Harlow Council Tax 2026
East of England, England · 40,580 domestic properties
According to MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2026-27, Harlow's Band D Council Tax is £2,298.69 for 2026-27, the 255th highest of 350 UK billing authorities (higher than 27% of them) and 2% below the UK average of £2,337.00. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge. Closest published housing-stock shapes include Crawley, Stevenage, Thurrock, Slough.
How we calculate this rank & percentile
We compare every UK billing authority with a published 2026-27 Band D rate (350 in total). Rank is one plus the number with a higher charge, so equal charges share a rank. Percentile is round(authorities with a lower charge ÷ 350 × 100). The UK average is the simple mean of every council's Band D rate in our coverage set. Because the rank spans all three nations, it compares what each authority charges, not what each charge buys. English bands rest on 1991 property values in eight bands, A to H, while Scotland uses its own 1991 thresholds and Wales revalued to 2003 values with a ninth band. An English Band D home is therefore not the same property profile as a Welsh or Scottish one. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge. See our methodology page for the full source-to-figure lineage.
- £2,298.69
- Band D charge · 2026 statutory
- Near the UK average
- +3.71%
- year-on-year vs £2,216.43
- Lower-quarter rise
- -1.6%
- vs UK avg £2,337.00
- £4,597.38
- Band H · 18/9 of Band D
Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge. Closest published housing-stock shapes include Crawley, Stevenage, Thurrock, Slough. Open Stafford for the closest published Band D on the same vintage.
Harlow · year-on-year Band D
What changed for Harlow
Harlow's Band D Council Tax rose from £2,216.43 (2025-26) to £2,298.69 (2026-27). Among 350 billing authorities by percentage rise, it ranks 326.
How to read this Band D change
This is a change in the published Band D charge, not advice about household bills. Precepts, discounts, and banding decide the amount you pay.
See UK year-on-year changesHarlow bands A-H schedule
Per-band charge 2026
Harlow's nearest Band D charges nationwide
Harlow is 255th of 350 on the national Band D list at £2,298.69. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge. The six closest published 2026-27 rates, led by Stafford, ignore geography on purpose, so a map neighbour is not mistaken for a charge twin. Read the difference column as a pound gap; cross-check the East of England ranking further down when you care about local neighbours, and the stock-weighted average when you care what most of Harlow's 40,580 dwellings actually pay. Closest published housing-stock shapes include Crawley, Stevenage, Thurrock, Slough.
| Council | Band D | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford | £2,302.68 | +£3.99 |
| Tamworth | £2,300.76 | +£2.07 |
| Chelmsford | £2,300.18 | +£1.49 |
| Wakefield | £2,296.89 | −£1.80 |
| Kingston upon Hull | £2,295.04 | −£3.65 |
| Redbridge | £2,294.58 | −£4.11 |
Band A–H charge table (2026/2027)
| Band | Annual Charge | Monthly | Sole occupant (−25%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | £1,532.46 | £153.25 | £1,149.35 |
| B | £1,787.87 | £178.79 | £1,340.90 |
| C | £2,043.28 | £204.33 | £1,532.46 |
| D | £2,298.69 | £229.87 | £1,724.02 |
| E | £2,809.51 | £280.95 | £2,107.13 |
| F | £3,320.33 | £332.03 | £2,490.25 |
| G | £3,831.15 | £383.12 | £2,873.36 |
| H | £4,597.38 | £459.74 | £3,448.04 |
England 1991 valuation ranges (Band A–H)
- Band A: Up to £40,000 (1991 valuation)
- Band B: £40,001 to £52,000
- Band C: £52,001 to £68,000
- Band D: £68,001 to £88,000 (reference band)
- Band E: £88,001 to £120,000
- Band F: £120,001 to £160,000
- Band G: £160,001 to £320,000
- Band H: Over £320,000
Source: MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2026-27 (area Band D) + statutory England band ratios documented in our methodology. Monthly figure is the annual charge / 10 (most councils use 10 monthly instalments). The sole-occupant column applies the statutory 25% single-person discount, payable when only one adult lives in the property.
What Harlow's 40,580 properties actually pay
Harlow's housing stock peaks below the reference point, in Band C, which covers 19,630 of 40,580 dwellings (48.4%). A Band C home is charged at eight-ninths of the Band D rate, which is why the typical bill here lands under the headline figure. Bands B and C between them account for 69.0% of the stock. 75.5% of dwellings on the England valuation list here are banded below D.
Weighting each band's statutory charge by the number of properties in it gives a stock-weighted average of £2,106.28 per dwelling, £192.41 (8.4%) below the £2,298.69 Band D headline, because most of the stock sits in bands charged at less than the Band D rate. On that measure Harlow is 212th of 318 authorities with published stock counts, against a £2,269.00 average. That places Harlow 35th of the 45 billing authorities in East of England, below the regional median of £2,255.65.
How to read this stock pattern
Harlow's largest property group sits in the lower half of the valuation ladder rather than at the Band D reference used in national tables. Its modal Band C charge is eight-ninths of the Band D rate, and 75.5% of the published stock lies below D. The headline alone does not show how often each band occurs. The stock-weighted amount applies the full distribution for an area-level comparison, while remaining an average rather than a household quotation.
This is a two-band centre rather than a single-band market. Bands B and C together contain 69.0% of dwellings, so neither band should be presented as a complete account of the area. The stock-weighted result combines both groups and the smaller tails into one comparable measure. The table shows where that mean comes from and prevents the distribution being flattened into an overconfident "typical property" claim.
Harlow falls in the lower quarter of the East of England stock-weighted ordering, below the regional median of £2,255.65. Its Band D figure may sit elsewhere in the national table, but applying the local stock mix produces a cheaper regional comparison. That difference is precisely why both measures are shown. Neither replaces an address-level bill, which depends on the property's valuation band and any applicable reductions.
Closest housing-stock shape: Reading
Reading is the nearest available full-distribution peer for Harlow, although the match is not tight. Aligning the two published profiles would require 8.9% of dwellings to move between valuation bands. Even the closest council therefore has a materially different housing-stock shape.
Four largest band differences
- The largest separation is lower on the ladder at Band C: Harlow has 48.4% of dwellings there, against 40.7% in Reading. That extra lower-band weight pulls its stock profile away from the peer.
- Another material separation sits at lower Band A, where Reading holds 9.4% of its stock and Harlow holds 6.5%. The peer is more bottom-weighted at this rung of the valuation list.
- Another material separation is at reference Band D: its share is 12.9% in Harlow and 15.8% in Reading. The familiar benchmark represents a larger slice of the peer's housing stock.
- A smaller distinction is an upper-band difference at Band F. Reading records 4.4% of dwellings there, compared with 2.9% in Harlow, so the peer carries more of its stock at that higher rung.
How the wider profile compares
Harlow has the stronger combined lower-band tilt: Bands A to C account for 6.0% more of its stock than they do in Reading. The nearest match still leaves that bottom-of-ladder difference visible.
Reading carries the heavier upper tail across Bands E and above, exceeding Harlow's combined share there by 3.0%. Total-variation distance counts those absolute band gaps without assuming they offset the lower-band pattern.
Both profiles peak in Band C, so the peer match agrees on the most common valuation group as well as the full-distribution distance. The band-by-band gaps above show why a shared mode does not make the profiles interchangeable.
Band H is the most stable point in the comparison, with shares of 0.0% and 0.1%. Reading that near-match beside the largest gaps prevents the peer label from hiding where the two published distributions actually agree.
Show every band direction
- Band A leans toward Reading
- Band B leans toward Harlow
- Band C leans toward Harlow
- Band D leans toward Reading
- Band E is closely balanced
- Band F leans toward Reading
- Band G leans toward Reading
- Band H is closely balanced
This sequence is read from the lowest published band to the highest.
Other close England matches for Harlow: Crawley (8.9% redistribution distance); Stevenage (9.1% redistribution distance); Thurrock (10.2% redistribution distance); Slough (11.7% redistribution distance). Ranked across every published band in the England valuation system, this shortlist shows whether Reading stands alone or sits in a cluster of similarly shaped authorities.
| Band | Properties | Share of stock | Annual charge |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 2,620 | 6.5% | £1,532.46 |
| B | 8,380 | 20.7% | £1,787.87 |
| C | 19,630 | 48.4% | £2,043.28 |
| D | 5,240 | 12.9% | £2,298.69 |
| E | 3,070 | 7.6% | £2,809.51 |
| F | 1,180 | 2.9% | £3,320.33 |
| G | 440 | 1.1% | £3,831.15 |
| H | 20 | 0.0% | £4,597.38 |
Property-stock source, rounding and weighting notes
Property counts: VOA, Council Tax: stock of properties 2025 (Table CTSOP1.0_SUP, as at 9 September 2025), Open Government Licence v3.0. Counts are published rounded to the nearest 10, so shares are approximate and may not sum to exactly 100%. The stock-weighted average is our calculation: each band's 2026/2027 charge multiplied by its property count, divided by the total. It is a mean across the whole stock, not a bill any individual household receives.
Authorities charging a similar average across their stock
These are the closest authorities to Harlow on the stock-weighted measure, which is a different ordering from the Band D neighbours above because it accounts for how each area's properties are banded.
- Lancaster£2,114.80
- Staffordshire Moorlands£2,113.88
- Worcester£2,105.34
- North Northamptonshire£2,103.94
- King's Lynn & West Norfolk£2,099.20
Harlow's nearest year-on-year movers
Harlow moved Band D from £2,216.43 to £2,298.69 (+3.71%, competition rank 326th of 350). The closest published movements sit with Burnley, Ribble Valley, Barnsley.
Muted-rise signal for Harlow: the increase is below 4%, placing this authority among the slower-moving part of the current dataset.
- Burnley3.81%
- Ribble Valley3.78%
- Barnsley3.77%
- Chorley3.73%
- City of Nottingham3.73%
- Basildon3.68%
How Harlow compares in East of England
Among the 45 billing authorities in East of England, Harlow's 2026-27 Band D charge of £2,298.69 ranks 37th of 45, higher than 18% of them (£92.31 below the East of England average of £2,391.00). Its nearest-charged neighbours in the region:
Regional low-charge outlier: this authority sits in the least costly fifth of East of England.
| Region rank | Council | Band D 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|
| 35th | Broxbourne | £2,306.43 |
| 36th | Chelmsford | £2,300.18 |
| 37th | Harlow | £2,298.69 |
| 38th | Peterborough | £2,293.47 |
| 39th | Colchester | £2,282.85 |
Regional rank out of 45 East of England billing authorities by 2026-27 Band D charge (1 = dearest). See the full UK ranking or the complete directory.
Questions answered from Harlow's data
These answers use Harlow's £2,298.69 Band D rate, the England statutory multipliers, and the VOA stock mix (modal Band C, 75.5% below D).
Is Harlow Council Tax above the UK average?
Harlow's 2026-27 Band D rate is £2,298.69, 1.6% below the UK average of £2,337.00. It has competition rank 255th of 350, with equal charges sharing a rank. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge.
Which councils have charges closest to Harlow?
The closest published Band D rates are Stafford (£2,302.68), Tamworth (£2,300.76), Chelmsford (£2,300.18), Wakefield (£2,296.89), Kingston upon Hull (£2,295.04), Redbridge (£2,294.58). The comparison table above shows the six nearest authorities and the exact difference from Harlow.
What is the average Council Tax bill in Harlow?
Across Harlow's 40,580 domestic properties, the stock-weighted average charge is £2,106.28 for 2026-27. That is £192.41 below the £2,298.69 Band D rate, because the most common band here is Band C (48.4% of the stock) and 75.5% of dwellings are banded below D. Closest published housing-stock shapes include Crawley, Stevenage, Thurrock, Slough. Property counts are from the VOA 2025 stock release; the weighting is our calculation.
How did Harlow Council Tax change for 2026-27?
Band D moved from £2,216.43 to £2,298.69, a 3.71% rise. Its competition rank by annual increase is 326th of 350; the closest movements include Burnley, Ribble Valley, Barnsley.
Advice boundary for Harlow
They are not personalised advice - expand a question for the figure that matches the tables above for the 2026-27 vintage, then follow the methodology or gov.uk links for a binding bill on a specific property.
Council Tax figure, precept and liability disclaimer
Council Tax charges shown on this page are derived from the published England Band D dataset and statutory England band ratios. They are intended as informational guidance, not as a personalised tax statement or legal advice. Your actual bill depends on your property's assigned band and on any discounts or exemptions that apply to your household. This area Band D is a two-tier total for Harlow: district charge plus county, police, fire where separate, and the average parish precept across the district. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge. Closest published housing-stock shapes include Crawley, Stevenage, Thurrock, Slough. For a binding figure consult your Harlow Council Tax bill or the official gov.uk Council Tax service. Figures published in 2026 reflect the 2026/2027 financial year only.
UK tools, directories and band challenge
- Compare councils side-by-side →
- Browse all UK councils →
- Band D national rollup →
- Challenge your band guide →
Charges shown for Harlow are the area Band D and statutory band multiples, already including county, police, fire and average parish precepts where they apply. Nearest published Band D rates sit with Stafford, Tamworth, Chelmsford, Wakefield, then Kingston upon Hull, Redbridge.