New Year's Eve fireworks tickets for London 2026 go on sale at 12 noon on Friday 23 October, at £20 to £55 a head. Ticketmaster is the only seller. City Hall announced the date on 16 October 2026, and the prices are frozen at last year's level.
For anyone in Mayfair, W1, the fireworks are a trip to the river rather than a view from the doorstep. London's show is staged around the London Eye, and every viewing area along the Thames is ticketed. Without a ticket there is no way into any of them.
One detail matters more than most guides admit. Two areas, Blue and Red, sit on the Victoria Embankment, on the same north bank of the Thames as Mayfair, while 5 central bridges are shut to walkers before and after the show. Where you stand decides how easily you get home.
Below are the ticket rules, the gates and times, the dinners for New Year's Eve in Mayfair that have actually published 2026 prices, and what is still unknown. We read each source on 19 October 2026.
How to buy New Year's Eve fireworks tickets in 2026
The first batch of New Year's Eve fireworks tickets goes on sale at 12 noon on Friday 23 October 2026 on Ticketmaster, the only authorised seller. Category A areas cost £55, or £35 for Londoners. Category B areas cost £40, or £20 for Londoners. Each purchase is capped at 4 tickets.
Prices and rules come from the official City Hall event page and the Mayor's press release of 16 October. Category A covers the Blue, Pink and White areas; Category B covers Red, Green and Orange. A booking fee is added on top, and City Hall says it makes no profit from the sale.
Everyone needs a ticket, whatever their age. Under-16s must be with an adult, and the page strongly advises against bringing young children at all. Tickets bought anywhere other than Ticketmaster are refused at the gate.
A second, smaller batch follows later in the year. City Hall has not given its date and says only to keep checking the page. The press release puts attendance at around 100,000 people, and Sadiq Khan urged anyone who wants to go to buy as soon as possible, because demand is always high. Every year since 2014 the London fireworks have been ticketed.
The viewing areas, gates and times on 31 December
All of this is from City Hall's event page.
- Show: Thursday 31 December 2026, 8pm to 12.30am on 1 January 2027.
- Gates: Every area admits from 8pm to 10.30pm. Arrive after 10.30pm and the ticket is no use.
- Blue, Category A: Victoria Embankment, Westminster Bridge to Golden Jubilee Footbridge. Gates 1 or 2.
- Red, Category B: Victoria Embankment, Golden Jubilee Footbridge to Temple Avenue. Gates 4 or 5.
- Pink and White, Category A: Waterloo Bridge (gate 6) and Westminster Bridge (gate 8).
- Green, Category B: Behind the London Eye, on the South Bank. Gate 7.
- Orange, Category B, accessible: Albert Embankment, on the river side of St Thomas' Hospital. Gate 9. Seating, a hearing loop, first aid and a Changing Places toilet, about 700m from the vehicle drop-off and 2km from public transport.
- Roads: Vehicle access is restricted from 2pm on 31 December until about 6am on 1 January, with contingency closures possibly from noon.
- Bridges: Westminster, Golden Jubilee, Lambeth, Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges cannot be used before or after the event.
City Hall's page still links the 2025 map, so the boundaries above are the ones it describes in words. Transport for London's advice for 2025 was not to travel to the Victoria Embankment area at all without a ticket.
A Mayfair dinner or a riverside ticket
Most people choose one or the other. With gates closing at 10.30pm and the late dinner sittings in Mayfair running on towards midnight, the two only fit together with an early table.
On Stratton Street, The May Fair Hotel publishes the fullest 2026 offer we could find. According to its New Year's Eve page, May Fair Kitchen runs an early sitting from 5pm, last booking 6.30pm, at £130 for 4 courses with a glass of Moët and Chandon on arrival. Its late sitting starts from 8pm, last booking 9.30pm, at £195 for 5 courses, with Moët on arrival, a second glass at midnight and a live DJ.
Next door, The May Fair Bar takes à la carte bookings from 6pm and sells table packages from 9.30pm, with no prices shown. Our listing for The May Fair carries the map and contact details.
Claridge's, on Brook Street, has put its 2026 menus online as PDFs. Dante Mayfair charges £125 a head for a 3-course menu served before 8pm and £400 for the longer menu after 8pm, with canapés and a Glitterball Martini. In the Foyer and Reading Room the menu is £425, with a glass of Billecart-Salmon. All 3 add a discretionary 15% service charge, so the late Dante table comes to £460 a head.
Early sittings are the ones that leave room for the river. A 6.30pm last booking at The May Fair, or the Dante menu served before 8pm, is the realistic way to dine first and still reach a gate before 10.30pm. Nobody on our team has timed that journey on the night itself.
2 more venues are partly published. NIJŪ, at 20 Berkeley Street, lists an early sitting at £195 and a late one from 7.30pm at £225, but its page says "31st December" without a year. At The Chesterfield Mayfair, the page lists a dinner in Butler's Restaurant from 6.30pm to 9.30pm, with a possible deposit and no price.
Why last year's New Year's Eve prices are still circulating
Search for a Mayfair New Year's Eve dinner this month and much of what comes back is a year out of date. Those prices look current. They are not.
Bond Street's own round-up of Mayfair New Year's Eve plans, still easy to find, was written for the night that welcomed 2026. It quotes £300 a head at Dante x Claridge's, £260 at The Connaught Grill, £400 on the Hanover Bar rooftop at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair and £60 standing tickets for Mr Fogg's masquerade ball. Claridge's has since published its 2026 menus, and the late Dante dinner is now £400 before service, £100 more than the round-up says.
Others have not caught up yet. On 19 October 2026 we found no 2026 New Year's Eve price on The Connaught's or Mandarin Oriental's own pages, and the COYA Mayfair New Year's Eve page returned a page-not-found error. Mr Fogg's Residence lists its Victorian Masquerade Ball for Thursday 31 December, 10.30pm to 3am, with no price.
So the rule is simple. Until a venue publishes its own 2026 menu, any figure from a round-up is last year's number, and the Dante example shows how far it can move in 12 months.
New Year's Eve fireworks tickets are the exception. City Hall states plainly that 2026 prices are the same as 2025, which makes them one of the few New Year's Eve costs in central London fixed this far ahead.
Getting home to Mayfair after the fireworks
Transport for London has not yet published its plan for New Year's Eve 2026. For 2025, TfL said services would run all night but that some stations might close at short notice to prevent overcrowding. City Hall's advice is to choose your side of the river in advance, because the central bridges stay closed after the show.
City Hall's advice carries more weight for anyone heading back to Mayfair, in the West End and the City of Westminster, than for someone staying south of the river. Blue and Red are on the Victoria Embankment, the north bank, the same side as Green Park, Piccadilly and the streets of W1. Green and Orange, by contrast, are on the South Bank and Albert Embankment, so a Mayfair guest standing there faces a river whose nearest bridges are shut.
We have not walked the route home from the Embankment on the night, and TfL's station arrangements for 2026 are not yet known. Both belong on the checklist for late December.
For anyone who would rather avoid the river altogether, Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, across Park Lane from Mayfair, opens from 11am on 31 December, and its tickets guide says it stays open until 10pm every evening. It is an afternoon plan, not a midnight one. For the rest of the season, our Christmas in Mayfair page covers restaurants, hotels and lights.
Everything comes down to one moment. For the fireworks, be on Ticketmaster at 12 noon on Friday 23 October, buy no more than 4 New Year's Eve fireworks tickets, and choose Blue or Red if you are going home to Mayfair, since both sit on the north bank. Londoners pay £35 for Blue and £20 for Red.
For a dinner instead, The May Fair Hotel and Claridge's are the 2 Mayfair addresses with fully priced 2026 menus so far, from £125 to £425 a head. Book an early sitting only if you also hold a ticket, because the gates close at 10.30pm. Every other Mayfair price is last year's until the venue says otherwise.
Main image: sergejf, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
