Please note: The National Archives is currently closed to visitors until further notice.
While our Kew site is closed to visitors, we have decided to make our digital records available free of charge to signed-in users.
Charging for digitised copies of paper records
Digitising paper records is costly, and normally involves additional cataloguing and transcription work to ensure that the records are searchable. When we decide to digitise a collection of records, we either work with commercial and academic publishing partners or we do the work ourselves and make digital copies available to download from our website through Discovery.
Free access to digital records
While we are unable to provide on site access for the foreseeable future, we have decided to make digital records that are downloadable via Discovery available free of charge.
The usual charges will apply to everyone once our reading rooms re-open.
To find records that are available to download for free, filter your search results in Discovery to include records that are ‘available for download only’.