Our Mission

Our mission is to make UK Council Tax, every band, every billing authority, every annual charge schedule, searchable, comparable, and free to use.

PlainCouncilTax helps householders, journalists, surveyors, and policy researchers compare what each band costs in each authority and how those charges have moved year on year. Property-specific band checks remain with the VOA or Scottish Assessors.

Why we built this: Council Tax is the largest household tax for many households, and the unweighted authority-mean Band D rate now exceeds £2,000 annually. Yet the data behind it, the property bands, the council-set charge tables and annual changes, is split across MHCLG, the Scottish Government, Welsh Government, the VOA, and the Scottish Assessors.

We built PlainCouncilTax to consolidate that data into a single comparable structure, sourced directly from the public records and updated on a transparent schedule.

Our purpose is to empower households to understand their Council Tax position, identify the official place to verify their bill or band, compare authority charges, and engage with local government around budget decisions.

We believe public-domain data should be plain-language accessible to non-experts. That belief drives every editorial decision on the site.

Where the Data Comes From, Our Data Sources

The dataset is assembled from official public data sources:

• Annual Band D releases: MHCLG for England, Scottish Government Council Tax datasets for Scotland, and Welsh Government / StatsWales for Wales. These supply the current and prior-year authority rates used throughout the site.
• Nation-specific band frameworks: the VOA administers the valuation lists in England and Wales; Scottish Assessors maintain Scotland's valuation roll. We store each nation's thresholds and statutory multipliers separately.
• VOA property-stock release: published aggregate band counts for England and Wales, used for the stock profiles and weighted-charge calculations on supported council pages. The VOA release does not cover Scotland, and neither do those modules.

Our rates data covers 296 English, 32 Scottish, and 22 Welsh billing authorities. Property-stock context appears only where the separate VOA release provides it.

Northern Ireland uses a separate rates system not covered by PlainCouncilTax.

Where the data comes from determines what we can show: we never extrapolate beyond the published source.

Methodology, How We Process the Data

Our approach follows a strict methodology:

1. We ingest the three national Band D releases into one authority table, retaining both the 2026-27 current rate and 2025-26 comparator.
2. We join the VOA's published England/Wales band-stock aggregates to matching authorities and leave unsupported records explicitly unavailable.
3. We compute the band-by-band table using the statutory multipliers (Band A=6/9 of Band D, Band B=7/9, etc.) so users see the actual amount for every band, not just Band D.
4. We publish council, band, ranking, change, CSV, and JSON views from that same database. We do not publish an address or postcode lookup.

For full methodology, see our methodology page - which covers data sources, normalization rules, derived-metric formulas, and quality controls.

How the data is processed is documented in detail so other researchers can replicate or audit our derivations.

Data Currency, When Updated

Data currency matters because charges change annually and the separate valuation lists can change between releases.

Our refresh schedule:

• Band D rates: reviewed when the national annual tables publish for the new financial year.
• Property stock: refreshed when a new VOA annual stock release is ingested; its vintage is kept separate from the rates vintage.
• Data vintage stamp: every page shows the snapshot date used to render its data.

Data pages label the financial year or source vintage relevant to their figures.

Last updated: 2026-05-17.

Editorial review dates change only when page content changes; they are not used to imply a new upstream data release.

Limitations and Disclaimers

Important note: while we take every care to compile and present the data accurately, several limitations apply:

• The authority comparison does not expose property-level band changes or live household account information.
• Charge tables are accurate as published but may be modified mid-year if a council issues an in-year adjustment (rare but possible).
• Bills shown do not account for discounts (single-person, student exemption, severely-mentally-impaired discount, etc.).
• Discounts vary by household and must be checked against your local council's billing rules.
• Northern Ireland uses a separate domestic rates system not covered here.

Disclaimer: PlainCouncilTax is an informational resource and does not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always verify the final bill against your council's own statement.

For specific questions about your liability, contact your billing authority directly.

These caveats apply to all data on the site without exception.

Editorial Independence

PlainCouncilTax is an independent editorial operation that builds plain-language reference sites around UK public data.

We do not accept payment from billing authorities, property-tax service providers, Council Tax appeals firms, or any other entity covered by the data.

Our analysis, summaries, and comparisons are produced without commercial influence.

We do not run sponsored content. Advertising on the site (where present) is clearly labelled and subject to the AdSense policies.

Ad placement does not influence editorial coverage.

Contact and Corrections

Contact the editorial process at hello@plaincounciltax.co.uk for any of the following:

• Report an inaccuracy in band data, charge tables, or methodology descriptions
• Suggest a new dataset or view to add
• Partnership inquiries (journalists, researchers, policy bodies)
• General feedback on the site or content

You can also get in touch via our contact page which lists separate addresses for privacy requests, legal correspondence, and DMCA notices.

For DMCA / copyright issues: legal@plaincounciltax.co.uk.

For privacy / GDPR requests: privacy@plaincounciltax.co.uk.

Publisher Background

PlainCouncilTax is an independent, plain-language data reference site.

The site documents its sources, calculations, corrections process, and publisher identity so readers can audit the work without relying on an implied credential.