Council tax for 2026/27 · England, Scotland and Wales
Bedford council tax 2026/27: a Band D home pays £2,471.74 a year
The cheapest band, A, pays £1,647.83; the dearest, H, pays £4,943.48. 25% of Bedford’s 81,610 homes are in Band C.
Band D costs £2,471.74 a year: £247.17 over 10 payments or £205.98 over 12. 16% of Bedford’s homes are in this band.
£1k£2k£3k£4k£5k£6k
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
Bedford, street by band. Walls rise to the yearly charge (one scale for all councils); each house is as wide as its band’s share of homes (all properties on the list at 31 March 2026, Valuation Office Agency). Narrow bands are kept visible.
Too narrow to draw to scale, so shown at a minimum width: Band H 0.3% of homes.
Every band in Bedford
Band
A year
Over 10 payments
Over 12 payments
Homes
£1,647.83
£164.78
£137.32
13%
£1,922.46
£192.25
£160.21
23%
£2,197.10
£219.71
£183.09
25%
£2,471.74
£247.17
£205.98
16%
£3,021.02
£302.10
£251.75
11%
£3,570.29
£357.03
£297.52
7%
£4,119.57
£411.96
£343.30
4%
£4,943.48
£494.35
£411.96
0.3%
These are averages for the whole council area, parish charges included: your own bill may be higher or lower depending on your parish. Monthly figures divide the yearly charge, rounded to the penny.
About Bedford’s figures
Fire costs Bedford households more than in nearly any other part of England. Of the 185 councils for which Table 10 shows a separate fire precept, only four exceed Bedford's £122.72. Central Bedfordshire and Luton are charged that same fire figure and the same £297.59 for policing; within that trio, Central Bedfordshire charges £44.42 more at Band D than Bedford, Luton £31.81 less.
Bedford's Band D for 2026/27 is £2,471.74, which is £120.80, or 5.14%, above last year. Policing accounts for 12.0% of it and fire for 5.0%, leaving £2,011.28, or 81.4%, for the council, of which £38.31 is the adult social care precept added for 2026/27.
Parishes are plentiful: 48 of them, adding £40.15 on average, about 1.6% of the bill. Because the parish money is averaged across Bedford, a particular home's bill can come out slightly higher or lower than these figures.
Bedford's homes fan out across bands A to E rather than piling into one. Band C, with 20,360 of 81,610 (24.9%), edges past Band B at 23.5%, and Band A holds 10,820, or 13.3%. Band D has 15.5%, and the four top bands 22.8%, among them 250 Band H properties, charged £4,943.48.
Taken together, policing and fire claim £420.31 of every Bedford Band D bill, about 17.0% of it, and the fire precept on its own is larger than the average parish charge by roughly three to one.
Band D is the band the national tables use to compare councils. In Bedford it is £2,471.74 a year. Across the 296 councils in England the simple average of Band D is £2,410.97, and 178 of them charge less than Bedford.
The dearest Band D in England is Dorset at £2,765.02; the cheapest is Wandsworth at £1,028.21.
Where Bedford’s homes sit
The biggest share of homes, 25%, is in Band C. Bands A to C together hold 62% of the 81,610 homes, and bands E to H hold 23%.
Homes are counted as: all properties on the list at 31 March 2026, Valuation Office Agency.
Check your own band
The letter is printed on your council tax bill. To look up any home, use the official services: England and Wales or Scotland. Band by Band cannot tell you the band of an address.