Fixing the Fragmented Landscape of UK Council Tax Band Data
Despite the public importance of Council Tax bands, data access is a mess!
Council Tax bands are a fundamental part of local governance in the UK, directly affecting household budgets and local authority funding. However, accessing this data at scale reveals a surprisingly fragmented and opaque system, one that hinders transparency and usability for both individuals and organisations.
The Scope of the Challenge
The UK has 324 local authorities that set Council Tax rates. But these are further complicated by overlapping entities such as parish councils and combined authorities. As a result, there are over 92,800 unique Council Tax combinations across the UK.
At Doorda, we’ve undertaken the task of collecting, cleaning, and standardising this data into a single, structured dataset — covering every published residential tax band and precept rate in the UK.
How the Data Is Published — and Why That’s a Problem
Despite its public significance, Council Tax data is published inconsistently across authorities. The main challenges centre around:
| Issue | Description |
|---|---|
| Inconsistent formats | Data appears in spreadsheets, PDFs, or on fragmented webpages. |
| No publication at all | Some councils publish no structured data, requiring FOI requests. |
| FOI rejections | Some councils, like Malvern Hills, cite data “availability” on other platforms. |
| Legal limitations | The VoA site allows only manual lookup and restricts automated/commercial use. |
For example, the Valuation Office Agency (VoA) website permits only one-at-a-time address lookups. Its terms classify Council Tax band data as personal data under GDPR, restricting both automation and commercial reuse.
Outdated Valuation Thresholds
Council Tax bands are still based on property values that are decades out of date, creating a system disconnected from today’s housing market.
England – Tax Bands Based on 1991 Values
| Band | Property Value |
|---|---|
| A | Up to £40,000 |
| B | £40,001 to £52,000 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 |
| H | More than £320,000 |
Wales – Tax Bands Based on 2003 Values
| Band | Property Value |
|---|---|
| A | Up to £44,000 |
| B | £44,001 to £65,000 |
| C | £65,001 to £91,000 |
| D | £91,001 to £123,000 |
| E | £123,001 to £162,000 |
| F | £162,001 to £223,000 |
| G | £223,001 to £324,000 |
| H | £324,001 to £424,000 |
| I | More than £424,000 |
Scotland – Tax Bands Based on 1991 Values
| Band | Property Value |
|---|---|
| A | Up to £27,000 |
| B | £27,001 to £35,000 |
| C | £35,001 to £45,000 |
| D | £45,001 to £58,000 |
| E | £58,001 to £80,000 |
| F | £80,001 to £106,000 |
| G | £106,001 to £212,000 |
| H | More than £212,000 |
Northern Ireland – A Different Approach
Northern Ireland uses a rateable value system instead of bands. The tax is calculated using a formula:
Annual Charge = Property Value × Poundage Rate
Example:
A £300,000 property in Antrim & Newtownabbey (poundage: 0.009136) pays £2,740.80 per year. Poundage Rates by Council Area
| Council Area | Poundage (£) |
|---|---|
| Antrim & Newtownabbey | 0.009136 |
| Ards and North Down | 0.009137 |
| Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon | 0.010109 |
| Belfast | 0.009098 |
| Causeway Coast & Glens | 0.009804 |
| Derry City & Strabane | 0.011112 |
| Fermanagh & Omagh | 0.009265 |
| Lisburn & Castlereagh | 0.0087 |
| Mid & East Antrim | 0.010337 |
| Mid Ulster | 0.009025 |
| Newry, Mourne and Down | 0.009718 |
What We’ve Built at Doorda
We’ve created a unified UK-wide dataset of Council Tax bands and precept rates, now available through DoordaOnline. The dataset is:
- Machine-readable
- Consistently structured
- Designed for commercial and analytical use
- Covers England, Wales, and Scotland
Note: This dataset does not include specific band assignments for individual addresses. That information is still tightly restricted by agencies like the VoA.
What’s Next
Our next goal is to estimate current market values for UK residential properties and map those against historic band thresholds. This would:
- Estimate the effective band for every address
- Highlight outdated assessments
- Enable new insights into geographic tax disparities
We aim to build a dataset that allows both private and public stakeholders to understand the real financial impact of valuation lags.
A Call for Transparency
Council Tax band data should be publicly available, clearly structured, and easy to access. Instead, it remains scattered, outdated, and legally constrained. Reform is long overdue.
People should not have to scrape PDFs, submit FOIs, or risk GDPR violations just to understand how they’re taxed.
We’ve done the groundwork to bring this data into the light. Now it’s time for public policy to follow suit — treating residential tax data as a civic resource, not a bureaucratic secret.
Explore the full dataset contact us to find out how tax band could help your organisation.