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\t\tDoes it make sense to bring back charges for museums?\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tFriday 19 June 2026 11:49 am\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\tDoes it make sense to bring back charges for museums?\t<\/p>\n
Our museums are struggling to scrape by \u2013 but is charging admission really the answer? Eliot Wilson weighs up the arguments<\/p>\n
Neil MacGregor celebrated his 80th birthday this week. The Glasgow-born art historian, considered by Sir Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld Institute the most brilliant pupil he ever taught, has exercised an enormous influence on Britain\u2019s cultural sector. He was director of the National Gallery from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015.<\/p>\n
When he took over the British Museum, founded in 1753 from a bequest of Sir Hans Sloane, it had a deficit of \u00a35m. MacGregor transformed its finances, its visitor numbers and its place on the international stage, as well as proving an adept media performer and brilliant ambassador for the institution. In his last year at the helm, the British Museum had an overall income of \u00a3118m and spent \u00a3104.6m. And he achieved that without any revenue from admission charges.<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s 14 national museums made admission to their permanent collections free to all in December 2001, including the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Galleries and the Victoria and Albert.<\/p>\n
It had been \u201ca bit of a personal crusade\u201d for Lord Smith of Finsbury, who had been Culture, Media and Sport secretary until June that year and declared it \u201cvery good news indeed\u201d.<\/p>\n
\t\tCould foreign visitors pay to keep museums free for Londoners?<\/p>\n
We may be at the end of that era. Following the publication of an independent review of Arts Council England<\/a> by Baroness Hodge of Barking, former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the government admitted in March it is considering a levy on foreign visitors<\/a> to the national museums to generate revenue. <\/p>\n Read more: The Debate: Should the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles to Greece?<\/a><\/p>\n A hotel levy is also on the table. It was also rumoured that HM Treasury had sought to abolish free admission in the November 2025 Budget but had been forced to reconsider by fierce resistance from ministers at DCMS.<\/p>\n The government and we as a society need to examine the basis of funding for museums and galleries, and its purpose. Some have argued that it is a nonsense to prevent institutions from deriving revenue from the most obvious and direct source, their visitors. <\/p>\n Certainly we are the outliers. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art charges $30, the Louvre in Paris \u20ac32 for non-EEA citizens and \u20ac22 for EEA citizens, Madrid\u2019s Prado Museum \u20ac15 and the Royal Ontario Museum C$30. That in itself is not a clinching argument but it is a consideration.<\/p>\n In The Times in March, Oliver Kamm described free admission as having a \u201cbenevolent\u201d aim<\/a> \u2013 widening access to culture \u2013 but an irrational method. True enough; but the RSC<\/a> is facing its own funding crisis and has been heavily reliant for the last 15 years on the income from Matilda the Musical, not one of the Bard of Avon\u2019s better known works. In April, its artistic director, Daniel Evans, warned that \u201cthe frequent theatre-goer \u2013 the person for whom theatre is a life habit rather than an occasional destination \u2013 is becoming rarer\u201d. So it does not provide all the answers.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tTokyo\u2019s MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives Named One of the World\u2019s Most Beautiful Museums 2026 by the UNESCO-backed Prix Versailles<\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cTickets for the London Symphony Orchestra or the Royal Shakespeare Company aren\u2019t free, and if you want the best seats you will pay more.\u201d<\/p>\n