Average Hotel Price in London (2026 Data)

A room night in a London hotel cost $290¹ (£220¹) on average in 2025, and the striking part is how little that number has moved: in pounds it was £221¹ in 2023 and £220¹ in 2024. Over the same years hotels filled more of their rooms, while across the UK the price of a hotel stay has climbed far faster than prices in general since 2015.² So London's rate has held steady at a high level rather than kept rising, until 2026, when it started to move up again.

Below: the price month by month from 2023 to September 2026, the pandemic collapse to £87.55³ a night in December 2020, three decades of hotel inflation, the 20% VAT and the visitor levy London may add, what booking sites show for 3-, 4- and 5-star rooms, where the city's 2,330⁴ hotel premises are, and how London compares with the rest of England and with Paris, Rome, New York and Tokyo.

What a hotel room in London costs on average

The best single measure is the average daily rate: the room revenue hotels take divided by the rooms they sell, so it is what guests actually paid per occupied room per night, across every class of hotel. Weighted by the rooms sold in each month, the average London hotel price per night in 2025 was $290¹ (£219.75¹).⁵ A simple average of the twelve monthly rates gives £217.45¹, 1.0%¹ lower, because the most expensive months are also the busiest.

In pounds, the rate barely changed across three years. The average London hotel price per night in 2024 was $281¹ (£219.97¹), and 2023 was £221.49¹, which makes 2025 £1.74¹ cheaper than 2023. In dollars the picture is different, because the pound strengthened: $275¹ in 2023, $281¹ in 2024 and $290¹ in 2025, converted at each year's average exchange rate.⁶ An American paying in dollars saw London get pricier even though the hotels' own prices stood still.

Occupancy is the other half of the story. Hotels sold 77.8%¹ of their rooms in 2023, 80.4%¹ in 2024 and 80.3%¹ in 2025, a gain of 2.5¹ percentage points while the rate held flat. Revenue per available room, which folds both together, rose from £172.28¹ to £176.40¹.

For a typical city trip, the average London hotel cost for 3 nights at the 2025 rate is $869¹ (£659.25¹) for the room alone. That is an average across luxury, business and budget hotels and across the whole year, so a stay in a peak month or a higher class costs more and a winter stay in a lower class less.

London hotel prices by month

London's room rate follows a clear yearly cycle: it starts the year low, climbs through spring, peaks in June and July, dips in August and rises again into a strong autumn and December.⁵ In 2025 the gap between the cheapest month (February, £178⁵) and the most expensive (July, £265⁵) was 48.8%¹.

Winter is the cheap season. The average London hotel price per night in January 2025 was $237⁵ (£180⁵), and February was even lower. Spring brings the first big step: April 2025 averaged $263⁵ (£199⁵) and the average London hotel cost per night in May 2025 was $279⁵ (£212⁵).

Summer is the peak. The average London hotel price in June 2025 was $332⁵ (£252⁵), and July went higher, to $349⁵ (£265⁵), the top of the year. August falls back to $279⁵ (£211⁵), level with May.

Autumn is the second high season. The average London hotel price in September 2025 was $307⁵ (£233⁵). The average London hotel price in October 2025 was $297⁵ (£225⁵), a little lower.

Then the year ends strong. In 2025 the average London hotel price in November was $303⁵ (£230⁵), and the average London hotel price in December 2025 was $315⁵ (£239⁵), the highest of the winter months and above every spring month.

Rooms fill on the same rhythm. Across 2025, the average hotel occupancy rate in London was 80.3%¹, running from 66%⁵ in January to 89%⁵ in July, a swing of 23¹ points. Close to nine rooms in ten are sold in midsummer, the same months in which the rate peaks.

Revenue per available room shows how the two forces combine. Because a January room is both cheaper and more often empty, a London hotel earned £119⁵ per available room in January 2025 against £236⁵ in July. That is the hotel's side of the season, and it explains the traveler's side: the deals are where the empty rooms are.

How much should I pay for a hotel in London?

Use the average rate for the month you travel as the benchmark, since it is what the typical room sold in London actually cost: about $237⁵ in January and $349⁵ in July in 2025. A quote well above that pays for a pricier-than-average room, by location or class; one well below it is cheaper than the typical room sold that month. Prices quoted on booking sites run higher than these rates, for reasons explained in the section on hotel classes below.

Hotel prices in London in 2026

After three flat years, 2026 is the year rates moved. From January to September, the average London hotel price per night in 2026 was $305¹ (£226.44¹), against £215.69¹ in the same nine months of 2025: up 5.0%¹ in pounds and 7.1%¹ in dollars, because the pound also gained.⁵ Occupancy did not rise with it: 79.4%¹ against 79.9%¹.

Month by month, every month of 2026 so far has been pricier than the same month of 2025 except January, which matched it at £180⁵. Occupancy tells a different story: it was below 2025 in six of the nine months, including July (87%⁵ against 89%⁵). Hotels are charging more for slightly fewer occupied rooms, the opposite of the pattern of 2024 and 2025.

The spring rise was modest. The average London hotel price per night in March 2026 was $260⁵ (£193⁵), 4.3%¹ above March 2025, and the average London hotel price per night in April 2026 was $277⁵ (£206⁵), up 3.4%¹.

July set a new high. The average London hotel price per night in July 2026 was $377⁵ (£280⁵), the highest monthly rate in the series and 5.8%¹ above July 2025.

The rise did not fade after the peak: the average London hotel price per night in August 2026 was $306⁵ (£228⁵), up 7.7%¹ on a year earlier, and September 2026 was $346⁵ (£257⁵), up 10.3%¹. Over January to September, the average daily rate of London hotels in 2026 was £226.44¹, against full-year averages that had slipped slightly in 2024 and 2025.

Before and after the pandemic

London's room rate in January 2026 was 9.8%¹ above January 2019, and December 2025 was 29.2%¹ above December 2019, in pounds. Occupancy in those months is now higher than before the pandemic, too.⁵

December figures for the pandemic years show the fall and the recovery (table below, from an earlier hotel panel). In December 2020 London hotels sold only 22%³ of their rooms at an average £87.55³, 55.5%¹ of the December 2019 rate, and earned 15.1%¹ of their pre-pandemic revenue per room. On that earlier panel, the December 2023 rate was 32.1%¹ above 2019.⁷

Three decades of hotel inflation

No official series gives London's room rate before 2019 on one consistent basis, but the national price index for accommodation covers three decades for the UK as a whole. Accommodation prices across the UK were 2.93¹ times their 1996 level in 2025.² The index measures price change for the same kind of stay over time, not the price level, and it covers the whole UK, London included.

The hotel part of that index is the closest official measure of hotel prices. Since 2015 it has run well ahead of prices in general: up 54.5%¹ by 2025, against 38.4%¹ for all consumer prices.² Most of the gap opened in two years, when hotel prices rose 25.1%¹ between 2021 and 2023, the years in which a temporary VAT cut ended.⁸ Then the rise stopped: 2025 was 0.2%¹ below 2024, the same flat line London's own room rate shows.

The monthly index shows where 2026 stands. The latest reading, for September 2026, was 164.0² against 162.1² a year earlier. After a flat 2025, the national series has started to rise again, though more slowly than London's own rates.

Hotel stays also take a measurable slice of the consumer spending covered by the index. In the 2026 basket, hotels and similar accommodation carry a weight of 23.5² parts per 1,000, or 2.35%¹ of the consumer spending covered by the index, up from 12.9² in 2021, the low point of the series.

Taxes on a London hotel bill

Hotel rooms in the UK carry VAT at the standard rate of 20%⁹. For a short period during the pandemic the rate on hotel rooms was cut, first to 5% and then to 12.5%, and the standard rate returned in April 2022,⁸ the year the UK hotel price index rose from 118.0² to 132.8². Guests who stay longer than 28 days pay VAT on only part of the bill from the 29th day.

A second charge is on the way. In September 2026 the government confirmed that mayoral authorities in England, London's among them, will be able to charge an overnight visitor levy set as a percentage of the accommodation cost, with one rate for every season and type of stay; subject to Parliament, local leaders should be able to set out plans for how the revenues will be invested by March 2028.¹⁰ City Hall had already set up a team to scope a London levy in March 2026.¹¹ Today no levy is charged in London.

Prices by hotel class and the cheapest rooms

No official body publishes London room rates by star rating, so class prices come from booking-site data, which measures something different: the prices of rooms people looked up for future dates, not what hotels earned. That is one reason these figures run higher. A large hotel-search site put the average double room in London at $437¹² a night (page fetched in October 2026, period not stated), 1.51¹ times the 2025 room rate.

By class, the average price of a 4-star hotel in London per night was about $372¹², and the average price per night of a 5-star hotel in London was $581¹². Both are prices for rooms looked up for future dates, so they sit above the room rates hotels report.

For three stars there is no published average; the closest guide to the average cost of a 3-star hotel in London per night is the range of rooms found over two weeks, from $76¹² to $241¹².

So how much is a cheap hotel in London? The lowest deals found on the site in the three days before October 23 started at $51¹² a night. The class gap is wide: a typical 4-star room was priced 36.0%¹ below a typical 5-star one.

The outlook for 2026

An industry forecast published in November 2025 expected London's rate to stay almost flat in 2026, at £193.50¹³ (+0.3%), with occupancy at 81.6%¹³ after 80.3%¹³ in 2025. Nine months in, rates are running ahead of that cautious forecast, while occupancy is not.

The forecast keeps the familiar seasonal shape: its lowest quarter in 2026 is January to March at £159.60¹³ and its highest is July to September at £219.60¹³, the same summer peak and winter low that the monthly rates show. The forecast links the slow rate growth partly to new supply: about 6,300¹³ rooms were under construction and due to open between 2026 and 2028, and about 3,000¹³ rooms opened in London in 2025, around 750¹³ of them luxury, adding competitive pressure on high-end hotels.

Where London's hotels are

There is no official table of room prices by borough, but there is one of hotels. In March 2026 London had 2,330⁴ hotel premises, and 600⁴ of them, 25.8%¹, were in Westminster. Westminster, Camden and Kensington and Chelsea together held 960¹, or 41.2%¹: the West End, Bloomsbury, King's Cross and South Kensington.

Outside the center, the next cluster sits around Heathrow: Hillingdon has 100⁴ hotel premises, as many as Lambeth and more than the City of London or Tower Hamlets. Several outer boroughs have only a few dozen, and Barking and Dagenham has 15⁴. For a visitor, the spread shows how concentrated the hotel market is: three central boroughs hold two in five premises.

The stock keeps growing. London had 1,360⁴ hotel premises in 2010; by 2026 it had 71.3%¹ more, with 160¹ added in the last year alone. Most are small: 83.7%¹ employ fewer than 50 people and 47.4%¹ fewer than ten, while only 55⁴ employ 250 or more.

Growth slowed only briefly during the pandemic: the count slipped from 1,970⁴ in 2020 to 1,950⁴ in 2021 and then resumed, reaching 2,170⁴ in 2025. Premises are not rooms: a 20-room townhouse hotel and a 1,000-room tower each count once, so the size split matters.

Between the two ends sit 845⁴ small premises with 10 to 49 staff and 325⁴ medium ones with 50 to 249. Every premises counts once whatever its size, so the large ones, each with 250 or more staff, account for more of the city's hotel jobs than their 2.4%¹ share of premises suggests.

Hotel jobs tell the pandemic story from the staff side. Employment in London hotels was 82,000¹⁴ in 2019, fell to 51,000¹⁴ in 2021, 37.8%¹ fewer, and was back to 76,000¹⁴ in 2024. Westminster alone had 30,000¹⁴ of those jobs, 39.5%¹.

Staffing came back more slowly than demand. By 2024 hotel employment was still 6,000¹ below its 2019 level,¹⁴ at a time when occupancy had already passed pre-pandemic levels in the months with comparable data. The jobs are even more concentrated than the premises.

Overseas visitors' nights and budgets

One measure of demand is the nights that visitors from abroad spend in the city. They spent 107.0 million¹⁵ nights there in 2025, 90.3%¹ of the 2019 total. Those nights are spread across hotels, rented apartments and friends' homes, so they are a measure of demand, not of hotel bookings.

What those visitors spend per night has roughly doubled in pounds, from £77¹⁶ in 2002 to £148¹⁵ in 2025, about $195¹. That is everything they buy in a day, food, shopping and transport included, so it should never be read as a hotel price; it does show the budget that a London room has to fit into.

In dollars the long climb is less smooth, because the exchange rate moves too: spending per night was $170¹ in 2019 and $195¹ in 2025.¹⁵ The purpose of the trip changes the budget far more than the year does.

Business travelers spend the most per night, about $347¹; holiday visitors spend about $252¹. The busiest quarter is the summer one: overseas visitors spent 1.55¹ times as many nights in London in July to September 2025 as in January to March.¹⁵

What the numbers mean for planning a London trip

In the official room-rate data, the month is the largest gap: a room night in February 2025 averaged £178⁵, while July averaged £265⁵, so moving a summer trip into late winter saves about a third of the room bill. Hotel class is a separate gap of similar size: on a booking site, a typical 4-star room was priced about a third below a typical 5-star one.¹² Hotel rooms carry the 20%⁹ standard VAT rate, and a visitor levy, once London adopts one, would be added as a percentage of the room price.¹⁰ And for dollar travelers, the exchange rate can move the cost as much as the hotels do: at the 2025 average rate, £219.75¹ came to $290¹, while 2023's slightly higher rate of £221.49¹ came to only $275¹.

London against the rest of England and other big cities

London rooms cost about twice what hotels charge elsewhere in England: in 2025 the London rate was 2.16¹ times the average for England outside London ($134¹).⁵ The gap widens in summer, to 2.36¹ times in July, and narrows in winter.

Against other world cities, booking-site prices put London in the same band rather than at the top. On the same site and day, the average double room was $502¹⁸ in Paris, $475¹⁹ in Rome, $460²⁰ in New York and $441²¹ in Tokyo, against $437¹² in London.

Conclusions

1. London's hotel price stood still for three years, then moved. The rate was £221.49¹ in 2023 and £219.75¹ in 2025, a fall in real terms while consumer prices rose 6.1%¹, and only in 2026 did it climb, 5.0%¹ above the same months of 2025.
2. In real terms London rooms are no pricier than before the pandemic. January 2026's rate was 9.8%¹ above January 2019 while consumer prices rose 31.2%¹, and December 2025 was 29.2%¹ above December 2019, level with prices in general (29.1%¹), even though UK-wide hotel prices outran inflation from 2015 (54.5%¹ against 38.4%¹).
3. Rooms filled up while the rate stood still. Occupancy rose 2.5¹ points from 2023 to 2025 while the rate fell slightly, and the 2026 rise in rates came with no rise in occupancy.
4. For dollar travelers the currency mattered as much as the hotels. In pounds 2025 was cheaper than 2023, but in dollars it went from $275¹ to $290¹ because the pound strengthened.
5. The calendar moves the official rate by about a third. A February room cost £178⁵ in 2025 and a July room £265⁵; hotel class is a separate gap, with a typical 4-star room priced 36.0%¹ below a 5-star one on a booking site.