Buckingham Palace State Rooms

The State Rooms open to visitors from 9 July to 27 September 2026 — seven days a week through July and August, then Thursday to Monday in September, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That is the entire window of general public access to the inside of Buckingham Palace in a calendar year.

Everything on this page hangs off that date range. If your trip falls outside it, the interior is not an option and the honest advice is to skip straight to the Changing of the Guard, which runs through the seasons and costs nothing.

What the State Rooms actually are

They are the formal, public half of the building — the rooms used, in the operator’s own phrasing, to receive, reward and entertain guests on state, ceremonial and official occasions. Nineteen of them are on the visitor route.

For scale: royal.uk puts the Palace at 775 rooms in total — 19 State Rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms — behind a front 108 metres wide and 24 metres high. So the visitor route is genuinely a small, deliberate slice of the building, and the private apartments where the Royal Family lives are never part of it.

What you walk through: the Grand Staircase, the Throne Room, the White Drawing Room, the Ballroom and the Picture Gallery. What is in them, per the operator’s listing: paintings by Rembrandt and Rubens, sculpture by Canova, Sèvres porcelain and some of the finest English and French furniture in existence, all drawn from the Royal Collection.

What is new for 2026

There is a genuine reason to go this year that did not apply last year. Royal Collection Trust announced on 8 July 2026 that the Picture Gallery has been rehung, with the number of paintings on display almost doubled from 63 to around 120 — including works by Rubens, Caravaggio and Zoffany — against new silk wall coverings and new lighting. RCT says the re-hang took roughly 875 hours and the intention was to bring the room closer to its historic appearance.

Two smaller additions this season: a Rolls-Royce Phantom IV displayed in the Grand Entrance Portico, and a new garden information trail included with standard admission.

How long to allow

Royal Collection Trust’s own published advice is between two and two and a half hours, and that is the number to plan against rather than any figure you see on a travel blog. Some guides quote 90 minutes for the State Rooms; RCT’s own practical-information page does not agree with them.

The part nobody warns you about is the exit. You do not leave by a door — the route out is a walk of roughly half a kilometre through the garden, on gravel. Wear shoes accordingly. It is also where the only toilets and baby-care facilities on the route are, which is worth knowing before you go in with children.

Real visits land either side of the estimate. One recent reviewer reports doing the whole thing in an hour and a half without feeling rushed; anyone who listens to every stop on the multimedia guide will use the full allowance comfortably.

Then add the queue. Multiple reviewers describe around thirty minutes of queuing even holding a pre-booked ticket, and admission is in narrow timed slots with the listing stating that late arrivals cannot be admitted. Arrive well before your slot, not at it.

There is no guide inside

This surprises people who have paid extra for a guided product, so it is worth stating clearly: guides are not permitted inside Buckingham Palace.

One tour operator says so in its own listing, in almost those words — after the guided walk outside, the guide leads you to the palace entrance, verifies your ticket, hands over an audio guide, and you go in alone. That applies to every product on the market. The $44 official ticket and the $72 guided combination both put you through the same 19 rooms with the same handset.

The handset is good, to be fair. It runs in nine languages — English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Portuguese — with British Sign Language and audio-descriptive versions also available, plus a separate children’s version that reviewers travelling with kids single out as genuinely well made rather than a token gesture.

The one real guided option is Royal Collection Trust’s own East Wing Highlights Tour, and it is worth knowing about even though we cannot sell it to you.

The East Wing tour, and why you cannot book it here

Since July 2025 the East Wing Highlights Tour has offered the first-ever public access to the Centre Room — the room that opens onto the famous balcony — along with the Yellow Drawing Room and the Principal Corridor. Royal Collection Trust confirmed in July 2026 that East Wing tours continue this summer.

It is guided, lasts about an hour by RCT’s own figure, and afterwards you are escorted to the start of your self-guided State Rooms visit — so budget three to three and a half hours for the combination. It is capped at 20 places per tour, and RCT prices it at £90 per adult, which includes the 60-minute guided tour of the East Wing. For comparison, standard State Rooms admission on its own is £32 in advance (£35 on the day), and the £15-per-adult Garden Highlights Tour is an add-on that has to be booked alongside a State Rooms ticket rather than bought separately.

You cannot buy it through us or through any platform. RCT’s listing is explicit that it is not a group product and is not for purchase or resale by third parties, with any such orders cancelled. It goes on sale on rct.uk on a first-come, first-served basis, and it sells out fast. There is no ballot, whatever you may have read elsewhere.

The rules people find out about at the door

No photography. Royal Collection Trust states flatly that you cannot take photographs within Buckingham Palace, and the platform listing extends the ban to video, filming and wearable devices even for non-commercial use. The garden is the exception — non-commercial photography there is actively encouraged, and since the garden is the exit route, that is where every visitor photograph of Buckingham Palace you have ever seen was taken.

Bags. Maximum size 45 × 20 × 30 cm, carried at your side rather than worn on your back. Suitcases and oversized bags are refused entry outright; RCT itself points visitors at the luggage storage in Victoria Station. Knives, scissors, long umbrellas, aerosols and sealed alcohol must be checked in and reclaimed. Bicycles, scooters, skateboards and drones are not admitted at all.

Pushchairs. Not permitted in the State Rooms for safety reasons — they are checked in at the door and collected at the exit. Baby carriers and hip seats can be borrowed free of charge, subject to availability.

Access. If you need a step-free access route, the listing says you must book directly with Royal Collection Trust rather than through a platform, and the same applies to complimentary companion tickets. Green Park is the nearest step-free Underground station.

Food. No eating or drinking inside except bottled water. There is a café on the garden route at the end — one reviewer’s only complaint about the entire visit was a stale muffin, which tells you something about how good the rest of it is.

Which ticket, then?

All three routes into the building walk the same rooms, so the choice is about what is bundled outside:

• Official entrance ticket, about $44 — Royal Collection Trust’s own product, GetYourGuide’s Official ticket flag, 4.6 from 7,890 verified reviews. The default.
• Entry plus a royal-London audio app, about $54 — the same admission with a self-paced commentary for the rest of the day.
• Entry plus a live guided walk, about $72–73 — the same admission with a guide for St James’s Park and The Mall beforehand.

And one reason to buy direct from rct.uk instead of any of them: Royal Collection Trust lets you convert a ticket into a 1-Year Pass by asking for the purchase to be treated as a donation, and its terms exclude tickets booked through a tour operator or ticket agent. If free re-admission for twelve months is worth more to you than the platform’s free-cancellation window, buy at source. Our tickets page works through the full price ladder.

Ready to book a slot inside the eleven-week window? Check live availability and prices — free cancellation up to 2 days before.

We are not affiliated with the Royal Collection Trust. This is an independent visitor guide with no affiliation to, endorsement from, or connection with the Royal Collection Trust, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Household or the Household Division. We use no royal emblem, crest or cypher. Tickets shown here are sold by GetYourGuide, and we earn a commission if you book through our links at no extra cost to you. Where GetYourGuide flags a product as an “official ticket”, that flag describes the ticket and its operator — not this website.

Written 1 August 2026. The 2026 dates (9 July – 27 September) and the July/August-daily versus September-Thursday-to-Monday pattern come from rct.uk and its 8 July 2026 press release. “Allow 2 to 2½ hours”, the half-kilometre garden exit, the photography ban, the pushchair rule and the 45 × 20 × 30 cm bag limit are quoted from Royal Collection Trust’s own practical-information page. The Picture Gallery re-hang figures and the East Wing tour details are from RCT’s own 2026 event page and press release. The pound prices — £90 per adult for the East Wing Tour, £32 advance / £35 on-the-day standard admission and the £15 Garden Highlights add-on — were read at source on rct.uk / tickets.rct.uk and re-confirmed 1 August 2026; RCT revises prices between seasons, so confirm before booking. The 775-room breakdown and building dimensions are from royal.uk. Tour prices, ratings, review counts and reviewer quotes come from the booking platform’s own listings, captured in 2026, and change over time. Opening dates and entry rules change without notice — confirm on rct.uk before booking flights.