Museums and galleries across the UK have offered free admission since 2001 – but that all may be about to change for tourists.
In a new proposal currently under consideration by the Labour government, these tourist attractions may start charging foreigners.
This includes big names such as the British Museum, Design Museum, National Gallery, Tate and Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.
Elsewhere in the country, it’ll affect the National Museums Liverpool, Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and National Coal Mining Museum for England in West Yorkshire.
But now, a tour operator chief has said this new rule will spell disaster in more ways than one.
Mark Brown, the co-founder and owner of private tour operator LetMeShowYouLondon.com, has argued this would not only place financial strain on institutions and create practical on-the-door challenges, but would also affect foreigners living in the UK.
He says: ‘My wife and business partner, Denisa, is Czech. She has lived in the UK for 15 years. She pays UK income tax, and she runs a successful business here.
‘Under any scheme that charges international visitors at the museum door, she would need to prove she is not a tourist every time she walks into a gallery. How does she do that? Show a utility bill? Produce her passport? What if she has both a Czech and a British residency document? Who is trained to decide if she pays?
Museums across the UK, including the British Museum (pictured) may begin to charge entry for foreign guests
Mark Brown, the co-founder and owner of private tour operator LetMeShowYouLondon.com, has warned of the detrimental impact of charging such entry fees for international visitors
‘Now extends that question – what about a British expat visiting from Sydney? Their passport is British, but their home is in Australia. Are they a resident or a tourist?
‘What about a French PhD student three years into their programme at UCL? They pay UK rent and UK tax, but their passport is French.
‘An American with an Irish passport visiting family in London? An Indian professional living in the UK on a two-year work visa?
‘These are not edge cases designed to expose a policy flaw, but rather the kinds of visitors we work with every week. A significant proportion of London’s daily visitors aren’t easily identified as residents or tourists.’
Mark added: ‘The V&A South Kensington welcomed approximately 3.4 million visitors in 2024-25, with nearly half of them from overseas. Tristram Hunt, the museum’s director, has publicly supported a visitor levy but in the form of an accommodation-linked tax, not a charge on entrance.
‘There is a reason for that; running residency checks on millions of visitors annually isn’t sensible or practical. The queue implications alone would undo everything free entry was designed to achieve.
‘At a moment when the National Gallery has suggested it’s looking at voluntary redundancies, introducing a system which requires more staff seems perverse.’
Mark added that the free entry is essential.
The fees could affect museums that are currently free to the public, such as the Natural History Museum in London (pictured)
National museums are a huge part of London’s appeal – and entry fees could cause practical and financial issues. Pictured is the National Portrait Gallery
He explained: ‘The principle of free museum entry in the UK is not an accident. The British Museum was founded in 1753 on the principle of public access. Sir Hans Sloane famously bequeathed his collection, and the act of parliament that established it opened the museum to “all studious and curious persons.”
‘When Tony Blair’s government introduced free entry in 2001, for a range of attractions, it was an evolution of a heritage started centuries before.’
There are financial advantages too.
He went on to say: ‘The economic case stacks up, too. Visitor numbers increased by an average of 70 per cent within a year of free entry starting. Free entry drives footfall, footfall drives café and shop revenue, and for a business like mine, guiding thousands of visitors through these institutions every year, free access is part of what makes London one of the most visited cities on earth. The argument for keeping entry free isn’t sentimental, it’s grounded in logic.
‘But there is a tension here that we need to be honest about, and while the principle is good, the underlying funding model is broken. Defending free entry without addressing how we pay for it is naive.’