UK Museums See Record Visitors, Push for Changes

0:00On March 20, London's Natural History Museum topped the charts as the United Kingdom's most visited attraction in 2025, drawing more than 7,000,000 people through its doors. That's a 13% jump from the year before and an all-time record for any museum or gallery in the country. Free entry, refresh gardens, and a new exhibit on climate solutions all played big roles in the surge. The British Museum came in second, with 6,400,000 visitors, followed by the Crown of State and Windsor at 4,9,000, tape modern, with 4,500,000, and the National Gallery at 4,100,000. Most of these spots saw small drops compared to last year, and none have fully bounced back to their pre-COVID peaks from 2019. Experts points at tough times in the sector, including a cost of living squeeze that led to redundancies and restructurings at many places, financial hits from higher national insurance,

1:00and minimum wage changes made operations even harder. On top of that, fewer international tourists, especially from China, have returned partly because the UK dropped tax-free shopping, pushing shoppers, to places like France or Italy. Leaders in the visitor attractions world are pushing for changes, like cutting vat on tickets, bringing back tax-free shopping, and making sure any. New tourism taxes fund culture directly. They say these steps could boost competitiveness abroad. Looking ahead, there's real hope for 2026, with major draws like the British Museum's Bay U Tapestry Lone and openings of V&A East, the New London Museum, and the Museum of Youth Culture set to pull in even bigger crowds.