Official Statistics

Background information

Updated 22 May 2026

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”). This publication was first released in September 2025 and updated in May 2026 to include further tables on property type and build period. This update includes statistics as at 31 March 2025.

The following tables were published on 25 September 2025:

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 and Westminster Parliamentary Constituency

Properties by Council Tax band and geography as at 9 September 2025

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

This update, published in May 2026, includes the following tables:

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

• Table CTSOP1.1: Number of properties by Council Tax band, local authority, and lower and middle layer super output area

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

• Table CTSOP3.0: Number of properties by Council Tax band, property type and administrative area
• Table CTSOP3.1: Number of properties by Council Tax band, property type, local authority, and lower and middle super layer output area
• Table CTSOP4.0: Number of properties by Council Tax band, property build period and administrative area
• Table CTSOP4.1: Number of properties by Council Tax band, property build period, local authority, and lower and middle layer super output area

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 the Valuation Office’s administrative database as at the given date. 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]’.

If you have any queries regarding this release, please contact us at statisticsvo@hmrc.gov.uk.

1.1 Updates in 2025

The Valuation Office 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 our ability to immediately produce a consistent time series; it is planned to reproduce this at a later date.

As a result, a short publication containing key headline stock figures, broken down by band for each billing authority, was initially released in September 2025. Additional tables on dwelling type and build period have now been added. The numbers of insertions and deletions from the Council Tax valuation lists for 2025, alongside a time series, will be produced at a later date, once the data provision updates are completed and assured for official statistics production.

Since the September 2025 release, we have made a small improvement to the methodology. An additional date variable is used to select the correct bandings for historic lists of properties. This has resulted in a difference in the table totals of around 80 properties. Therefore, the total number of properties in Tables 1.0 and 2.0, published in September 2025, will not match the totals in the other tables, published in May 2026. The distribution of this difference across Council Tax bands and countries is detailed in Section 3.2.

Due to the Valuation Office’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.

As a result of the new operating system, a known issue has resulted in a small number of property attributes being reported incorrectly. We estimate this to affect less than 0.02% of properties. This issue is due to be fixed, and the statistics will be updated as necessary.  

During the production process, we identified some issues specifically within the Dorset area. As at 9 September 2025, 520 properties had been incorrectly assigned to one of the abolished billing authorities within Dorset and therefore did not feed through into the statistics. This only affected properties added since the end of January 2025. As these bandings could not be fully quality assured, they were not included in the statistics published in September 2025, including the supplementary table. They are now included in the updated tables, and captured within the summary of revisions in Section 3.2.

The table below provides a breakdown by band of the 520 properties as at 9 September 2025 

Band	Properties within Dorset missing from statistics, as at 9 September 2025
A	30
B	90
C	110
D	150
E	100
F	40
G	10
H	0
Total	520

2. Background notes

The Valuation Office is part of HM Revenue and Customs. One of the responsibilities of the Valuation Office 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 Valuation Office has had responsibility for banding properties for Council Tax since the tax was first introduced in 1993. Before 1993, the Valuation Office was responsible for valuation of properties under the earlier system of domestic rates.

It is the duty of the Valuation Office 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 Valuation Office maintains a high level of professionalism when carrying out this duty.

The Valuation Office 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 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 Changes to the stock of properties since 31 March 2024

Figures this year represent an increase of 190,470 (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. Note that these figures are calculated using the improved methodology, and therefore will not match comparisons to previously published statistics.

Band	England and Wales	England	Wales
A	17,470	16,640	840
B	34,790	33,850	940
C	51,110	49,390	1,720
D	36,330	34,820	1,500
E	27,920	26,620	1,300
F	14,660	13,770	890
G	6,670	6,340	340
H	1,490	1,430	60
I	30	..	30
Total	190,470	182,850	7,620

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

3.2 Updates to previously published statistics since September 2025

Since publishing the breakdown of the Stock of Properties by Council Tax band, administrative area and Westminster Parliamentary Constituency in September 2025, we have made minor improvements to our methodology to ensure we are correctly counting only live properties when creating historic lists. As a result, the totals within Tables 3.0 and 4.0, published in May 2026 will differ slightly to the totals within Tables 1.0 and 2.0, published in September 2025. The table below details these differences.

Band	England and Wales	England	Wales
A	10	10	[c]
B	-20	-20	0
C	-30	-30	10
D	-10	-10	[c]
E	-10	[c]	[c]
F	-10	-10	0
G	-10	-10	0
H	-10	-10	0
I	0	..	0
Total	-80	-80	[c]

Table notes: Counts are rounded to the nearest 10. ‘..’ denotes not applicable - bands in England range from A to H only. Counts with an absolute value between 1 and 4 are suppressed and presented with [c].

3.3 Assigning geographies

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

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

Each property with a Council Tax band held on the Valuation Office’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 Valuation Office postcodes to ONS National Statistics Postcode Look-up File (NSPL)

Each property’s individual postcodes held on the Valuation Office’s database have been linked to those appearing in the February 2025 version of the NSPL. This year, around 0.03% 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.

3.4 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
CTSOP1.1	Method 2 - Postcodes
CTSOP2.0	Method 2 - Postcodes
CTSOP3.0	Method 1 - BA codes
CTSOP3.1	Method 2 - Postcodes
CTSOP4.0	Method 1 - BA codes
CTSOP4.1	Method 2 - Postcodes

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

3.5 Assigning Property Type and Build period

Each entry on the Council Tax Valuation lists has a number of ‘Property Attribute Details’ (PADs) recorded, which are codes that describe the features of the property. One of these PADs is the property type code; for this release, this code has been grouped to give a simplified property type category. If a property has no property type code recorded, or if the property type is recorded as ‘House - Unknown’, it is counted as having an unknown property type. The look-up table in appendix 1 shows how the property type code has been grouped into the categories shown in this release.

Another PAD used in this release is the age code, which is either a single letter or year that relates to the time period in which the property was built, for example, between 1993 and 1999. In this release, this time period is described as the ‘build period’. If a property has no age code recorded, it is counted as having an unknown build period. The look-up table in appendix 2 shows the age codes and their associated build periods.

At the introduction of the 1993 Council Tax Valuation List, most records were held in paper format. The Valuation Office has been continually working to update and improve the accuracy of the Council Tax Valuation Lists and, by 31 March 2004, were able to record the property type of most of these properties electronically in the Valuation Office’s administrative database.

In April 1993, 35% of properties had an unknown property type, 2% of properties had an unknown number of bedrooms and 37% of properties had an unknown build period.

Since March 2014, the percentage of properties with unknown property type, bedrooms, or build period has reduced to less than 1% in each category.

3.6 Properties with an Improvement Indicator

If a property has been improved or extended since it was placed in a Council Tax band, the Valuation Office cannot review the banding to take account of the alterations until the property is sold. These properties are flagged with an ‘Improvement Indicator’ on the Council Tax Valuation Lists and have ‘pending’ PADs recorded on the Valuation Office’s administrative database. Where valid pending PADs are recorded, the statistics reflect this. Once a sale takes place, the banding will be reviewed and the PADs may be updated. 

4. Data quality

4.1 Suitable data sources

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

The systems holding Valuation Office data have been updated in the last year; in this update, some data structures have changed and some data has been tidied.

4.2 Assured quality

Our quality assurance follows the approach set out in the Valuation Office 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

This year, additional steps have been taken, in adapting the methodology to an updated data structure. In particular, we have:

• interrogated differences arising from the updated data and methodology
• analysed growth rates by billing authority and parliamentary constituency fall

5. Uses of the data

This publication is released in support of making the Valuation Office’s data more accessible as well as presenting consistent information to assist users conducting their own analysis of Valuation Office 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 Valuation Office.

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

The Valuation Office welcomes feedback from users on the information provided in the release. Please forward any comments to the statisticsvo@hmrc.gov.uk.

6. CSV metadata

Files which provide the variable names and descriptions appearing in the CSV files are included in this release; they can be found within the ‘CSV Metadata’ zip file on the release page.

7. 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 31 March 2026. 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 Valuation Office pre-announces the month of publication in our 12-month planning schedule. Due to the rollout of new data and IT systems in the past year, there have been some alterations to the regular schedule of publications in 2025. It is anticipated that the data on the numbers of insertions and deletions from the Council Tax valuation lists for 2025 will be released subsequently.

8. 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.

9. 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. These statistics have been produced using a similar methodology to previously; the change in methodology relates to updates to the underlying data structure. However, the date field which determines the year banding decisions relate to has been replaced by one which is usually one or two business days earlier. This means that, depending on where business days fall in late March, these statistics may include slightly more recent data than they would have done under the previous methodology.

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. Country totals are now the sum of all more granular geographies.

As noted in section 3.2, property attributes in this release are the attributes as at 31 March 2025. Therefore, counts of properties by property attributes will not match previous publications.

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

10. 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 comparable tables in CSV format (see section CSV metadata), a background information document, and a statistical summary document.

11. 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 HMRC Confidentiality and Access policy.

12. 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 HMRC’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 Valuation Office’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 (now MHCLG). 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.

13. Glossary

Annexe – a building, or part of a building, which has been constructed or adapted for use as separate living accommodation.

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.

14. Appendices

14.1 Appendix 1: Property types

The following look-up table shows how Valuation Office type codes are grouped together to create the property types shown in Tables CTSOP3.0 and CTSOP3.1.

For further information please visit the National Archives website at the following location: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20141002130923/http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/Publications/PropertyDetailsGuide/index.html

VO Type code	VO Description	Property type
BC	Bungalow in a cluster	Bungalow
BD	Detached bungalow	Bungalow
BE	End terraced bungalow	Bungalow
BS	Semi-detached bungalow	Bungalow
BT	Mid terraced bungalow	Bungalow
BZ	Bungalow type unknown	Bungalow
FC	Non-purpose built flat self-contained	Flat / Maisonette
FD	Flat in 2 storey detached block of 2	Flat / Maisonette
FE	Flat in 2 storey block end terraced	Flat / Maisonette
FG	Coach House Flats over a garage or stable	Flat / Maisonette
FK	Flat with lift in group 61 only	Flat / Maisonette
FL	Purpose built flat with lift	Flat / Maisonette
FM	Flat without lift in group 61 only	Flat / Maisonette
FN	Non-purpose built flat not self-contained	Flat / Maisonette
FO	Purpose built flat without lift	Flat / Maisonette
FS	Flat in 2 storey block semi-detached	Flat / Maisonette
FT	Flat in 2 storey block mid terraced	Flat / Maisonette
FZ	Flat or maisonette – type unknown	Flat / Maisonette
MC	Non-purpose built maisonette self-contained	Flat / Maisonette
MK	Maisonette with lift in group 61 only	Flat / Maisonette
ML	Purpose built maisonette with lift	Flat / Maisonette
MM	Maisonette without lift in group 61 only	Flat / Maisonette
MN	Non-purpose built maisonette not self-contained	Flat / Maisonette
MO	Purpose built maisonette without lift	Flat / Maisonette
HC	House in a cluster	Terraced House
HE	End terraced house	Terraced House
HT	Mid terraced house	Terraced House
HS	Semi-detached house	Semi-Detached House
HD	Detached house	Detached House
AN	Family Annexe	Annexe
CD	Caravan	Caravan / Houseboat / Mobile Home
TH	Houseboat	Caravan / Houseboat / Mobile Home
TM	Static mobile home	Caravan / Houseboat / Mobile Home
HZ	House – type unknown	Unknown
No code present	Unknown	Unknown

14.2 Appendix 2: Build periods

The following look-up table shows how Valuation Office Age codes are grouped together to create the build periods shown in Tables CTSOP4.0 and CTSOP4.1.

For further information please visit the National Archives website at the following location: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20141002130923/http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/Publications/PropertyDetailsGuide/index.html

Age Code	Build period
A	Pre-1900
B	1900-1918
C	1919-1929
D	1930-1939
E [Note 1]	1945-1954
F	1955-1964
G	1965-1972
H	1973-1982
J	1983-1992
K	1993-1999
L	2000-2008
M	2009
N	2010
O	2011
P	2012
Q	2013
R	2014
S	2015
T	2016
U	2017
V	2018
W	2019
X	2020
Y	2021
2022 [Note 2]	2022
2023 [Note 2]	2023
2024 [Note 2]	2024
2025 [Note 2]	2025
No code present	Unknown

Note 1: There is no age code for years 1940 to 1944, because no properties are recorded as built in this time period on the Valuation Office database. Note 2 : Properties built in 2022 and 2024 were previously grouped together in the same Age Code. They have now been separated into individual year periods.