St Albans council tax bands 2026/27: all 10 parish rates

There is no single St Albans council tax rate. The district is split into ten parish areas, and the charge differs in each because the parish precept and the district’s special expense differ. On a Band D property the gap between the cheapest and the dearest is £137.93 a year.

The cheapest place in the district is St Michael, at £2,360.52. The dearest is Colney Heath, at £2,498.45. Both households get exactly the same county, police and district services.

Every band, every parish, 2026/27

All figures in pounds per year. Source: St Albans City and District Council, Council Tax 2026-27 Overall Calculation, cross-checked against the band table in the council’s Your Council Tax Explained 2026/27 leaflet. The two agree in every cell.

Which row is yours

The “St Albans City” row is the unparished central area. The council’s Community Governance Review defines it as these nine district wards: Batchwood, Bernards Heath, Clarence, Cunningham, Hill End, Marshalswick West, Sopwell, St Peters and Verulam.

Everywhere else has a parish or town council. Two are easy to get wrong:

• St Stephen covers Bricket Wood, Park Street and Chiswell Green, in the council’s own words
• Marshalswick East is in Sandridge parish, not the unparished city, even though Marshalswick West is. Sandridge Parish Council is based at Marshalswick Community Centre

The full list of parish and town councils is on the council’s parish and town councils page.

These rows change next year

Full Council approved a set of Community Governance Review recommendations on 15 July 2026. Two of them rewrite this table from 1 April 2027:

• Harpenden Rural Parish Council will be abolished and its area absorbed into Harpenden Town Council, whose Harpenden North ward becomes “Harpenden North & Rural”
• the unparished centre of St Albans becomes a parish, named St Albans City Centre Parish, with 25 councillors across the nine wards listed above

The legal order is due to be laid in September 2026, a shadow parish council is to be set up between September 2026 and May 2027, and the first elections fall on 6 May 2027. Source: the council’s Community Governance Review final recommendations.

Harpenden Rural households currently pay £2,373.06 at Band D and Harpenden Town households £2,458.18, a difference of £85.12. What the merged area will charge has not been set.

What went up, and by how much

The district’s own share of the bill is small, so most of the rise came from elsewhere.

The district’s combined general and special expense rose 2.99%, which is the figure the council quotes for itself.

In cash terms, a Band D household in St Albans City paid £2,257.13 in 2025/26 and pays £2,368.36 this year. That is £111.23 more, a rise of 4.93%.

Of every £1 collected in the district, the council says:

• Hertfordshire County Council takes 77p, a total of £120.7m
• the Police and Crime Commissioner takes 11p, £18.2m
• St Albans City and District Council takes 9p, £14.0m
• town and parish councils take 3p, £4.3m

The district element works out at about £4.12 a week for bin collections, leisure and community centres, parks, street cleaning, museums, parking control, planning enforcement, housing and benefits advice, elections and food safety inspection.

Special expenses: the St Albans oddity

Most districts have a parish precept line and nothing else. St Albans has a second line called special expenses, and it is the reason two households paying the same county and police charge can still owe different amounts.

Special expenses are what the district charges an area for services that a parish council provides elsewhere. Where a parish takes over a service, the district’s special expense on that area falls. That is why the changes look so strange:

Source: St Albans City and District Council, Your Council Tax Explained 2026/27. The general expenses element rose 3.75% in every area.

Redbourn’s special expense fell 93.80% while its parish precept rose 10.98%. The parish precept is the larger of the two figures, so Redbourn households still paid more overall. Redbourn’s Band D total is £2,473.39, the second highest in the district.

A parish precept is not subject to the referendum limit that caps district and county rises. Parish and town councils set their own precepts, and the amount you pay depends only on where you live.

St Albans City itself has no parish council at all, which is why its bill shows special expenses instead of a precept. That ends in April 2027, when the central area becomes St Albans City Centre Parish: see our report on the new St Albans city centre parish council.

Checking and challenging your band

Bands were set on 1 April 1991 property values, not today’s, which is why a band can look wrong on a house that has been extended or converted.

• Look up your band free on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax band search
• If you think it is wrong, the process is on GOV.UK: challenge your council tax band
• Appeals against the council’s own decisions, rather than the band, go through the council’s appeals page

A challenge can move a band up as well as down, and a successful challenge on your house can affect neighbouring properties of the same type.

Discounts

A full-time carer is disregarded if they provide care for an average of at least 35 hours a week, and the person cared for receives Attendance Allowance, the daily living component of PIP at either rate, the care component of DLA at the higher or middle rate, an increased Disablement Pension, a Constant Attendance Allowance or an Armed Forces Independence Payment. A spouse, civil partner or a child under 18 does not count as the person cared for.

Full list on the council’s discounts and exemptions page.

Empty homes are charged more, not less

St Albans awards no discount at all on second homes or on empty and unfurnished properties. You pay the full charge whether anyone lives there or not.

Leave a property empty and unfurnished for long enough and the charge rises above 100%:

• empty more than 2 years, a 100% premium, so double the normal bill
• empty more than 5 years, a 200% premium
• empty 10 years or more, a 300% premium

The premium follows the property, not the owner. The council warns that buying an empty house does not reset the clock, so a purchaser who does not move in straight away can inherit a doubled bill. Detail on the empty properties page.

Council Tax Support

St Albans kept the old Council Tax Benefit rules, so support can cover up to 100% of the charge. Pensioners and working-age claimants who are not on Universal Credit are assessed under that original scheme.

Universal Credit claimants are on a banded scheme instead, which looks only at earned income and ignores the Universal Credit itself:

Source: St Albans City and District Council, Council tax support.

Receiving Council Tax Support also cuts two other bills covered on this site: it brings a garden waste subscription down from £69 to £30, and a bulky collection from £59 to £19.

Related

• St Albans bin collection days
• Parking in St Albans
• St Albans house prices
• Plans to abolish St Albans council, now paused