Official Statistics

Background information

Published 25 September 2025

Applies to England and Wales

1. About this release 

This release contains statistics relating to the stock of properties on the England and Wales Council Tax valuation lists. The statistics provide information on the number of domestic properties (known as “dwellings”). It is the latest in the series of annual publications from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). This publication includes statistics as at 31 March 2025. 

This update includes the following tables: 

Properties by Council Tax band and geography as at 31 March 2025 

• Table CTSOP1.0: Number of properties by Council Tax band and administrative area 

• Table CTSOP2.0: Number of properties by Council Tax band, Westminster Parliamentary Constituency, and Region 

The counts shown in all tables are calculated from domestic property data for England and Wales. The data for all tables reflect the cases on VOA’s administrative database as at 31 March 2025. All properties counted in the publication were identified as a property for Council Tax purposes on this date. Counts in the tables are rounded to the nearest 10 with counts of zero being reported as ‘0’ and counts fewer than five reported as negligible and denoted by ‘[c]’. 

The VOA welcomes feedback from users on the information provided in the release. Please forward any comments or queries to the VOA statistics team. 

1.1. Updates in 2025 

The VOA has moved its Council Tax work onto a new, modern operating system and the data provision for statistics has been updated as part of this work.  

The system updates have resulted in some necessary changes in methodology. The date variable which determines the year banding decisions relate to has been replaced with a new variable, which records the date usually one or two business days earlier. Consequently, there is a small discontinuity with the counts published in 2024 (and previous publications) as some properties which previously would have been excluded (as they were banded after 31 March 2025) are now included. We estimate this effect to be approximately 0.005% of the overall stock. This also impacts on our ability to immediately produce a consistent time series; it is planned to reproduce this before the 2026 stock of properties publication and will be announced in due course.  

As a result, this release is a shorter publication containing key headline stock figures, broken down by band for each billing authority. Tables on dwelling type, build period, and the numbers of insertions and deletions from the Council Tax valuation lists for 2025, alongside a time series, will be produced before next year’s publication, once the data provision updates are completed and assured for official statistics production.  

Due to VOA’s newly implemented operating system, initial challenges may arise during the transition period and there may be some differences in the data provision compared with the old system. We have made every effort to ensure the figures within this release are accurate and we have added additional steps to our quality assurance this year. Specifically, we have replicated outputs published last year and assessed these as accurate, taking into account the methodological changes. We have also analysed growth over time and are assured that the 2025 data is in line with expectations. Some changes in banding distribution within areas deviate from the historic trends, which is partly attributable to Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) now valued as single properties; this has caused the removal of a number of lower banded properties and their replacement with a smaller number of higher-banded properties. 

During the production process we identified some issues specifically within the Dorset area. As at 9 September 2025, 520 properties have been incorrectly assigned to one of the abolished billing authorities within Dorset and therefore do not feed through into the statistics. This only affects properties added since the end of January 2025 and will have minimal impact on counts as at 31 March 2025. The table below provides a breakdown by band of the 520 properties as at 9 September 2025; note that these are not included within the supplementary table as we have not been able to fully QA these bandings. 

Band	Properties within Dorset missing from statistics, as at 9 September
A	30
B	90
C	110
D	150
E	100
F	40
G	10
H	0
Total	520

Table notes: Counts are rounded to the nearest 10. 

This year’s publication does not include statistics for abolished billing authorities. This contrasts with prior publications, which included data relating to recently abolished billing authorities. This decision took into account complications in the underlying data; inferred user need; and coherence of the tables themselves. Higher-level geography totals are now the sum of all local authorities within those geographies.

2. Background notes 

The VOA is an Executive Agency of HM Revenue and Customs. One of the responsibilities of the VOA is to provide Council Tax bands for properties in England and Wales. It does not set the level of Council Tax nor collect the tax; these are tasks for local government. Council Tax is a local tax set by local authority districts to help pay for local services. It uses the relative value of properties to determine each household’s contribution to these local services. 

The VOA has had responsibility for banding properties for Council Tax since the tax was first introduced in 1993. Before 1993, the VOA was responsible for valuation of properties under the earlier system of domestic rates. 

It is the duty of the VOA to make sure that each property is correctly assessed and placed in the right band. This ensures that there is a consistent and objective basis on which local authority districts can determine the amount they charge each household in Council Tax. The VOA maintains a high level of professionalism when carrying out this duty. 

The VOA places each property into a valuation band; there are eight bands for properties in England and nine bands for properties in Wales. The valuation band is assigned to a property on the basis of its value as at 1 April 1991 for England (for the 1993 Council Tax Valuation List) and 1 April 2003 for Wales (for the 2005 Council Tax Valuation List); this band then determines the amount of Council Tax to be paid. New properties are assigned a band based on what their value would have been on either 1 April 1991 (properties in England) or 1 April 2003 (properties in Wales). The basis of valuation is set down in regulations made under the Local Government Finance Act 1992. Minor updates were made to the initial regulations in 1994 but they have not been changed since. 

The following tables show the breakdown of bands for England and Wales: 

England 

Band	Value of property (at 1 April 1991)
A	Up to £40,000
B	£40,001 up to £52,000
C	£52,001 up to £68,000
D	£68,001 up to £88,000
E	£88,001 up to £120,000
F	£120,001 up to £160,000
G	£160,001 up to £320,000
H	£320,001 and above

Wales 

Band	Value of property (at 1 April 2003)
A	Up to £44,000
B	£44,001 up to £65,000
C	£65,001 up to £91,000
D	£91,001 up to £123,000
E	£123,001 up to £162,000
F	£162,001 up to £223,000
G	£223,001 up to £324,000
H	£324,001 up to £424,000
I	£424,001 and above

3. Data information and methodology 

3.1 Updates to previously published statistics since 31 March 2024 

Figures this year represent an increase of 190,530 (0.7%) properties with a Council Tax band in the year since 31 March 2024. This increase is higher in England (0.7%) than in Wales (0.5%). The following table shows the net change in properties with a Council Tax band between 31 March 2024 and 31 March 2025, by band and country. 

Band	England and Wales	England	Wales
A	17,460	16,630	830
B	34,800	33,860	940
C	51,130	49,420	1,710
D	36,340	34,830	1,510
E	27,930	26,620	1,310
F	14,660	13,770	890
G	6,680	6,350	340
H	1,500	1,440	60
I	30	[z]	30
Total	190,530	182,920	7,610

Table notes: Counts are rounded to the nearest 10. ‘[z]’ denotes not applicable - bands in England range from A to H only. 

3.2 Assigning geographies 

The statistical geographies used in this release have been assigned using two methodologies: 

Method 1: Linking VOA BA Codes to Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistical geographies 

Each property with a Council Tax band held on the VOA’s database is assigned to a Billing Authority, each of which have a unique Billing Authority code (BA code). These BA codes have been linked to the codes and names used in the UK statistical geographies maintained by the ONS. 

Method 2: Linking VOA postcodes to ONS National Statistics Postcode Look-up File (NSPL) 

Each property’s individual postcodes held on the VOA’s database have been linked to those appearing in the February 2025 version of the NSPL. This year, around 0.05% of the records could not be matched with the NSPL. Counts for these records appear in the area ‘Unmatched’ row and may introduce a marginal geographical bias to the data. 

Note on assigned geographies 

Tables where different methods of geography assignment have been used should not be compared. The following table details which method was used in each table of this release: 

Table	Geography assignment method
CTSOP1.0	Method 1 - BA codes
CTSOP2.0	Method 2 - Postcodes

For further information on the area codes used in this release, please refer to the ONS Administrative Geography Guidance.

4. Data quality 

4.1 Suitable data sources 

The information supplied in the tables are based on administrative data held within the VOA operational database. Because it is a statutory requirement of the VOA to maintain accurate valuation lists, the data are considered accurate. However, while the VOA actively seeks to maintain accurate Valuation Lists for Council Tax bandings, some reliance is placed upon the taxpayer to notify the VOA of any inaccuracies to their entry in the Valuation List and billing authorities to notify the VOA of any changes (including new builds, demolitions or alterations). 

There is some uncertainty and variability in this process and all administrative data may be subject to processing and system errors and operational time lags. Consequently, although the VOA has made every effort to ensure accuracy of the data underpinning this publication, it is possible that some errors remain. We reflect this by rounding counts to the nearest 10 and suppressing counts lower than 5. 

4.2 Assured quality 

Our quality assurance follows the approach set out in the VOA Quality Policy. 

As part of the production of this publication, quality assurance takes place: 

• during the valuation of properties 
• as part of the creation of the data which underpins the publication 
• as part of the coding which produces the publication outputs 
• as part of automated and manual checks of outputs 
• using a comprehensive QA Check List and a QA Issues Log

5. Uses of the data 

This publication is released in support of making the VOA’s data more accessible as well as presenting consistent information to assist users conducting their own analysis of VOA data. The data will also be used to inform government policy, respond to Freedom of Information requests and to parliamentary questions as well as to conduct operational analyses to support the VOA. 

The statistics in this publication relate to England and Wales only. Property valuations are not carried out by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the valuation law and practice differ from England and Wales. 

The VOA welcomes feedback from users on the information provided in the release. Please forward any comments or queries to the VOA statistics team.

6. Timeliness and punctuality 

Timeliness refers to the lapse of time between publication and the period to which the data refer. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates. 

This release is published on an annual basis. The data extract for all tables was taken on 9 September 2025. This publication is published within 3 months of the data extract date. 

Releases are always published on pre-announced dates at 9:30am. Pre-announcement of the precise date occurs up to four weeks before publication. Where possible, the VOA pre-announces the month of publication in our 12-month planning schedule.  

7. Relevance 

Relevance is the degree to which statistical outputs meet users’ needs. 

It is important that the statistics produced meet the needs of users, both in coverage and in content. These statistics evolved largely in response to Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary Questions and were further developed with input from a CT Statistics Advisory Panel, which involved key users of the data. 

8. Coherence and comparability 

Coherence is the degree to which data that are derived from different sources or methods, but refer to the same topic, are similar. Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain, for example, geographic level. 

This release contains figures for 2025. Figures for 1993 to 2024 have previously been published. As noted in section 1.1, changes in the administrative source data result in marginally different counts of stock at a point in time (i.e. 31 March) and so there is a small discontinuity with previous publications (estimated at 0.005% overall). Consistent time series will be produced in due course. 

Tables where different methods of geography assignment have been used should not be compared. See section Assigning geographies for further details. 

The Scottish Government produces statistics breaking down the stock of properties by council tax band in Scotland. These are not comparable to VOA breakdowns by band, because council tax bands in Scotland are determined under a different system. 

Northern Ireland has a different system to council tax, known as domestic rates. Their Department for Finance releases statistics on the stock of properties by property type in Northern Ireland.  

9. Accessibility and clarity 

Accessibility is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the release details, and accompanying advice. 

The release is available free of charge. All official statistics are made available primarily as Excel spreadsheets, with a background information document, and a statistical summary document. 

10. Confidentiality, transparency and security 

Access to the data and release during its publication is limited to the statistics production team only. Occasionally, valuation experts may be consulted as part of the quality assurance process. The list of pre-release recipients is published alongside the release. 

Further information can found within the VOA Confidentiality and Access policy. 

11. Further information 

More detailed information on Council Tax bands can be found at https://www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands. 

Timings of future releases are regularly placed on the Agency’s website in the upcoming releases section. 

For further information on the area codes used in this release, please refer to the ONS Administrative Geography Guidance. 

The ONS has used the VOA’s Council Tax data to supplement Census 2021. Further information is available at https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/07/31/census-2021-for-the-first-time-ons-is-using-administrative-data-to-count-number-of-rooms. 

The English Housing Survey is a continuous national survey commissioned by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). It collects information about people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England. Further information is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/english-housing-survey. 

12. Glossary 

Billing Authority – a local authority empowered to collect Council Tax on behalf of itself and other local authorities in its area. 

Property – a separate unit of living accommodation, together with any garden, yard, garage or other outbuildings attached to it, all occupied by the same person(s) and within the same area of land. 

Property Attribute – the characteristics of a property that are used to describe a property.