How we calculate

The data

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) publishes Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England each March, compiled from the council tax requirement (CTR1) returns of all 296 billing authorities and 96 major precepting authorities. The 2026/27 release appeared on 2026-03-25; we use three of its files, downloaded 2026-09-12:

• Table 9 (in Tables 1 to 9): the area council tax for a dwelling occupied by two adults, by band A to H, for every billing authority. These are the eight amounts on each council page.
• Table 10 (local authority level data): the billing authority's own Band D charge, the adult social care precept, the Band D precepts of the county council or Greater London Authority, the police, the fire and rescue authority and the combined authority in its area, the number of parishes, and the area total.
• Band D live table (1993-94 onwards, revised 22 April 2026): the area Band D for each of the last five years and the percentage change, used for the history and the rise on 2025/26.

All three are Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The scripts that download and parse them are kept with the site and rerun when MHCLG revises a table.

What "area Band D" means

Band D is the reference band: the amount payable on a Band D dwelling occupied as a main residence by at least two adults, with no discount, exemption or council tax support. The area figure adds up everything on the bill: the billing authority's own charge (including any adult social care precept), the major precepts for the county or GLA, police, fire and combined authority, and the average parish precept across the district. MHCLG's average is the council tax requirement divided by the tax base, so where a council has more than one charging area the figure is a weighted average.

The parish element is the important caveat. In a shire district some towns have a parish or town council charging £100 or more at Band D while other parts are unparished and pay nothing; the page shows the district-wide average and says how many parishes set a precept. In London and most metropolitan districts there are few or no parishes and the figure is exact.

The eight bands

Section 5 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 fixes every band as a proportion of Band D: A 6/9, B 7/9, C 8/9, D 9/9, E 11/9, F 13/9, G 15/9, H 18/9. MHCLG's Table 9 already applies these ratios to each authority's area Band D, and we publish Table 9's figures rather than recomputing them. As a check, for every one of the 296 authorities the Table 9 amounts agree with Band D times the ratio to within two pence.

Worked example, Leeds: Band D is £2,283.73, so Band A is £2,283.73 × 6/9 = £1,522.49 (Table 9: £1,522.49) and Band H is × 18/9 = £4,567.46 (Table 9: £4,567.46).

Monthly figures

Councils bill in ten monthly instalments from April to January by default; you may ask to pay over twelve. "A month (10)" is the annual amount divided by ten, "a month (12)" divided by twelve, both rounded to the penny. Councils round instalments themselves, so the first or last payment can differ by a few pence.

Change on 2025/26

For Band D the change is the difference between the 2026/27 and 2025/26 area Band D figures in the live table, and the percentage is MHCLG's own. For the other bands the live table has no prior-year figure by band, so we apply the statutory ratio to last year's Band D; that is exact except for penny rounding. Four unitary councils created by reorganisation (Cumberland, North Yorkshire, Somerset, Westmorland and Furness) have no comparable earlier area Band D in the live table and show no history.

Who receives the money

The segments in the band ladder are the Band D amounts from Table 10: the billing authority's own charge excluding parish precepts, then county or GLA, police, fire, combined authority, and the average parish precept (the difference between the council's Band D including and excluding local precepts). For each band the segments are scaled by that band's ratio. The adult social care figure shown is the part of 2026/27's Band D attributable to this year's adult social care precept increase, as reported on the CTR1 form (line 11a); the precept flexibility is capped at 2% a year and the cumulative amount since 2016 is not published per authority.

Rankings and averages

Rankings order all 296 billing authorities by area Band D. The England average of £2,392 is MHCLG's tax-base-weighted figure from Table 2; the averages by type of council on the rankings page are simple means and are labelled as such. "Council tax per dwelling", where shown, is MHCLG's average bill across all dwellings after discounts and support, from the per-dwelling live table.

Update schedule

MHCLG publishes the next release in March 2027. Until then figures may be revised when authorities correct their returns; the live table was last revised on 22 April 2026.

Wales and Scotland

Wales: the Welsh Government's Council Tax levels: April 2026 to March 2027 gives each of the 22 county and county borough councils' average Band D, split into the county element (which includes fire authority levies), the police precept and the average community council precept, plus the previous year. Wales has nine bands on 1 April 2003 values with ratios 6/9 to 21/9 (Council Tax (Valuation Bands) (Wales) Order 2003); we derive Bands A to I from Band D by those ratios because the release publishes Band D only. Scotland: the Scottish Government's council tax datasets give Band A to H charges for the 32 councils (Council Tax by band 2026-27) and Band D back to 1996-97; the ratios for E to H have been 473/360, 585/360, 705/360 and 882/360 since April 2017. Scottish figures exclude the water and sewerage charges Scottish Water levies through the council tax bill. Neither nation has an England-style area figure with parish variation, and the three nations are never ranked against each other.