Welcome to the definitive guide to how to buy Premier League tickets.

I am an American who’s been to more than 300 games in England and Europe, including at every club in the Premier League. So I’ve learned a lot about how to buy Premier League tickets. And here, I will share what I know about buying from the clubs, hospitality packages, official resellers, and the third-party or secondary market.

And here’s a shortcut: Groundhopper Guides are official sales agents for Premier League tickets! Click that big red button at the top of the page to tell us what you’re looking for, and read on to learn all about the world of buying Premier League tickets.

The Four Ways to Buy Premier League Tickets

• Direct from the club, which is hard because of demand. Club members have priority here. More on that below.
• As “hospitality” packages from the club — hospitality being a seat for the game plus a benefit like lounge access, food and drinks, a stadium tour, etc.
• From official resellers and their sales agents — which includes Groundhopper Soccer Guides. We are authorized sales agents for tickets and hospitality at most Premier League clubs and dozens of clubs around the UK and Europe.
• From the third-party market, which is illegal in the UK and so can be pretty sketchy. Note that sellers who put their tickets up for sale here are violating club policy, as well. The buyer (you) won’t get in trouble, but you could well be turned away at the turnstile.

If you’re American, you might be wondering if you can just buy Premier League tickets on the street outside the stadium. This is both super rare in England and quite contrary to UK law.

Buy Official Premier League Tickets From Groundhopper Guides!

Option 1: Buy Direct From the Club

This is the simplest and most obvious route for tickets, but it’s tricky due to very high demand.

Let’s start with how clubs allocate tickets. Basically, they start with season ticket holders, then members (more on that in a moment), then the general public gets a shot in what’s called a “General Sale.” But many games never even make it to “general sale.” This is why it often appears so hard to buy tickets from the big Premier League clubs.

Will there be a general sale for your game? It basically depends on which club you’re dealing with, and whom they’re playing. For example, if Manchester City are playing Manchester United, there’s no way that game goes on sale to the general public. If City are playing someone like Ipswich Town, there’s a better chance of a general sale — but it won’t happen until a few weeks before the game.

Also, let’s say it’s late in the season and a club is about to get relegated. For their home games, there will probably be a General Sale.

Many clubs also have a ticket exchange on their website, allowing season ticket holders who can’t make a game to resell their tickets to paid club members.

Ticket tip: If you’re buying from a club, it’s critical to pay attention to on-sale dates. Look for the “general sale” date for your match and jump on it that day, keeping in mind the different time zones. But remember it is often just a few weeks before the game!

View from our seats at Arsenal FC

Do You need a Membership to Buy Premier League Tickets?

A club membership is where you pay an annual fee for various perks like the club newsletter, a trinket of some sort, a loyalty-points account … plus access to buy tickets before the “general sale” date and access the official resale area.

It’s easy to get a membership to any club: You just pay them! There are different levels at each club, and from what I’ve seen you can expect to pay around $50 US per season for a membership. Some of them have a cheaper international or “lite” membership that gets you a chance to buy tickets for one or two games.

Having a membership does increase your chances of securing Premier League tickets, but it is not a guarantee. It just moves you up the line a bit. You also may need one membership per ticket, and you may have to log in right at the on-sale time to have any chance. Other clubs just run a lottery among their members for each game.

Paying $50 just for the chance to maybe buy a ticket may seem silly, but before I became a sales agent, I worked for two years to get any ticket to Liverpool, and I finally (barely) got one ticket to a midweek League Cup game.

Ticket tip: Many clubs do have an official resale area where members can buy and sell game tickets. This is a good reason to get a membership, especially if you just want one ticket. Getting more than one seated together this way is tough, though.

More: Do You Need a Membership to Buy Premier League Tickets?

Option 2: Buying Hospitality Packages

All clubs sell various levels of lounge/suite/box experiences known as “hospitality” — at a cost, of course. These generally include some combination of food, beverages, club-shop discounts or stadium tour in addition to the game seats. But the seats are almost always just regular seats, not actually in the lounge or box.

What does Premier League hospitality cost? They can start at $150 at smaller clubs and $400-500 at the bigger clubs — not cheap, but they are official, from the club, and often very comfortable with excellent seats.

Advantages of hospitality:

• Official purchase from the club
• Includes food, drinks and other perks
• Available months ahead of the game, unlike regular tickets
• An exclusive (plus warm and dry) place to hang out before and after the game.
• A chance to mingle with other fans around the bar or table
• If you’re a member, you earn loyalty points in your account.

For more on hospitality packages, check the video below.

Option 3: Official Club Resellers

An official reseller is a company — often a large ticket agency with lots of options beyond football — that will sign a contract with the club to own tickets to every home game. One reason Premier League and other clubs will say a game is sold out is that many tickets and hospitality packages have already been sold to these official resellers.

These official resellers then sell tickets direct to the public and/or through official registered agents — like Groundhopper Guides.

Sometimes, when buying hospitality from an official reseller, you will also have to book a hotel room — but not from Groundhopper Guides.

How do you find official Premier League ticket resellers? Clubs always list them on their websites.

Groundhopper Soccer Guides Sells 100% Official Premier League Tickets

Groundhopper Guides is an official registered agent for six such resellers, which is why you can buy 100% legit and guaranteed Premier League tickets and hospitality direct from Groundhopper Guides. Just hit that big red button at the top of the page to tell us how we can help.

We sell tickets and hospitality at nearly 100 clubs all over the UK and Europe. Here is a list of all the clubs where we can sell Premier League tickets.

Related: How Groundhopper Guides is Authorized to Sell Premier League Tickets

An important reminder.

Option 4: Third-Party or “Secondary” Sellers

Quick vocabulary lesson: “Scalpers” in the US are called “touts” in the UK.

Quick fact check: It is against UK law to resell football tickets, unless you are authorized to do so and/or they are part of an authorized package. So the whole world of “scalping” that exists in the US is against the law in the UK. But the companies offering this service are not based in the UK, so they get past this. StubHub, for example, is based in the US, outside the UK jurisdiction.

Also, people selling tickets on the streets outside of English stadiums are much, much less common — also because that kind of selling is much more illegal.

Which third-party reseller sites are we talking about? Just to name a few familiar ones: StubHub, Vivid Seats, Seatpick and Live Football Tickets are all on the Premier League’s list of unauthorized resellers.

You won’t get in trouble for buying Premier League tickets on a site like this, but it is kind of the Wild West, and it can be quite nerve-wracking, because you are not buying from them — you are buying from whoever put the tickets up for sale on their platform.

You might, for example, find out your tickets are fake at the turnstile, when it will be too late to do anything about. Sometimes they will cancel our order last-minute so they can sell the tickets for more money. Either way, you’ll get your money back, but you won’t go to the game. Other times, you might have to meet someone on the street to get their membership card, then meet them again after to give it back. Dodgy, as they say in England.

Ticket Tip: We recommend avoiding this market entirely. There are plenty of legal and guaranteed ways to buy Premier League tickets!

Read More: Buying Premier League Tickets: Is StubHub Safe?

Pregame at Chelsea FC

How to Buy Premier League Tickets from the USA

If you’re coming from America to see a Premier League game, all of this content here applies to you. My advice, again after more than 10 years of doing this, is to follow these steps:

1. If you’re a fan of a particular club, get a membership there (around $50) and reach out to the ticket staff to ask about your chances of getting tickets. Also ask about hospitality.
2. Target easier-to-get tickets like midweek games, lower-ranked opponents, and cup games.
3. Pay strict attention to ticket on-sale dates, lotteries, or however they run their tickets. Be ready to pounce!
4. Keep official hospitality from the club in your back pocket as an (expensive) backup — or just pull the trigger on this to get it done and skip the ticket process.
5. Research their official resellers.
6. Reach out to Groundhopper Guides to see if we can help.

Can Tourists Buy Premier League Tickets Without a Membership?

Yes, from some clubs and some games, but not for games at the really popular Premier League clubs. Without a membership, you can also buy hospitality from the club, or purchase from an official reseller. A membership will move you up in the queue for regular tickets from the clubs, but it’s not a guarantee you will get tickets.

At the bigger clubs, you will need a membership for any chance at getting regular tickets.

Buying Away Team Premier League Tickets

If you want to buy an Arsenal ticket but they are playing away from home, you might wonder, “Why not buy an Arsenal away ticket and see them somewhere else?” The answer is that it is virtually impossible to do so legally. With huge demand, thousands of members and season ticket holders, and small stadium allocations, Premier League away tickets are like gold dust. The only way to get one is to roll the dice in the sketchy third-party market.

Related: Is it Safe to go to English Soccer Games?

How Much Do Premier League Tickets Cost?

To buy a Premier League ticket, expect to pay something along the lines of £40 to £60 — if you manage to get one from the club, which is tough. Recently, the Pound has averaged around $1.30, so we’re talking $55 to $100.

Hospitality packages at Premier League clubs can go from £100 to way up there, depending on the perks and who is playing.

For Football League tickets, like in the Championship (second tier of leagues), expect to pay about 40 quid (50 bucks). It can be even less than that in lower leagues.

For Cup games (see below), I have seen them as low as £10 pounds for a ticket.

Which Premier League Clubs Are Easiest to Get Tickets For?

There are a few tiers of clubs here, based on the difficulty of getting tickets. Here is what I have seen in 10+ years of going to games:

• Hardest: You will absolutely need a membership and good luck, or to spend a lot on hospitality, at Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Brentford, Newcastle, Leeds, Crystal Palace and Man United. Also anybody who’s just been promoted, like Ipswich Town last season.
• Medium: Here, at “lesser” games, cup games, midweek in winter, or late in a difficult season, a membership might do the trick: Manchester City, Brighton, Tottenham, Fulham, Everton, and Nottingham Forest.
• Easiest: Of course, “easy” is relative, but especially if it’s late in the season and they are fighting relegation, you might even see General Sales at Wolverhampton, Burnley, West Ham, and Sunderland. Even here, though, a derby match will be hard.

With some clubs, the normal rules just don’t apply. At Newcastle, you need a membership to enter a raffle, and it’s super hard. Even when Leeds United are in the Championship, tickets there are almost impossible. And at Manchester City, despite being by far the best team in the country over the last decade, demand is just lower than at Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and so on. At places like Bournemouth and Brentford, the issue is a tiny stadium.

Is It Easier to Buy Tickets for Cup Games?

If you’re determined, say, to buy a Chelsea ticket to get into Stamford Bridge, you probably won’t care who they’re playing. It’s going to be hard (expensive) to see them play Liverpool or Arsenal, so one thing to watch for is Cup games.

Here we mean the FA Cup and the League Cup. (Here’s a quick introduction to the leagues and cups of English soccer). They tend to be a bit cheaper and easier to get into, at least in earlier rounds, against smaller opponents. For example, I once got killer seats at Old Trafford (for about $50) for a League Cup game on a Tuesday night in January. Also, the opponents were Sunderland, not one of the heavyweights of the sport.

Another fun thing about Cup games is that there will be more away fans, due to Cup rules. So when I saw Sunderland win that game at Man United, instead of the usual 3,000 away fans at a League game, there were 9,000 delirious Sunderland fans in the end having the time of their lives.

How to Buy Champions League Tickets

Everything we’ve said so far applies to league or cup games — and is exactly the same for tickets to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. The only difference is that there is usually a lot more demand for these games. Otherwise, it’s the same process, and we at Groundhopper Guides will have European tickets and hospitality for any club where we normally sell them.

Here is a current list of where we sell Champions League tickets.

Another Option Entirely: Buy Football League Tickets

Football League tickets are much easier to buy than Premier League tickets, just because demand is so much lower. Plus, in many ways, I find the Football League to be a more enjoyable experience, with smaller stadiums, longtime dedicated fans and fewer tourists.

At most clubs in the Football League, games don’t sell out, and you can often just walk up to the stadium on the day of the game and make a purchase.

We still recommend buying ahead of time, though, if only for peace of mind and to pick where you sit. And here is our advice on where to sit at an English football game.

There are exceptions, of course — most famously Wrexham, in the Championship. With their small stadium and global demand, buying Wrexham tickets is harder than at Manchester City!

Learn more about all the lower-league clubs in and around London.

Every season, we update this Google Map of the top six tiers of leagues around the UK; zoom in on London and select the different leagues to see what I’m talking about.

Groundhopper Guides Has Premier League Tickets!

Again, as registered sales agents for multiple club resellers, we sell 100%, fully guaranteed Premier League tickets. We will also share the knowledge I have gathered in seeing more than 300 games on this side of the Atlantic. Our hundreds of 5-star Google reviews speak to our amazing, personalized customer service. Buy from us, and you will forever qualify for our referral-bonus program. And we will even give you a copy of our book, The Groundhopper Guide to Soccer in England, which we update after every season.

Plus, with our consulting package, you can get me in a Zoom call to ask whatever you want and get my suggestions; together we will plan your whole soccer adventure!

Looking to buy Premier League tickets? Fill out this form and let us know which fixtures you’re interested in, and we’ll send you a quote.