By region
North East council tax 2026/27
High charges per band, low bands per home: the region where the Band D figure misleads the most.
Sunderland, Band A, 2026/27
£1,465a year
First payment £150.76, then 9 of £146.00
| Band A charge | £1,464.76 |
| Bill for the year | £1,464.76 |
Band A at 6/9 of Band D.
Where the council tax goes
How Sunderland compares
Band D here is £2,197.14, number 272 of 296 in England (1 = dearest). The same band in Wandsworth, the cheapest, costs £685 on the same terms.
Think the band is wrong? How a band challenge works
The North East has 12 councils, all of them unitary or metropolitan, so each sends a single bill without a county council share. For 2026/27 their Band D charges run from £2,197.14 in Sunderland to £2,715.81 in Gateshead, with a simple average of £2,525.66, above the English average of £2,391.52. That headline is misleading for most households, because the region has more homes in Band A than any other part of England: a Band A home in Gateshead pays £1,810.54, and in Sunderland £1,464.76. Three police areas share the region, Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland, and their precepts explain part of the gap between the north and south of it. Neither of the region's two combined authorities sets a council tax precept this year.
Figures checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the bill is worked out
Every council in the North East
| Council | Band A | Band D | Band H | Band D 2025/26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gateshead | £1,810.54 | £2,715.81 | £5,431.62 | £2,578.46 | 5.3 % |
| Durham | £1,748.10 | £2,622.15 | £5,244.30 | £2,551.17 | 2.8 % |
| Northumberland | £1,731.29 | £2,596.94 | £5,193.88 | £2,464.63 | 5.4 % |
| Stockton-on-Tees | £1,726.55 | £2,589.83 | £5,179.66 | £2,468.74 | 4.9 % |
| Hartlepool | £1,706.80 | £2,560.20 | £5,120.40 | £2,498.53 | 2.5 % |
| Middlesbrough | £1,699.44 | £2,549.16 | £5,098.32 | £2,487.65 | 2.5 % |
| Redcar and Cleveland | £1,696.32 | £2,544.48 | £5,088.96 | £2,424.47 | 4.9 % |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | £1,694.79 | £2,542.19 | £5,084.38 | £2,413.15 | 5.3 % |
| Darlington | £1,662.55 | £2,493.83 | £4,987.66 | £2,371.60 | 5.2 % |
| North Tyneside | £1,641.18 | £2,461.77 | £4,923.54 | £2,336.45 | 5.4 % |
| South Tyneside | £1,622.95 | £2,434.43 | £4,868.86 | £2,311.18 | 5.3 % |
| Sunderland | £1,464.76 | £2,197.14 | £4,394.28 | £2,092.79 | 5.0 % |
Band A is the band that matters here
Band D is the reference band for every comparison, but in the North East it describes a minority of homes. Terraced streets built for shipyards, mines and steelworks were valued in 1991 well under the Band A ceiling of £40,000. For those homes the bill is two thirds of the table's Band D column. A single adult, common in the region's older housing, takes a further 25 % off: a Band A home in Gateshead with one adult pays £1,357.90 this year.
Tyne and Wear side by side
The five Tyne and Wear councils share Northumbria Police and Tyne and Wear Fire, so their bills differ only by the councils' own charges. Their Band D figures for 2026/27: Newcastle upon Tyne £2,542.19, Gateshead £2,715.81, Sunderland £2,197.14, South Tyneside £2,434.43, North Tyneside £2,461.77. Police and fire together add £319.45 at Band D in all five. On Teesside, Cleveland Police and Cleveland Fire add £432.19, so the same Band D council charge produces a different total.
Small rises this year
Several North East councils raised their bills by less than the 4.99 % allowed. The smallest total rises in England were on Teesside, where Hartlepool and Middlesbrough went up by 2.5 %. The increase page compares them with the rest of England.
Most of the bill is the council's own
With no county tier, a North East bill has fewer parts than one in the Midlands or the South. In Sunderland, for example, the city council's own charge is £1,876.80 of the £2,197.14 Band D bill, including £35.92 raised for adult social care; the rest is police, fire and a very small parish share. Decisions taken in the town hall therefore explain almost all of the differences in the table above.
Using the calculator
The calculator above starts on Sunderland, Band A. Change the council and band, then say who lives in the home: the region has many single-adult and student households, and Durham and Newcastle have large student populations, covered in the student guide. Parish precepts are small in the urban councils and larger in Northumberland and County Durham, where a village bill can be a little above the figure shown.