By Harry Nara · Last updated
May, June and September are the best-weather window, and of those September is the one worth booking: 12–20°C, Medium crowds, and £95–155 a day against £80–450 in July for the same eight wet days. That last figure is what most guides miss. London rainfall barely moves between March and September, sitting at eight or nine wet days a month across the whole stretch, so "avoiding the rain" is not a real way to choose a month here. What varies is crowding and price: July and August run Very High crowds, and August alone is £125–210 a day. Pick on the events calendar and the rates instead. November is the value month at Low–Medium crowds and £65–900 a day, though it is the wettest at about fifteen wet days, and January and February are the cheapest at £80–140. Two numbers to budget with: the Zone 1–2 daily Tube cap is £8.90, with a £44.70 seven-day cap, both frozen until March 2027, and buses are £1.75 a journey, rising to £1.85 on 1 November 2026; the Congestion Charge went to £18 on 2 January 2026, £30.50 a day once ULEZ applies.
London Month by Month
| Month | Temperature | Rainy Days | Crowds | Budget / Day | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 3–8°C | 12 days | Low | £80–140 | Budget Travellers & Shoppers |
| February | 3–9°C | 10 days | Low | £80–140 | Couples & Budget Seekers |
| March | 3–12°C | 10 days | Medium | £65–2,000+ | Six Nations, St Patrick, Easter + Spring Visitors |
| April | 6–15°C | 9 days | Medium | £90–150 | Spring Visitors & Marathon Spectators |
| May Best | 9–18°C | 8 days | Medium–High | £95–155 | All Traveller Types |
| June Best | 12–22°C | 8 days | High | £105–170 | Summer Festival Seekers |
| July | 14–24°C | 8 days | Very High | £80–450+ | Tennis Fans & Music Lovers |
| August | 14–23°C | 8 days | Very High | £125–210 | Carnival & Festival Fans |
| September Best | 12–20°C | 8 days | Medium | £95–155 | Smart Travellers & Culture Fans |
| October | 9–16°C | 11 days | Medium | £95–155 | Film Fans & Art Lovers |
| November | 4–12°C | 15 days | Low–Medium | £65–900+ | Bonfire Night, Lord Mayor + Royal Variety Visitors |
| December | 4–9°C | 11 days | High (NYE week Very High) | £80–1,800+ | Christmas Lights, Panto Fans & NYE Visitors |
How to Choose Your Month
September. It holds 12–20°C on about eight wet days, exactly the same rainfall as July, but drops to Medium crowds and £95–155 a day against July’s Very High and £80–450. The BBC Proms run to mid-September, so the Last Night and the closing weeks are still on, and the parks are still in full use while the school-holiday crowds have gone. If you want one week in London and are not tied to a specific event, this is the month with the least compromise in it.
July, with your eyes open about the cost. Wimbledon runs 29 June to 12 July in 2026, with grounds passes sold on the day through The Queue and a same-day resale kiosk from 3pm whose proceeds go to charity. The BBC Proms open in mid-July at the Royal Albert Hall, where £8 standing tickets are sold on the night. Pride fills the centre in early July. It is 14–24°C on eight wet days, but crowds are Very High and rates run £80–450 a day, so this is the month you pay for access rather than for weather.
May and June. May is 9–18°C at £95–155 a day with the Chelsea Flower Show in the third week, one of the great garden events anywhere. June warms to 12–22°C and brings Trooping the Colour, the King’s birthday parade, filling the Mall mid-month, plus the longest evenings of the year. June is High crowds at £105–170 rather than May’s Medium–High, so May is the better value of the pair and June the better light.
January and February, at £80–140 a day with Low crowds, against £125–210 in August. It is 3–9°C on ten to twelve wet days and the daylight is short, which makes this a museums, galleries, pubs and theatre trip. That suits London unusually well, because the National Gallery, the British Museum, Tate Modern and the V and A are all free and all far more pleasant when they are not full. The January sales run through the first weeks of the year.
November, which our badges leave out on weather grounds. It is Low–Medium crowds at £65–900 a day and the month is stacked: Bonfire Night on the 5th, Remembrance Sunday, the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 14th in 2026, which is 698 years of consecutive Lord Mayors processing through the City, the EFG London Jazz Festival across ten days mid-month, and the Christmas lights going up. The honest cost is rain: at about fifteen wet days November is the wettest month of the London year.
December, at 4–9°C on about eleven wet days. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland runs from mid-November with timed-ticket entry from free off-peak to about £8 at peak, Christmas at Kew lights the botanic gardens, and the Trafalgar Square tree, a gift from Norway every year since 1947, is lit in early December. Crowds are High and NYE week Very High, at £80–1,800 a day, but the first three weeks of December are cheaper and calmer than the reputation suggests.
Worst Time to Visit London
November, which is the dark rather than the cold.
Fifteen wet days, twelve degrees, and the light gone by four. London handles rain better than most cities and handles November badly, because it carries all of December’s gloom and none of its compensations. Everything worth doing is indoors and unaffected, and in two weeks the Christmas lights change the arithmetic entirely.
London Season by Season
Spring
Spring is when the calendar restarts and the rates are still reasonable. March is 3–12°C on about ten wet days at Medium crowds, and it is unusually event-dense for a cold month: the Six Nations reaches its final round, St Patrick’s Day fills Trafalgar Square, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race rows the Thames in late March or April depending on the year (Sunday 11 April in 2027), and British Summer Time begins on the last Sunday of the month, which is the moment the evenings open up.
April settles to 6–15°C at £90–150 a day. May is the pick of the three at 9–18°C on about eight wet days, with the Chelsea Flower Show in the third week and the parks properly usable, at Medium–High crowds and £95–155.
Summer
In London you pay for access, not for weather. The rainfall in summer is the same eight wet days a month as spring and autumn; what changes is what is on and what it costs.
June is 12–22°C with Trooping the Colour filling the Mall mid-month and the longest evenings of the year, at High crowds and £105–170 a day. July runs everything at once: 14–24°C, Wimbledon from 29 June to 12 July in 2026, the BBC Proms opening mid-month at the Royal Albert Hall with £8 standing tickets sold on the night, and Pride in early July, at Very High crowds and £80–450 a day. August holds 14–23°C and the Notting Hill Carnival, and is the most expensive month of the year at £125–210 with crowds still Very High.
Autumn
Autumn opens with the best month of the London year and closes with the wettest. September is 12–20°C on about eight wet days at Medium crowds and £95–155 a day, with the Proms running to mid-month: the same rain as July at a fraction of the crowding.
October cools to 9–16°C and brings the BFI London Film Festival and the Frieze Art Fair, at about eleven wet days. November drops to 4–12°C and roughly fifteen wet days, the wettest month of the year, but it is also Low–Medium crowds at £65–900 a day and the densest events month outside summer: Bonfire Night on the 5th, Remembrance Sunday, the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 14th in 2026, the EFG London Jazz Festival, and the Christmas lights switching on.
Winter
Winter here is two different propositions: December, then January and February.
December is 4–9°C on about eleven wet days, with Hyde Park Winter Wonderland running from mid-November on timed-ticket entry from free off-peak to around £8 at peak, Christmas at Kew, and the Trafalgar Square tree that Norway has sent every year since 1947. Crowds are High, Very High in NYE week, at £80–1,800 a day.
Value returns in January and February, at £80–140 a day and Low crowds, 3–9°C on ten to twelve wet days with short daylight.
London absorbs that better than almost any city, because the National Gallery, the British Museum, Tate Modern and the V and A are all free, and all far better without a summer queue. A wet January afternoon is not a lost one here.
Events Worth Planning Around
The dated reasons to pick one month over another. Each has its own page with where to watch, what it costs and how to get there.
- TCS London MarathonSaturday 24 April to Sunday 25 April 2027A World Marathon Major from Greenwich to Westminster, run across two days for the only time in its history
- RHS Chelsea Flower ShowTuesday 18 May to Saturday 22 May 2027The best known flower show there is, where for most of its run you may look at the plants and not buy them.
- The Championships, WimbledonMonday 28 June to Sunday 11 July 2027The oldest tennis tournament in the world, played on grass in south-west London
- Notting Hill CarnivalSunday 29 August to Monday 30 August 2027Europe’s largest street festival, held across the August bank holiday weekend in west London
- Bonfire Night in LondonThursday 5 November 2026Fireworks and bonfires across the city, marking the failure of the Gunpowder Plot
- The Lord Mayor’s ShowSaturday 14 November 2026One of the oldest processions in the world, free to watch through the City of London
- Hyde Park Winter WonderlandThursday 19 November 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027A Christmas funfair, market and ice rink built in Hyde Park each winter
Seasonal Guides
Browse Every Month
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the best time to visit London?
May, June and September are the best-weather months, and September is the one to book if you have a free choice. It runs 12–20°C on about eight wet days at Medium crowds and £95–155 a day, against July’s Very High crowds and £80–450 for identical rainfall. May is the value pick of late spring at 9–18°C with the Chelsea Flower Show, and June brings Trooping the Colour and the longest evenings of the year. If your trip is built around a specific event, that should decide the month instead: Wimbledon and the Proms pin you to July, Bonfire Night and the Lord Mayor’s Show to November, and Winter Wonderland to December.
Does it really rain all the time in London?
Not in the way the reputation suggests, and more importantly the rain does not vary enough between months to be worth choosing on. From March through September London sits at eight or nine wet days a month, flat across seven months, so a June trip is no drier than a September or a May one. The genuine outliers are at the other end of the year: November is the wettest month at about fifteen wet days, October is next at eleven, and January runs twelve. What that means practically is that "when is London driest" is the wrong question. Crowds and price swing far harder across the year than rainfall does, so pick on those and pack a jacket regardless.
What is the cheapest time to visit London?
January and February, at £80–140 a day with Low crowds, against £125–210 in August. Expect 3–9°C, ten to twelve wet days and short daylight, so plan indoors. That is less of a compromise in London than almost anywhere else, because the permanent collections at the National Gallery, the British Museum, Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum and the V and A are all free, and they are far more enjoyable in February than in an August crush. November is the other low-rate month at £65–900 a day with Low–Medium crowds, and it carries a much stronger events calendar, at the cost of being the wettest month of the year.
What does London transport cost?
Tube and rail singles rose on 1 March 2026, a Zone 1 peak single from £2.90 to £3.10, but the caps did not: the Zone 1–2 daily cap on contactless or Oyster is £8.90 and the seven-day cap £44.70, both frozen until March 2027. Buses and trams are £1.75 a journey, rising to £1.85 on 1 November 2026, with the Hopper fare allowing free bus transfers within an hour. Driving is the expensive option: the Congestion Charge rose to £18 on 2 January 2026, and a non-compliant vehicle pays a further £12.50 for ULEZ, so the worst case is £30.50 a day before parking. For a visitor staying central, contactless plus walking covers almost everything and a car is a liability rather than a convenience.
When is Wimbledon and how do I get tickets?
The Championships run 29 June to 12 July in 2026. Most tickets go through a public ballot that closes the previous autumn, but two routes stay open to visitors who did not enter. The Queue at Wimbledon Park sells a limited number of grounds passes on the day, with overnight camping the realistic route for show courts in the second week. The other, less well known, is the same-day resale kiosk, which opens from about 3pm and resells show-court tickets given up by spectators who have left, at a nominal price with the proceeds going to the Wimbledon Foundation. A grounds pass also gets you Henman Hill, which is a good way to spend the day.
Is London worth visiting in winter?
Yes, and it is the best-value season by a distance. December through February runs £80–140 a day in January and February against £125–210 in August, with Low crowds and 3–9°C. The daylight is short and there are ten to twelve wet days a month, so build the trip around interiors: the major museums and galleries are free, the West End is at full strength, and the pubs are doing what they are designed for. December is the exception on price, High crowds and £80–1,800 a day, but the festive programming is real, with Winter Wonderland from mid-November, Christmas at Kew, and the Trafalgar Square tree that Norway has sent every year since 1947.
What is the worst time to visit London?
November, which is the dark rather than the cold. Fifteen wet days, twelve degrees, and the light gone by four. London handles rain better than most cities and handles November badly, because it carries all of December’s gloom and none of its compensations. Everything worth doing is indoors and unaffected, and in two weeks the Christmas lights change the arithmetic entirely.
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