24-hour supermarkets in London: which Asda stores open overnight

The 24-hour supermarket was a normal part of British life until 2020. Most chains cut overnight trading during the pandemic and never brought it back. What survived is a much smaller and stranger picture than people expect.

The chains

Round-the-clock trading at large superstores was largely wound back after 2020. Most big stores now run long hours instead, to 10pm, 11pm or midnight. That is not the same as 24 hours, and it is what catches people out at 2am.

Asda: seven London superstores open overnight on weekdays

These are the Asda superstores whose own store pages show them open through the night. Each one opens on Monday morning and then stays open continuously until 10pm on Saturday. On Sunday it opens for six hours only.

Source: each store’s own page on Asda’s store locator, all 69 entries in Asda’s London directory read on 27 September 2026. Hours change. Open the store’s page before you travel.

The store is open, but its pharmacy is not. Asda’s own pharmacy pages for six of these stores list the pharmacy closing at 8pm or 9pm, and at 5pm or 6pm on Sunday. Isle of Dogs has no pharmacy page. For medicine at night, see how to find a pharmacy open now.

Several other Asda superstores, Clapham Junction and Old Kent Road among them, close at midnight on weekdays. They are not 24-hour stores.

Asda’s directory also lists more than twenty Asda Express petrol-station shops in and around London as open 24 hours, seven days a week. They are small shops, so the Sunday limit does not apply to them.

Tesco: some Express and Esso forecourt shops

Tesco’s store pages give hours branch by branch. On 27 September 2026 the pages we could read listed these as open 24 hours, seven days a week: Tottenham Court Road Express, and the Esso Express shops at Camden Road, Caledonian Road, Colliers Wood and Merton Road, Wimbledon. This is not a complete list. Tesco’s site stopped answering our checks part of the way through, so other branches may also be open all night. Use the Tesco store locator to check the one nearest you.

Every other chain

Check the branch page on the chain’s own store finder: Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Co-op. We have not checked their branches, so we name none here.

The weekend catch that nobody expects

Even a genuinely 24-hour superstore cannot trade through Saturday night into Sunday.

This is not a business decision. It is the Sunday Trading Act: a shop whose sales area is over 280 square metres may open for only six continuous hours on a Sunday, between 10am and 6pm. Sunday begins at midnight, so the shutters come down.

So the pattern is:

Full explanation of the rule, including the exemptions, is in why the big supermarket shuts at 4pm on a Sunday.

What is actually open at 3am

This is the useful part, and the answer is not a supermarket.

Petrol station forecourts. The most dependable overnight shop in London, by a distance. Small enough to be exempt from Sunday trading rules, open every night, and they carry far more than fuel — food, drink, painkillers, phone chargers, nappies, basic toiletries. Supermarket-branded forecourts often carry a decent own-brand range.

Convenience-format stores. The small high-street versions of the big chains. 280 m² or under, so no Sunday restrictions at all, and a fair number run very late or overnight in busy areas.

Corner shops. In central and inner London, plenty trade to 2am or later, and some never close.

Large railway stations. Shops inside major stations are exempt from Sunday trading law. On a Sunday evening, a big terminus is frequently the best shopping available in London.

24-hour off licences. They exist, concentrated in the busier boroughs. Whether they are open is licence-specific and varies street by street.

Getting there

If you are heading out at 3am, the transport question matters as much as the shop. Night buses run every night; the Tube mostly does not. See getting home after the last train and which Tube lines run at night.

Our what is open right now page works this out from the current London time and day, including the Sunday rule.

Before you set off

• Check the specific branch page, never the brand page.
• Ring if it matters. Listed hours rot. A phone that goes unanswered at 1am answers the question.
• Remember the day. The same store has four different behaviours across a week, and three of them are legal requirements rather than choices.
• Default to a forecourt if you just need something basic. It is almost always open, and almost always closer than you think.

Sources

• House of Commons Library — shop opening hours and Sunday trading
• Association of Convenience Stores — trading hours
• Asda store locator — London directory: store hours, every entry read 27 September 2026
• Tesco store locator — London: store hours, partial read 27 September 2026
• An earlier version of this page named a chain with no citable source. That was removed on 17 September. The chain facts above now come from each store’s own page. See corrections.

Checked 11 September 2026. Chains section rebuilt from the chains’ own store pages on 27 September 2026. Individual stores set their own hours within the law, and chains change policy — always confirm the branch.