Cheapest Council Tax in the UK 2026-27: The 20 Lowest Band D Charges
Wandsworth has the cheapest Band D council tax in the UK at £1,028.21, 56% below the £2,337.00 average
According to PlainCouncilTax's joined 2026-27 Band D corpus (MHCLG England, Scottish Government CTAS, Welsh Government), Wandsworth sets the lowest charge among 350 billing authorities at £1,028.21, about 56% below the £2,337.00 authority-mean. 119 authorities charge below that mean; the dearest (Dorset Council, £2,765.02) is 2.69× the cheapest for the same band.
- £1,028.21 lowest Band D
- 56% below UK mean
- 119 below-average authorities
Wandsworth has the cheapest council tax of any UK billing authority for 2026-27, with a Band D charge of £1,028.21, about 56% below the £2,337.00 average across the 350 authorities in our coverage set, of which 119 charge below that figure. The dearest (Dorset Council, £2,765.02) charges 2.69× the cheapest for the same band.
That average is the mean of the 350 authorities' Band D charges, counting each authority once. It is not the average household bill, which would weight authorities by how many properties they bill and count each property at its own band.
Ranking derived from our database of UK billing authority charges for the 2026-27 financial year. Last updated: .
The 20 cheapest councils
| # | Council | Nation | Band D 2026-27 | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wandsworth | England | £1,028.21 | 3.05% |
| 2 | Westminster | England | £1,049.55 | 3.00% |
| 3 | City of London | England | £1,329.56 | 4.36% |
| 4 | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | £1,468.47 | 6.50% |
| 5 | Shetland Islands | Scotland | £1,487.90 | 7.30% |
| 6 | Na h-Eileanan Siar | Scotland | £1,505.50 | 8.50% |
| 7 | Hammersmith & Fulham | England | £1,519.51 | 4.69% |
| 8 | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | £1,554.56 | 7.00% |
| 9 | Fife | Scotland | £1,573.70 | 5.00% |
| 10 | Dumfries & Galloway | Scotland | £1,578.65 | 8.50% |
| 11 | Angus | Scotland | £1,598.65 | 9.38% |
| 12 | Scottish Borders | Scotland | £1,618.52 | 8.50% |
| 13 | East Renfrewshire | Scotland | £1,620.15 | 6.00% |
| 14 | City of Edinburgh | Scotland | £1,626.05 | 4.00% |
| 15 | West Lothian | Scotland | £1,627.59 | 7.40% |
| 16 | Highland | Scotland | £1,633.99 | 7.00% |
| 17 | Kensington & Chelsea | England | £1,666.65 | 4.72% |
| 18 | Orkney Islands | Scotland | £1,669.07 | 6.00% |
| 19 | Perth & Kinross | Scotland | £1,673.84 | 8.90% |
| 20 | Inverclyde | Scotland | £1,673.85 | 7.90% |
What a low Band D does and does not tell you
Band D is the reference charge every other band is calculated from, so it is the only figure that compares like with like across authorities. It is not what most households pay: a Band A property pays 6/9 of it and a Band H property pays 18/9 in England and Wales, or 882/360 in Scotland following the 2017 reform. A council near the top of this list is cheap for a Band D home in that area, which is a different question from whether your own bill is low, which depends on your property's band, any single-person or other discount, and the precepts stacked on top.
The headline figure also aggregates more than the council's own spending. It includes the adult social care precept where one applies, plus any police, fire, mayoral or parish precepts, so two authorities with similar own-component budgets can sit far apart here. The cheapest 20 break down as 15 in Scotland, 5 in England.
Methodology
This ranking sorts every billing authority in our coverage set by its 2026-27 area Band D charge, ascending, and shows the 20 lowest. Values are loaded live from the councils table at request time; nothing on this page is hardcoded. Authorities without a published Band D figure are excluded rather than treated as zero, so a missing value can never appear as the cheapest. Source figures are the official 2026-27 levels: MHCLG for England (area Band D including all precepts), the Scottish Government's CTAS series for Scotland, and StatsWales for Wales. See our full methodology page for source attribution, data vintage, and column lineage. Data vintage: 2026-08-12.