, even holding a pre-booked ticket. If you add Royal Collection Trust’s East Wing Highlights Tour, RCT says that is about another hour, so budget three to three and a half hours for the pair.

What opens the rest of the year

For about forty-one weeks a year, the State Rooms are shut to general visitors. These are the alternatives, and two of them are considerably more available than the Palace itself:

The Changing of the Guard runs through the seasons, costs nothing, and needs no ticket. The Household Division lists the King’s Guard change on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, lasting about 45 minutes, with the caveat that it can be cancelled at very short notice in wet weather — a decision that can be made as late as 10:45 on the day. Our ceremony guide covers the timings and the disputed start time in full.

The Royal Mews is a working stable on Buckingham Palace Road housing the 260-year-old Gold State Coach, with a free multimedia tour included. It was listed as open daily at the time of writing, but it closes for part of the winter, so check the dates you are travelling.

The King’s Gallery, also on Buckingham Palace Road, runs changing exhibitions from the Royal Collection and was likewise listed as open daily. Its 2026 exhibition marking the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth was extended because of demand.

Exclusive guided tours of the State Rooms and of the East Wing run on selected dates outside the summer season, sold direct by Royal Collection Trust in very small numbers. The East Wing version is a 90-minute tour that enters through the front gates and across the forecourt.

St James’s Palace was listed as closed, with occasional guided tours only.

The one date that is not published

Royal Collection Trust does not publish 2027 dates while the 2026 season is running, and nobody else has them either. If you find a page giving you exact 2027 State Rooms dates today, it invented them from the pattern above. The honest planning answer for a 2027 trip is mid-July to late September, probably — and check rct.uk when it announces.

Written 1 August 2026. The 2026 dates and the July/August-daily versus September-Thursday-to-Monday pattern come from rct.uk’s Buckingham Palace visit page and its 8 July 2026 press release. The “allow 2 to 2½ hours” figure and the half-kilometre garden exit are quoted from RCT’s own practical-information page. Hourly opening times are from secondary travel sources and are flagged as unverified. Changing of the Guard days, duration and the wet-weather cancellation clause are from householddivision.org.uk. Prior-year dates are historical record. Seasons and hours change without notice — confirm on rct.uk before booking flights. This is an independent guide with no affiliation to the Royal Collection Trust or Buckingham Palace.