Cheap Hotels In Edinburgh Old Town And On The Royal Mile

Most first-time visitors to Edinburgh want to sleep inside the medieval core, within walking distance of the castle, and the good news is that the Old Town holds the cheapest beds in the entire city. The same tenement buildings that house £200 boutique hotels also house hostel dorms from £10 a night, and the gap between those two experiences is smaller than you might think because the location is identical. The trade-offs are real though: steep streets, thin old walls, and August noise that runs until 3am in the Cowgate and Grassmarket. This guide prices out every budget option in the historic core, from hostel beds to the cheapest verified double room, so you can decide what the Royal Mile is worth to you. If those trade-offs sound like too much, our guide to Edinburgh's cheapest neighbourhoods shows how far the same money stretches in other parts of the city.

Everything here is built from listing data for named stays, official council pages and dated market reports. Where a price is a low-season from-price it says so, and where a figure comes from reporting rather than an official page it is flagged as reported. For a city-wide view that includes Leith, Haymarket and the airport corridor, start with the best cheap accommodation in Edinburgh guide, then come back here for the street-level detail.

Where Are The Cheapest Places To Sleep In Old Town Edinburgh?

The cheapest verified bed in the Old Town is a dorm at Kick Ass Greyfriars from £10 per night, followed by St Christopher's Old Town from £15.43 and Castle Rock Hostel from £16, all low-season prices for one dorm bed. At the hotel end, the cheapest verified double room in the core is hub by Premier Inn Royal Mile from £115 per night for two adults, with YOTEL Edinburgh from £106 just on the edge of the grid.

That spread is the whole story of budget sleeping in the Old Town in one paragraph. A hostel bed near the castle costs less than a tenth of a mid-range hotel room on the same street, and the price ladder between those two points is unusually well populated. The Old Town has more cheap beds per square metre than any other part of Edinburgh, partly because its tall tenements were built to stack people vertically in the first place. If your dates are still unsettled, the last-minute hotel guide for Edinburgh shows which of these budget options still have beds when you are booking only days ahead.

The comparison table below pulls together every verified budget option in the historic core. Prices are low-season from-prices on the stated basis: hostels are one dorm bed per night, hotels and aparthotels are a double room for two adults per night. Ratings are shown on the scale the listing uses, with the review count beside them, because a 9.4 from 25,769 reviews and a 3.5 from 30 reviews are very different kinds of evidence. If the Old Town rates still stretch your budget, our guide to cheap hotels in Leith on the waterfront covers cheaper options a short tram or bus ride from the centre.

Two things jump out of that table. First, hostel prices cluster tightly between £10 and £20, so choosing between them is really about rating, atmosphere and exact street rather than price. Second, there is almost nothing between a £20 dorm bed and a £106 hotel room: the Old Town's mid-market is thin, and the jump from hostel to hotel is a fivefold price step. If your budget sits in the £40 to £90 range for a private room, an aparthotel or serviced apartment or a guesthouse just outside the core is usually the better hunt.

Hostel Beds Versus Hotel Rooms On The Royal Mile

A dorm bed within five minutes' walk of the Royal Mile costs from £10 to £19.53 per night in low season, while the cheapest hotel double on the Royal Mile itself is hub by Premier Inn from £115 per night for the room. Per person, two travellers sharing a dorm pay a fraction of what the same address costs in hotel form, so the hostel route is several times cheaper for the identical postcard location.

That arithmetic is why the Old Town hostels are not just for backpackers. Castle Rock Hostel, at 9.42/10 across 25,769 reviews, has one of the largest review pools of any stay in this guide, hostel or hotel, and its from-price of £16 per dorm bed buys a bed literally beneath the castle esplanade on Johnston Terrace. The hostel is adults only, everyone at check-in must be 18 or over, and it runs daily events, a full kitchen and 24-hour reception with no curfew, according to its own frequently asked questions page. Those are hotel-adjacent services at a bed price.

Kick Ass Grassmarket, from £12 per dorm bed and rated 8.26/10 across 8,527 reviews, sits at the west end of the Mile in the Grassmarket, where the pubs stay loud late. It is also 18-plus only, with secure lockers at every bed, 24-hour reception and no curfew, but no guest kitchen at this site, which matters if you were planning to self-cater your way to a cheap week. Its sister property, Kick Ass Greyfriars at the east end of the Cowgate, is the cheapest verified bed in the city at from £10, rated 8.38/10 across 8,963 reviews, with a kitchen available at a nearby sister site.

High Street Hostel on Blackfriars Street, a lane off the Royal Mile proper, is from £19 per dorm bed and rated 8.4/10 across 2,184 reviews. It shares ownership and house style with Castle Rock: adults only, 18-plus, government photo ID at check-in, free linen, in-room lockers, a £4 continental breakfast if you want it, a kitchen, and laundry at £5. Royal Mile Backpackers, from £18 and rated 9.18/10 across 3,575 reviews, packs a similar promise into a smaller building. For a full breakdown across the whole city, including the New Town and Southside hostels, see the cheap hostels in Edinburgh guide.

At the hotel end of the ladder the choice inside the historic core is narrow. hub by Premier Inn Edinburgh Royal Mile, from £115 per night for a double room for two adults and rated 3.5/5 across 306 reviews, offers compact rooms in exchange for the address. If you want more hotel per pound and can accept a ten-minute walk, the budget hotels in Edinburgh guide covers the chains on the edge of the grid, including Travelodge Central Queen Street from £83 and ibis budget Edinburgh Park from £85, both double rooms for two adults in low season. You can also see current rates for hub by Premier Inn Royal Mile and judge the premium for yourself.

Noise, Steep Streets And The Real Old Town Trade-Offs

The Old Town is the noisiest place to sleep in Edinburgh: City Centre ward, which covers most of it, recorded 336 crimes per 1,000 population in 2024, the city's highest, and during the August Fringe, pubs and clubs in the Grassmarket and Cowgate run until around 3am, with tenement walls transmitting sound between floors. The offsetting gains are walkability and transport, with Waverley roughly 7 minutes from the Victoria Street area.

Honesty about the downsides is what makes the prices above make sense. Edinburgh's Old Town tenements were built tight and tall, and sound travels through them. Reporting from the 2025 and 2026 festivals described residents near Fringe venues, including the Pleasance and the Cowgate, dealing with crowd noise, trucks and late disruption, and one venue negotiated a higher noise limit to the reported anger of neighbours. If you are noise-sensitive and visiting in August, a rear-facing room, a higher floor or a stay just outside the core will serve you better than the absolute cheapest bed on the party street.

The steep streets are the other physical fact. The Royal Mile runs downhill from castle to palace, and the closes dropping off it toward Princes Street Gardens and Waverley are staircases in all but name. Dragging a suitcase up Cockburn Street at the end of a travel day is a genuine workout. The upside of that topography is that nothing in the core is far from anything: the whole Old Town is a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk end to end, and the trams at Princes Street, St Andrew Square and Picardy Place run every 7 minutes between 7am and 7pm and about every 10 minutes otherwise, according to the operator's timetable.

On safety, the numbers need context rather than alarm. That 336 crimes per 1,000 figure is the highest ward rate in Edinburgh, but it reflects a tiny resident population under a huge visitor footfall, and the dominant category is dishonesty such as pickpocketing in crowded Royal Mile stretches, not violence. Police Scotland runs high-visibility operations in the centre during the festivals, including Operation Summer City in August. Ordinary precautions, keeping bags closed in crowds and sticking to lit streets at night, cover almost all of the actual risk. The question is Edinburgh safe to walk around at night gets a fuller treatment elsewhere on this site.

If that section has you reconsidering the address premium, a budget chain one neighbourhood over may be the answer: cheap doubles from £83 with a 15-minute walk into the core are covered in hotels near Waverley station.

How The Visitor Levy Changes Your Old Town Bill

The Edinburgh Visitor Levy is 5% of the cost of your paid overnight accommodation, charged before VAT and not on extras such as meals or parking, and it applies only to the first five consecutive nights of a stay, for stays from 24 July 2026 onwards where the booking was made on or after 1 October 2025. It is calculated on the room or bed price, not per person, and stops after night five.

The levy covers hotels, hostels, aparthotels, guest houses, self-catering apartments and short-term lets alike, so it hits every option in this guide equally and does not change the relative ranking of any of them. UK and Scottish residents pay it too; it is not a tourist-only charge. The Council's scheme pages state the rate, the five-night cap and the start date plainly, and the collection rules mean the accommodation provider, or the platform if it takes your payment, gathers the money and passes it on, with the first quarterly returns due in October 2026. More of these guides are collected on Cheap Hotels Edinburgh.

Two practical points are worth knowing at checkout. First, UK pricing rules mean the total price you are shown at the point of booking should include the levy, so the bed price you see should already carry the 5% rather than surprising you later, though some platforms and properties itemise it differently. Second, if you qualify, recipients of listed disability benefits can pay the levy and then claim the amount back from the Council after the stay; only the levy itself is refunded, not VAT or extras. The official details are on the Council's visitor levy pages, and this site keeps a full plain-English breakdown in the Edinburgh visitor levy explained guide.

The levy is a percentage of whatever rate you actually book, so its size scales with the price ladder across the Old Town:

Because the levy is 5% of the accommodation cost and capped at five consecutive nights, its absolute size is largest on the most expensive rooms and nights six onwards in the same continuous stay are not charged. Any total you see quoted here or elsewhere that folds the levy in is an illustration, not a listed figure; your actual bill depends on the rate you book and the nights you stay. A new stay after check-out restarts the five-night count.

Apartments And Aparthotels In The Historic Core

The cheapest verified aparthotel double in the Old Town is Edinburgh Castle Apartments and Suites from £149 per night for two adults, with Aparthotel Adagio Royal Mile from £163 and Holyrood Aparthotel from £132 just off the eastern end of the Mile; the cheapest listed private apartment on this site is a Grassmarket two-bedroom with castle views, rated 10/10 across 143 reviews, with no price held, so see current rates.

For longer stays, families or anyone who wants to cook, the apartment route often beats the hotel arithmetic once you pass three or four nights, and the Old Town has a thin but real supply. The Grassmarket apartment with views to Edinburgh Castle, listed with a 10/10 rating across 143 reviews, sleeps groups in two bedrooms in the heart of the western Old Town; with no price held, the honest advice is simply to check current rates, since festival weeks and January move in opposite directions.

Edinburgh Castle Apartments and Suites, from £149 per night for a double room and rated 4.5/5 across 475 reviews, puts you in the castle's shadow with hotel-style service. Aparthotel Adagio Royal Mile at 231 Canongate, from £163 and carrying 5,229 reviews with no aggregate rating on the scale, offers 146 studios and one-bedroom apartments with kitchens, 24-hour reception, a gym and a breakfast option, with check-in at 15:00 and check-out at 11:00 according to the operator's own page. Holyrood Aparthotel, from £132 and rated 8.1/10 across 4,296 reviews, sits at the quiet palace end of the Mile, which is worth noting if the noise section above resonated with you.

One check applies to any short-term let in the city: licensing. The whole council area has been a short-term let control area since 5 September 2022, a licence has been mandatory across Scotland since 1 October 2022, and the licence number must be displayed on listings. Guests can search the public register on the Council's site, which is updated at least monthly. A listing without a licence number is one to walk away from. For the full picture, including the New Town aparthotels and the new properties opening through 2026 and 2027, see the aparthotels and serviced apartments guide.

Which Old Town Streets Are Best For Budget Stays?

For cheap and quiet, aim for Blackfriars Street and the Canongate end of the Royal Mile, where High Street Hostel, Royal Mile Backpackers and Holyrood Aparthotel sit minutes from everything but one street back from the loudest venues; for cheapest of all, the Cowgate and Grassmarket hostels from £10 sit closest to the late-night noise; for a hotel room, the hub by Premier Inn block near Cockburn Street is the core's main budget double.

Street-level knowledge matters more in the Old Town than anywhere else in Edinburgh because the same district contains both the quietest closes and the loudest pubs. The Cowgate, where Kick Ass Greyfriars and Safestay sit, is a sunken valley of venues that stays loud until around 3am during the Fringe; budget travellers who sleep early should book it knowingly. The Grassmarket one block north is similar in character but slightly more mixed, with the castle looming over the pub terraces. Johnston Terrace and the Castle terrace side, where Castle Rock Hostel stands, is noticeably calmer and still only minutes from the esplanade.

Here is how the main budget streets compare, using the facts in this guide:

If none of those fit, the neighbouring districts are covered in depth elsewhere on this site: Princes Street and New Town hotels for the flat, elegant side of the gardens, and Leith on a budget for waterfront guesthouses from £55 a double.

When To Book An Old Town Room

Book an Old Town stay 9 to 12 months ahead for August, with central affordable rooms mostly gone by March to May; for Hogmanay, cheaper options sell out by mid-September; January and February are the cheapest months city-wide, with advertised average hotel rates of £111 in the cheapest tracked month against a £202 annual average.

The August maths is stark. Market reporting recorded August occupancy of 90.9% with an average daily rate of £261, and advertised averages for August 2026 were tracking at £199, rising above the annual norm, while one August 2025 snapshot put the month 38% above July. The Fringe itself runs 6 to 30 August 2027 for the 80th edition, with the Tattoo overlapping from 6 to 28 August, and the Fringe Society's own accommodation advice is that affordable options are first-come, first-served and listed early in the year. Dorm beds that cost £10 in November can be £35 to £45 in August on the dated price tables for the Cowgate hostels.

Away from the peaks, the calendar is generous. Edinburgh's Christmas markets run 14 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 and lift late-year prices, and the Hogmanay street party on 31 December makes the core the most expensive night of the year, with Edinburgh previously measured as the UK's priciest New Year's Eve destination at an advertised average of £481 a room. Murrayfield event weekends, including the February and March 2027 Six Nations fixtures, also spike prices across the whole city. Against all that, January and February are the honest bargain months, and the question of the cheapest time to visit Edinburgh is answered in full in its own guide.

Practical booking rules for the Old Town specifically: refundable rates cost more but let you rebook if plans shift, non-refundable rates typically save money, and peak periods sometimes carry minimum stays. Whatever you book, read the cancellation terms on the confirmation, since policies are set property by property and there is no city-wide rule.

Common Questions About Old Town Edinburgh Stays