England South East 121,900 properties NEAR STEEP AHEAVY

Medway Council Tax 2026

South East, England · 121,900 domestic properties

Medway Band D is £2,328.55 for 2026-27, the 235th highest of 350 UK billing authorities (0% below the UK average of £2,337.00).

According to MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2026-27, Medway's published Band D Council Tax is £2,328.55 for 2026-27 (NEAR). Competition rank is 235th of 350 (higher than 33% of authorities).

  • £2,328.55 Band D · NEAR
  • 235th of 350 authorities
  • -0.4% vs UK average

According to MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2026-27, Medway's Band D Council Tax is £2,328.55 for 2026-27 (NEAR), the 235th highest of 350 UK billing authorities (higher than 33% of them) and 0% below the UK average of £2,337.00.

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. See our methodology page for the full source-to-figure lineage.

£2,328.55
Band D charge · 2026 statutory
Near the UK average
+5.11%
year-on-year vs £2,215.38
Middle-half rise
-0.4%
vs UK avg £2,337.00
£4,657.10
Band H · 18/9 of Band D

Medway · year-on-year Band D

What changed for Medway

+£113.17 (+5.11%)

Medway's Band D Council Tax rose from £2,215.38 (2025-26) to £2,328.55 (2026-27). Among 350 billing authorities by percentage rise, it ranks 113.

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 changes

MHCLG/VOA position brief

Medway Band D posture in the 2026-27 corpus

Entity-varying stamps from the joined MHCLG, Scottish CTAS and StatsWales extract plus VOA CTSOP stock counts, ABS(charge) peers, not map neighbours.

  1. £2,328.55 Published Band D 2026-27 NEAR
  2. 235th of 350 UK authorities 33rd percentile
  3. +5.1% Year-on-year Band D STEEP
  4. 121,900 VOA dwellings on list AHEAVY

Band D charge neighbourhood

Published 2026-27 Band D among the nearest pound-gap peers (snapshot 2026-10-02).

Newcastle-under-Lyme£2,334Uttlesford£2,334Medway (this)£2,329Maldon£2,328Basildon£2,327Barnsley£2,326Lincoln£2,323

Charge twins

Derived position reading

What the Medway Band D figure shows

The published Band D charge of £2,328.55 places Medway 235th out of 350 UK billing authorities when ordered from the highest charge down. That position is derived from the full authority table, rather than from a single quoted comparison. It is 0.4% below the simple UK average of £2,337.00, while the percentile shows that 33% of the recorded authorities have a lower Band D charge.

The more useful local comparison is South East. Here, Medway ranks 56th among 64 billing authorities, against a regional average of £2,475.00. The table of nearby authorities therefore compares published charges in the same geography, not property values or the level of service a household receives. Equal Band D charges share a position, so the ranking does not invent a difference where the underlying values match.

Band D is a statutory reference point, not a bill for every household. Charges for the other bands are calculated from the applicable national ratios, and discounts or exemptions can change an individual bill. This page is best used to understand the current published schedule and how this authority sits within the recorded 2026-27 council-tax corpus.

Medway bands A-H schedule

Per-band charge 2026

Band A1552.37Band B1811.09Band C2069.82Band D2328.55Band E2846.01Band F3363.46Band G3880.92Band H4657.1

Band A–H charge table (2026/2027)

Annual, monthly and sole-occupant Council Tax charges by band for Medway
Band Annual Charge Monthly Sole occupant (−25%)
A £1,552.37 £155.24 £1,164.28
B £1,811.09 £181.11 £1,358.32
C £2,069.82 £206.98 £1,552.37
D £2,328.55 £232.86 £1,746.41
E £2,846.01 £284.60 £2,134.51
F £3,363.46 £336.35 £2,522.60
G £3,880.92 £388.09 £2,910.69
H £4,657.10 £465.71 £3,492.83
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 Medway's 121,900 properties actually pay

Medway's housing stock peaks below the reference point, in Band B, which covers 38,910 of 121,900 dwellings (31.9%). A Band B home is charged at seven-ninths of the Band D rate, which is why the typical bill here lands under the headline figure. VOA CTSOP stamp AHEAVY: 70.6% of dwellings here are banded below D.

Stock-weighted average £2,117.11 is £211.44 (9.1%) below Band D £2,328.55 - 208th of 318 authorities with published counts (corpus mean £2,269.00). That places Medway 61st of the 64 billing authorities in South East, below the regional median of £2,511.00.

Medway property mix · A–C / D / E–H · AHEAVY

Sums to 121,900 VOA dwellings, band mix, not a household bill.

Closest housing-stock shape: York

York is the nearest available full-distribution peer for Medway, although the match is not tight. Aligning the two published profiles would require 6.0% 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 B: Medway has 31.9% of dwellings there, against 27.2% in York. That extra lower-band weight pulls its stock profile away from the peer.
  • Another material separation sits at lower Band A, where York holds 14.0% of its stock and Medway holds 9.4%. The peer is more bottom-weighted at this rung of the valuation list.
  • A smaller distinction falls on the reference band itself. Band D contains 16.0% of Medway's stock but 14.8% of York's, so the national headline describes more of the local distribution here.
  • A smaller distinction is an upper-band difference at Band G. York records 2.1% of dwellings there, compared with 1.3% in Medway, so the peer carries more of its stock at that higher rung.

Other close England matches for Medway: Dover (6.2% redistribution distance); Blaby (6.9% redistribution distance); Broadland (7.6% redistribution distance); Hackney (8.6% redistribution distance).

Domestic properties by Council Tax band in Medway, with the charge for each band
Band Properties Share of stock Annual charge
A 11,480 9.4% £1,552.37
B 38,910 31.9% £1,811.09
C 35,640 29.2% £2,069.82
D 19,530 16.0% £2,328.55
E 10,260 8.4% £2,846.01
F 4,450 3.7% £3,363.46
G 1,570 1.3% £3,880.92
H 60 0.0% £4,657.10
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

Closest to Medway on stock-weighted charge (AHEAVY) - a different ordering from Band D twins.

Medway's nearest year-on-year movers · STEEP

Medway moved Band D from £2,215.38 to £2,328.55 (+5.11%, STEEP; competition rank 113th of 350). Closest published movements: Calderdale, Dorset Council, Tewkesbury.

How Medway compares in South East

Among the 64 billing authorities in South East, Medway's 2026-27 Band D charge of £2,328.55 ranks 56th of 64, higher than 13% of them (£146.45 below the South East average of £2,475.00). Its nearest-charged neighbours in the region:

Regional low-charge outlier: this authority sits in the least costly fifth of South East.

Medway and its nearest-charged neighbours in South East
Region rankCouncilBand D 2026-27
54th East Hampshire £2,343.92
55th Eastleigh £2,342.21
56th Medway £2,328.55
57th Havant £2,320.28
58th Rushmoor £2,320.28

Regional rank out of 64 South East billing authorities by 2026-27 Band D charge (1 = dearest). See the full UK ranking or the complete directory.

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. Medway is unitary, so this figure combines its own charge (including adult social care) with police and fire precepts where separate, plus any average parish precept. For a binding figure consult your Medway Council Tax bill or the official gov.uk Council Tax service. Figures published in 2026 reflect the 2026/2027 financial year only.

UK directories, Band D rollup and band challenge

Charges shown for Medway are the area Band D and statutory band multiples with no county tier.

About this data - sources, vintage and corrections