How the figures work
What the numbers on this site count, where they come from, and how each comparison is worked out.
What is counted
Every figure is a count of domestic properties (the Valuation Office calls them dwellings) on the Council Tax valuation lists for England and for Wales, as held on the Valuation Office database at 31 March 2026. The counts come from the summary tables of Council Tax: stock of properties, 2026, published on 24 September 2026: table CTSOP1.0 (band by area), CTSOP3.0 (band by property type and bedrooms) and CTSOP4.0 (band by build period). The Valuation Office rounds every count to the nearest 10 and replaces counts of one to four with a suppression marker; this site treats those cells as zero in sums and says "fewer than five" where such a cell is quoted. Because of the rounding, shares for one area can add up to slightly more or less than 100%.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered: their properties are not valued by the Valuation Office. The figures count homes on the list, whoever lives in them, including empty homes and second homes. They say nothing about how much Council Tax is charged; councils set the charge, and this site does not show it.
Reading the bands
Each home is placed in a band according to what it would have been worth on a fixed date: 1 April 1991 in England and 1 April 2003 in Wales. New homes are banded on the value they would have had on that same date. England has eight bands, A to H; Wales has nine, A to I, set when Wales revalued in 2005. Because the dates and the ranges differ, a band letter in England and the same letter in Wales describe different things. This site therefore ranks band measures within each country only, and the comparison tool does not set English and Welsh band shares against each other.
The ranges below are the statutory bands, quoted from the Valuation Office background notes. They describe the valuation date, not what homes are worth today.
| England | Value at 1 April 1991 |
|---|---|
| Band A | up to £40,000 |
| Band B | £40,001 to £52,000 |
| Band C | £52,001 to £68,000 |
| Band D | £68,001 to £88,000 |
| Band E | £88,001 to £120,000 |
| Band F | £120,001 to £160,000 |
| Band G | £160,001 to £320,000 |
| Band H | £320,001 and above |
| Wales | Value at 1 April 2003 |
|---|---|
| Band A | up to £44,000 |
| Band B | £44,001 to £65,000 |
| Band C | £65,001 to £91,000 |
| Band D | £91,001 to £123,000 |
| Band E | £123,001 to £162,000 |
| Band F | £162,001 to £223,000 |
| Band G | £223,001 to £324,000 |
| Band H | £324,001 to £424,000 |
| Band I | £424,001 and above |
How to read a council page
Each council page opens with the facts that set that council apart: a place in the top or bottom ten of all councils for a measure, a top or bottom place within its region, or the highest or lowest value among the councils of its county. Below that come the street of 100 homes, the band chart (with the region and the country marked), the property types, bedrooms and build periods, and the councils with the most similar band mix.
The street turns the council's homes into 100: first the bands are rounded to whole homes by the largest-remainder method, then each band's homes are shared out among the property types the same way. Each house is drawn in the shape of its property type and in the colour of its band.
Measures defined on this site
- Most common band: the band holding the most homes.
- Middle home (median band): line every home up from band A to the top band; the band of the home halfway along.
- Bands A and B, bands C to E, band F or above: shares of all homes in those bands. In Wales, band F or above includes band I.
- Band-mix distance: the sum, over every band, of the gap in percentage points between two councils' band shares. Zero means an identical mix; the largest possible value is 200. The three councils with the smallest distance are listed as the most similar. It is only worked out between councils in the same country.
- Average bedrooms: homes with a recorded bedroom count only (flats, houses and bungalows), counting six or more as six.
- Built 2016 to 2026: homes whose recorded build year is 2016 or later, up to the end of March 2026. The middle home of this group is compared with the middle home of everything built before 2016.
- Net change in the past year: homes on the list at 31 March 2026 minus homes at 31 March 2025 (from the 2025 edition). It mixes new homes, demolitions, mergers and splits, and corrections to the list.
Ranks and scopes
Band measures are ranked among the 296 councils in England or the 22 in Wales. Property type, bedrooms, build period, size and change are ranked among all 318 councils. A rank is stated once per page, with its scope. Ties are reported as joint places. Where the Valuation Office combines several billing authorities in one row (Powys and Carmarthenshire), the combined figure is used.
Which councils have a page
A council gets its own page when at least two of its measures place it in the top or bottom ten of all councils, near the top or bottom of its region, or at the extreme of its county. The 18 councils that do not meet that test sit close to the common pattern on every measure, and one council with a housing mix almost identical to a neighbour's is shown alongside it rather than on a separate page. Their figures appear in the tables on the region pages and in the comparison tool.
Licence and attribution
Source: Valuation Office Agency (now the Valuation Office, part of HM Revenue & Customs), Council Tax: stock of properties, 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The licence is at nationalarchives.gov.uk. The text, drawings and calculations on this site are its own.