What is a British Newspaper Archive subscription?

While you can explore millions of articles for free on The British Newspaper Archive, you’ll need a subscription to enjoy all that we offer. Paid either monthly or annually, a British Newspaper Archive subscription unlocks access to the largest collection of British and Irish newspapers online. We also offer a Pay-Per-View option.

The British Newspaper Archive is a partnership project between Findmypast and the British Library. Your subscription funds our work - ongoing digitisation of new pages, the running of our website, and making continuous improvements to our platform. 

My British Newspaper Archive subscription

You can subscribe to the British Newspaper Archive by visiting our registration page. Here you can select the subscription package that best suits you.

You can manage your British Newspaper Archive subscription any time by selecting ‘My Account’ and then ‘My subscription.’ You will need to be logged-in whilst you do this.

If you’ve selected a monthly subscription, we take your payment by calculating how many days away from the end of the month it was when the subscription was originally bought. For example, if you purchased your subscription on 28 March, three days away from the end of the month, we will always take your next payment three days away from the end of the month. Consequently, for the next month, it will be taken on 27 April.

If you have accidentally bought the wrong subscription, please contact our Customer Support team, and they will be happy to fix it for you.

Cancelling a British Newspaper Archive Subscription

We’d be sorry to see you go, so before you decide to cancel your British Newspaper Archive subscription, it could be worth contacting our Customer Support team. We may be able to help with any problems you’re having with the site or talk you through other subscription options.

You can cancel your British Newspaper Archive subscription at any time through your account settings. This will cancel your next payment, ending your access to most of the site’s newspapers and features.

Should you decide cancel your subscription, before the expiration date:

1. Log in, go to ‘My Account’ and select ‘My Subscription’
2. Select ‘Change Subscription,’ where you can select the option to cancel
3. You will be asked to confirm if you would like to cancel your subscription; select ‘Cancel Subscription’ to continue
4. You may be asked some questions on your experience with the British Newspaper Archive
5. A confirmation message will appear, and you will receive an email showing the changes made to your account

If you have any problems cancelling your subscription, please contact our Customer Support team. Alternatively, if you decide you no longer want to cancel your subscription, you can select ‘Reactivate Subscription’ using the steps outlined above. This will restart the same subscription that you previously had. This package will automatically renew unless cancelled.

If you have a 12-month agreement that is paid for monthly, cancelling online will stop your subscription from automatically renewing once your 12-month agreement ends. You will continue to pay the agreed monthly installments until the end of your 12-month term, and your subscription will expire automatically on that date. If you wish to end your agreement before the expiry of the 12-month fixed term, you must contact our Customer Support team.

Viewing material after cancelling your subscription

After you have cancelled, you’ll still have the same access to the records and features included in your subscription until it expires. You can see the expiry date and details of your subscription by following the steps outlined above.

Once your subscription has ended, you will no longer be able to access new or previously viewed newspaper pages.  A valid membership is required to view previously viewed records saved in ‘My Records.’ Alternatively, you can download newspaper pages to your device during your subscription to keep them forever.

However, when your subscription ends you will still be able to access our collection of free to view newspaper pages. You will have limited access to any collections or workspaces you have created, although saved items may not be clickable or viewable. 

Your email preferences

With the British Newspaper Archive, you’re in control of how often you hear from us and what we contact you about.

Simply follow these steps to let us know what emails you’d like to receive from us:

1. Whilst logged into the British Newspaper Archive, go to ‘My Account’ and then ‘Communication preferences’
2. Choose which emails you’d like to receive from the British Newspaper Archive by ticking the boxes or selecting the toggles

If you’d like to unsubscribe from all British Newspaper Archive emails, select ‘Unsubscribe from everything’ and we will stop contacting you. When you unsubscribe, you’ll only ever receive essential emails about your account from us.

Subscriptions for libraries, schools and groups

If you’d like to provide access to the British Newspaper Archive for a group of people, you can subscribe to the BNA Library Edition. This is designed for schools, libraries, and other institutions who want to grant access to a large number of people.

If you are representing an academic institution, like a university, you may like to consider a subscription to The Social History Archive. The Social History Archive is a dedicated academic platform, which is also home to the newspapers found on the British Newspaper Archive.