Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard: what's free and what isn't

The free ceremony and the paid palace are two different things

London’s royal sites confuse a lot of first-time visitors because “seeing Buckingham Palace” can mean two very different experiences at two very different prices. The Changing the Guard ceremony happens outside, on public roads and in front of the palace railings, and it costs nothing to watch. Going inside the palace to see the State Rooms is a separate, paid, ticketed visit that is only available for a few months a year. Mixing the two up is the single most common royal-London mistake, and it leads to people either paying for something they could have watched for free, or turning up expecting an interior visit that isn’t running that week.

This guide sorts the free from the paid across the main royal sites in and around London, and flags the one thing about Windsor Castle that catches people out: it is a working home for the monarch, not a museum, and it closes without warning when state business requires it.

This is a general overview. For street-by-street detail on Westminster’s royal sites, or a full day-trip plan for Windsor, the linked guides below go deeper than this page does.

Buckingham Palace: what’s free

• Watching the Changing the Guard ceremony from the street, the railings, or the Victoria Memorial roundabout. No ticket, no booking, no cost.
• Walking past the palace and forecourt any day, any time, since the exterior and grounds railings are on public streets.
• Seeing the guards on duty at the sentry posts outside the palace between ceremonies.

Buckingham Palace: what’s paid

• The State Rooms, the palace’s official reception rooms, open to the public only during the summer opening (roughly late July to September) and on a handful of other dates through the year. Tickets are timed and must be booked ahead; walk-up entry is not reliable.
• The Royal Mews and the Queen’s Gallery, next to the palace, run on their own separate paid tickets and opening calendars.
• Guided walking tours that add commentary, a good viewpoint for the ceremony, and often a route through nearby royal Westminster sites.

a private guide who times your morning around the ceremony and explains what you’re watching is worth it if you want context rather than just standing in the crowd. For a shorter, cheaper option that still gets you a good spot, a walking tour built around the Changing the Guard schedule covers the same ceremony without the extras.

When the ceremony actually happens

The Changing the Guard schedule is published a few weeks in advance by the Household Division and changes by season. As a rough pattern:

Season	Typical frequency	Notes
Spring and summer	Several days a week, often daily	Check the exact days before travelling
Autumn and winter	Alternate days, roughly every other day	Fewer dates than summer
State occasions	Can be cancelled or rescheduled	Royal events take priority

Always check the current published schedule close to your trip rather than relying on a general rule, since the pattern shifts year to year and can be disrupted by state events with no advance notice to the public.

Where to stand for free

The best free vantage points are:

• The Victoria Memorial roundabout directly in front of the palace, for a wide view of the forecourt.
• The railings along Spur Road, where the new guard marches in from Wellington Barracks.
• The Mall, for watching the mounted procession if the King’s Guard is involved that day.

Arrive 30 to 45 minutes early in summer; crowds build fast and sightlines close in quickly once the ceremony starts. Winter crowds are thinner, which is one advantage of visiting outside peak season even though the ceremony runs less often.

What the ceremony actually looks like from the crowd

It’s worth setting expectations honestly. From most free vantage points, you see marching bands, formation changes, and guards moving between the barracks and the palace forecourt rather than one clear, close-up spectacle. The forecourt itself sits some distance back from the railings, so a phone photo often shows a wide, distant scene rather than the tight shot in most brochure images. Height matters more than most people plan for: without a raised spot or an early arrival at the front railing, taller visitors and event barriers can block a clear sightline for anyone under about 1.6 metres.

This is why some visitors find the free ceremony a little underwhelming compared with expectations set by photos, while others enjoy exactly this: a genuine working military duty rather than a staged tourist show. A guided tour doesn’t change what happens, but it does change where you stand and what you understand about the sequence as it unfolds, which is the honest case for paying for context rather than paying to “see more.”

Windsor Castle: a lived-in palace, not a museum

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and is used as an official residence by the monarch, which changes how it behaves compared with a fixed museum. A paid ticket to Windsor Castle is a real, worthwhile visit — State Apartments, St George’s Chapel, the Round Tower — but it comes with a caveat that guides sometimes skip: because it’s a working residence, rooms or the entire site can close on short notice for state occasions, official visits, or security reasons. This isn’t a rare edge case; it happens periodically, and English Heritage-style refund policies don’t apply the same way as at a purely historic site, since Windsor is run by the Royal Collection Trust under different terms.

Practical takeaways for Windsor:

• Buy tickets that are refundable or flexible where possible, given the closure risk.
• Check the official Windsor Castle opening status shortly before your visit, not weeks ahead.
• Windsor also has its own free Changing the Guard-style ceremony outside the castle walls, on a schedule separate from London’s.
• Eton College, across the Thames from Windsor, is a separate paid, guided-only visit with its own restrictions during school term — it is not part of a Windsor Castle ticket.

For a full day-trip plan that pairs Windsor with the rest of a west-London excursion, see the dedicated Windsor day-trip guide rather than treating this page as the detailed source.

The other royal sites, briefly

Royal London isn’t only Buckingham Palace and Windsor. A few other sites worth knowing where they fit:

• Kensington Palace, in Kensington-Chelsea, is a paid interior visit (State Apartments) with free access to the surrounding Kensington Gardens.
• Hampton Court Palace, out past Richmond, is Henry VIII’s former residence and a fully paid, ticketed site with no free-viewing equivalent to the Changing the Guard.
• The Tower of London, in the City area, holds the Crown Jewels and is entirely paid entry — there’s no free way to see the jewels themselves, though the Tower’s exterior and the nearby Tower Bridge are free to view.
• Eltham Palace, further southeast, mixes a medieval great hall with a 1930s Art Deco interior and is a smaller, less crowded paid alternative to the big-name palaces. A visit to Eltham Palace and its gardens is a reasonable option if you want royal history without the queues.

Comparing the main royal experiences

Site	Free element	Paid element	Booking needed
Buckingham Palace	Changing the Guard, exterior	State Rooms (summer only), Royal Mews, Queen’s Gallery	Yes, for interior
Windsor Castle	Windsor’s own guard ceremony, town views	State Apartments, St George’s Chapel	Yes, and check closures
Kensington Palace	Kensington Gardens	State Apartments	Yes, for interior
Tower of London	Exterior, Tower Bridge views	Crown Jewels, fortress interior	Yes, always paid entry
Hampton Court Palace	Grounds views from outside	Full palace and gardens	Yes, always paid entry

If you only have half a day for royal London

Not every visitor can fit both the free ceremony and a paid interior in one trip, so it helps to arbitrate the choice honestly rather than trying to do everything. If you only have a single morning and no fixed date requirement, the free ceremony plus a walk through St James’s Park usually beats a rushed paid visit, because a paid interior (Buckingham Palace’s State Rooms, the Tower, Kensington Palace) rewards unhurried time rather than a squeezed-in hour before a train or flight. If your dates are fixed and fall outside the Buckingham Palace summer opening, the choice mostly makes itself: the free ceremony is available on a normal schedule year-round, while the State Rooms simply aren’t bookable most of the year.

The exception is the Tower of London: its Crown Jewels and fortress interior are open all year, so a half-day squeezed between other plans can reasonably prioritise the Tower’s paid visit over the free ceremony if the ceremony’s date doesn’t line up with your trip. Treat this as a genuine trade-off rather than a checklist to complete — seeing both well on a single half-day is rarely realistic once travel time between Westminster and the Tower is factored in.

Building a royal London morning around the free ceremony

A common, sensible plan is to treat the Changing the Guard as the free centrepiece of a Westminster morning, then decide separately whether a paid interior visit fits that day. A guided walk that pairs the ceremony with nearby royal sites and afternoon tea is one way to combine the free and paid halves of a royal day without overplanning it yourself. If you’d rather build a wider Westminster route on your own, including Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, the Westminster royal London guide covers that ground in more detail than this overview does.

For visitors who want a broader royal-history frame before choosing which sites to pay for, a guided walk through royal London’s history gives context across several sites in one outing, which can help decide whether a follow-up paid ticket (Buckingham Palace’s summer opening, the Tower, Kensington Palace) is worth adding to the trip.

Practical notes before you go

• Ticket prices for paid palace interiors change by season and site; always check the official palace or your GetYourGuide/Viator booking page for the current price rather than relying on a fixed figure here.
• The ceremony schedule is published by the Household Division and can shift with no notice for state events — don’t build a single-day trip entirely around watching it.
• Photography is generally allowed outside the ceremony and in most palace interiors, but flash and video are sometimes restricted inside State Rooms; check on entry.
• None of the free viewing spots require arriving via a specific transport route, but Green Park and St James’s Park underground stations are both a short walk from the palace forecourt.

Buckingham Palace and Changing the Guard: frequently asked questions

Is the Changing of the Guard free to watch?

Yes. The ceremony happens on public roads and in front of the palace railings, and anyone can watch from there at no cost. Paid tours only cover getting a guided commentary, a better vantage point, or combining the ceremony with other royal sites that day.

How often does the Changing of the Guard happen?

Scheduling varies by season and is published a few weeks ahead by the Household Division; it typically runs several days a week in summer and less often in winter. Always check the current schedule before planning a trip around it, since it does change.

Can you go inside Buckingham Palace?

Only during the State Rooms’ summer opening, usually late July to September, and on a few other dates through the year, always with a paid, timed ticket booked in advance. Outside those windows, the interior is closed to visitors.

Is Windsor Castle open every day?

Not guaranteed. Windsor Castle is a working royal residence, and rooms or the whole site can close on short notice for state occasions, so a paid ticket does not guarantee full access on any given day.

Where is the best free spot to watch the guard change?

The Victoria Memorial roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace gives an open view of the forecourt, and the railings along Spur Road and the Mall let you watch the marching bands pass. Arrive at least 30-45 minutes early for a clear sightline.

Does Windsor also have a Changing of the Guard?

Yes, a separate ceremony happens at Windsor Castle on a different schedule from London’s, and it is also free to watch from the public street outside the castle walls.

Do you need to book the Changing of the Guard ceremony?

No booking is required to watch it for free. A guided tour that includes the ceremony is a paid add-on for context and a good viewpoint, not a requirement to see it happen.

How long does the Changing of the Guard actually last?

The core ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace runs about 45 minutes, but the full sequence, including the old guard marching out from Wellington Barracks and the new guard marching in, can stretch closer to an hour from a standing position at the railings. Much of that time is marching bands and formation changes rather than a single dramatic moment, which surprises some first-time visitors expecting something shorter and more concentrated.

Is the Changing of the Guard cancelled in bad weather?

Heavy rain sometimes cancels it, but ordinary drizzle or a grey sky usually does not; the ceremony is a working military duty, not a weather-dependent event. The more common cause of cancellation is a state occasion or security operation, not the forecast, so checking the published schedule tells you more than checking the weather.

For the detailed neighbourhood picture behind this overview, see the guides on Westminster’s royal sites, the Tower and the City’s royal connections, and Kensington-Chelsea’s royal palaces. For Windsor specifically, the Windsor day-trip guide and the Windsor Castle and Eton guide go into the detail this page deliberately skips. Broader royal-London planning is covered in the royal London tours guide and the things to do in royal London category page.

If you’re weighing free versus paid across a whole trip, the free things to do in London guide and the London attractions and tickets guide are useful companions. For a first-hand account of what a typical ceremony morning looks like, see what a morning at the Changing the Guard actually looks like, and for the Tower’s paid interior, is the Tower of London worth it and the Crown Jewels guide. For destination context, see Westminster and Windsor, and for what else is nearby, things to do in Windsor.