In this guide
Find toilets near you
Shows the closest Zone 1 facilities from the dataset below, with a link to open directions.
Map: Zone 1 public toilets
Show on a map400 Zone 1 facilities · free, paid and unclear
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Data: Great British Public Toilet Map, Zone 1 only. A crowdsourced database — a pin's status can lag reality, so treat this as a starting point.
Nobody plans a London trip around this until the moment they need one, and then it’s the only thing that matters. The good news: London’s public toilet coverage is genuinely good if you know where to look, and most of it costs nothing. This is built directly from the Great British Public Toilet Map’s own database — the same crowdsourced, council-fed dataset that most toilet-finder apps run on — plus the official pages for the parks, boroughs and venues that actually operate them.
💡 The Short Version: About 85% of London’s logged public toilets are free. The main things that charge are the Royal Parks (a flat 20p, card only) and a few market toilets (up to £1) — no major train station currently charges. Community Toilet Scheme pubs, cafes and libraries let anyone in without buying anything, and every major free museum has toilets open to all visitors.
Where you’ll actually pay, and how much
| Where | Charge | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| All 8 Royal Parks (Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, St James’s Park, Green Park, Kensington Gardens, Richmond Park, Greenwich Park, Bushy Park) | 20p | Contactless/card only — the parks removed cash payment, so bring a card or phone wallet specifically for this |
| Camden Market, Stables Market & Hawley Wharf | Up to £1 | Toilets are by the canal side at each site |
| Camden Lock Market | 40p | Standalone, accessible |
| Victoria Embankment Gardens | £1 | Full accessible and Changing Places provision |
| Piccadilly Circus (inside the Tube station) | £1 | — |
| Cutty Sark Gardens, Greenwich | 50p | Free for RADAR key holders |
| Greenwich Park, Lower Avenue | 20p | Seasonal hours |
| Kensington Gardens, Flower Walk | 20p | Contactless tap only |
| Trafalgar Square public toilets (WC2N 5DS) | 20p | Reported to open free during large events on the square |
| The Jubiloo, Jubilee Gardens | £1 | Right by the South Bank carousel and the London Eye, open daily |
| Parliament Street, Westminster (exit 6 of Westminster station) | £1 | Baby change and ambulant cubicles |
| Islington Green, Essex Road | 40p | ⚠️ Under construction and frequently out of order — don’t rely on this one |
| St Paul’s Cathedral, Serpentine Gallery, Barbican Centre, Angel Centre, Islington Central Library, one Borough Market toilet | Charges apply | Amount not published by any of these venues — bring change and a card |
No evidence any major terminus currently charges. We checked the official Network Rail pages for King’s Cross, Euston, Paddington, Victoria, Liverpool Street, Waterloo, London Bridge, Charing Cross and St Pancras International — all list toilet locations, none mentions a fee. This is a real change from the coin-turnstile era some of these stations used to run.
Paddington’s Platform 12 toilets are free — the showers next to them are £5.
Free, by area
Pulled from the same database, filtered to active listings only. This isn’t every free toilet in London — it’s the ones worth knowing about.
Trafalgar Square & the West End
- National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery — free with general admission, no ticket needed for the toilets themselves
- Leicester Square — below-ground block, open 8am–midnight, steps only, no accessible option
- Charing Cross Library — ground floor only
South Bank & Waterloo
- Waterloo Station, Main Concourse — opposite platform 18
- Royal Festival Hall — on all four floors
- Imperial War Museum — free entry, free toilets, closed only 24–26 December
- Borough Market — one free toilet at the corner of the delivery yard on Winchester Walk (a second, inside the market seating area, charges)
- Gabriel’s Wharf — informal; you may need to ask in one of the shops
Camden
- Camden Town Hall (Judd Street entrance) — includes a Changing Places toilet
- Camden Town public toilets — two below-ground blocks on the High Street/Parkway, recently refurbished, seasonal hours (roughly 9am–7.45pm summer, 9am–5.45pm winter)
- Primrose Hill Park
King’s Cross
- King’s Cross Station — Upper Mezzanine, and a second one between Platform 9 and the Harry Potter Shop
- St Pancras International — ground floor by Boots, 24 hours (expect a queue for the Ladies)
- British Library
- Coal Drops Yard, lower level — fully accessible
- Granary Square — a standalone block, relocated from the square itself in 2018
Greenwich
- National Maritime Museum
- Greenwich Park Café
- Rockery Toilets, Blackheath Gate — explicitly “no charge,” with a drinking fountain alongside
Shoreditch, Hackney & Tower Hamlets
- Old Spitalfields Market — opposite the Flying Tiger shop
- Broadgate Shopping Centre — includes a Changing Places toilet
- Museum of London
- Barbican Centre — charges apply here (amount not published)
Notting Hill, Kensington & Bayswater
- Holland Park — baby change both sides
- Paddington Station, Platform 12 — free (the showers next door are £5)
- Kensington Town Hall — via the Hornton Street car-park exit
Canary Wharf
- Cabot Square — street level, open 10am–6pm
- Market Halls Cargo food court
- Canary Wharf Jubilee line station — accessible-only, RADAR key required
Richmond & Kew
- Marble Hill Park
- Kew Gardens — two of the three toilets nearest the gardens are free-standing and free; the third is inside the gate, so you’d pay Kew’s entrance fee to reach it
- ⚠️ Richmond Station toilets are logged as closed for refurbishment since October 2023 — don’t plan around them without checking first
Islington & Angel
- Chapel Market — 8am–6pm daily
- Islington Green — see the pay table above; frequently out of order despite being listed
The Community Toilet Scheme: free at pubs, cafes and libraries
This is a real, named UK council scheme, not an informal courtesy. Camden’s own wording: they pay participating businesses up to £750 a year to let the public use their toilet “without the need to buy goods or services.” The City of London runs an identically-named scheme with its own interactive map. Southwark runs the same idea under a different name — asking businesses “to make their toilets available to all, without the need to be paying customers.” Westminster and Islington don’t use the “Community Toilet Scheme” name, but point residents to the same Great British Public Toilet Map and a “Toilets4London” app for the same effect.
There is no sticker or window decal marking a participating premises, so if you are not sure, just ask.
Some of the more surprising participants:
- The Shakespeare and The Old Red Cow, two pubs on the City of London’s scheme
- JD Wetherspoon, Ledger Building and The Alchemist, both in Canary Wharf — proof this isn’t only independent cafes
- The Angel and Crown, a pub on Richmond’s scheme
- Whitechapel Gallery and the Vagina Museum, both on Tower Hamlets’ scheme
- Mudchute Park & Farm and The Rotunda, also Tower Hamlets
- Belsize Community Library and Pedro’s Café, on Camden’s scheme
Museums, department stores and shopping centres
Every major free-entry museum in London has toilets open to any visitor — you don’t need a ticket for a paid exhibition to use them, only to be inside the building:
British Museum, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Gallery, V&A, Natural History Museum and Science Museum are all free to enter, and all publish accessible-toilet and baby-change locations on their own sites. Tate Modern and Tate Britain both have a Changing Places toilet; the V&A’s nearest one is next door at the Science Museum, which has its own.
Battersea Power Station gives the clearest answer anywhere — its own FAQ asks outright: “Are there public toilets?” and answers “Yes, throughout The Power Station we have accessible toilets and family friendly toilets.”
Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City both list accessible toilets (RADAR key, available from Guest Services) and a baby-change lounge as standard centre services.
Department stores are honest but vague. Selfridges and John Lewis Oxford Street both publish exactly where their toilets are, floor by floor — but neither states a “non-customers welcome” policy in writing, so it’s a judgement call in practice rather than a published rule. Harrods and Liberty’s sites blocked automated access entirely and Fortnum & Mason’s official pages don’t mention toilets at all, so we can’t confirm any of the three either way.
The RADAR key, and where it gets you in free
Locked accessible toilets across the UK often use the same lock — the National Key Scheme, opened with what’s universally called a RADAR key. It costs £5 (£6 including VAT) plus £1.75 postage from Disability Rights UK, and once you have one it works nationwide, not just in London.
In this guide specifically, a RADAR key gets you into the accessible-only toilet at Canary Wharf’s Jubilee line station, and waives the usual 50p charge at Cutty Sark Gardens in Greenwich.
Old toilets that became something else
Fitzrovia’s Attendant coffee shop trades from a genuine Victorian gentleman’s convenience — Time Out describes it as “London’s most original location for a coffee bar: a late-nineteenth-century gents’ toilet,” where the original urinals now provide seating with small tables. The ornate cast-iron railings over the stairwell down from street level are the same ones that would have marked the toilet’s entrance when it opened. It’s the kind of small, specific detail London does better than almost any other city, and worth a look even if you don’t need the loo.
Apps and tools for finding one anywhere
- The Great British Public Toilet Map (toiletmap.org.uk) — the database this entire article is built from. Crowdsourced and fed by council open data, covering over 14,000 UK facilities, with London as its default view.
- Flush — a toilet-finder app that stores its database on your phone for offline use, so it works even without signal.
- Toilets4London — named specifically by Islington and the City of London councils as their pointer app for finding both council-run and Community Toilet Scheme facilities.
What to know before you go
- Royal Parks toilets are card and contactless only. Cash was phased out — if you’re relying on one, make sure you have a card or phone wallet on you.
- A few listings are stale. Richmond Station’s toilets and Islington Green’s have both been reported closed or unreliable well after being logged as active — treat any single listing as a plan, not a guarantee, especially for something you’re relying on.
- Some toilets are seasonal. Camden’s High Street blocks and Greenwich Park’s Lower Avenue toilet both run shorter hours in winter.
- “Free” and “no purchase necessary” aren’t the same claim. A Community Toilet Scheme venue explicitly welcomes non-customers; a department store or independent café simply hasn’t published a policy either way, so use your judgement.
- Accessible toilets often need a RADAR key, not just a different door — worth carrying one if you’ll need it more than once.
Continue planning your London trip
- 💷 London on a Budget
- 🕵️ Hidden London
- 🌳 Best Parks and Gardens in London
- 🛶 Best Canal Walks in London
- 🚇 Getting Around London: Transport Guide
- 🎪 Free Things to Do in London
Prices and opening hours change, and a handful of the facilities above have been reported closed or unreliable despite showing as active on the source database — check the Great British Public Toilet Map for the latest status of any single toilet you’re planning around.
Common questions
Are public toilets free in London?
Most are. Of the London facilities logged on the Great British Public Toilet Map, roughly 85% carry no charge. The exceptions are consistent: all eight Royal Parks charge a flat 20p, several market toilets charge up to £1, and a handful of standalone blocks charge 20p-50p.
Do you have to pay to use the toilet at a London train station?
Not any more, as far as we could verify. We checked the official pages for King's Cross, Euston, Paddington, Victoria, Liverpool Street, Waterloo, London Bridge, Charing Cross and St Pancras International, and none currently states a toilet charge — a change from the coin-turnstile era some of these stations used to have.
Can I use a shop's toilet in London without buying anything?
At a Community Toilet Scheme venue, yes by design — councils including Camden and the City of London pay local pubs, cafes and libraries to let anyone in without a purchase. Elsewhere it's down to the venue: big free museums have toilets open to all visitors, and department stores generally don't publish a stated policy either way.
What is the RADAR key and do I need one?
It unlocks accessible toilets fitted with a National Key Scheme lock, found in shopping centres, stations and pubs across the country. It costs around £5-£6 plus postage from Disability Rights UK, and a handful of London facilities — including one at Cutty Sark Gardens — waive their usual charge for key holders.
Is there an app for finding a public toilet in London?
The Great British Public Toilet Map (toiletmap.org.uk) is the one this guide is built from — a crowdsourced, council-fed database of over 14,000 UK facilities. The Flush app does the same job with an offline-first design.
