Council tax has been going up around the country, with virtually everyone paying more than they would have a few years ago. With rising costs across the boards, it’s become more and more expensive, both for residents and for councils, so we’re taking a look at all the rises across Wales.
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00:00Council tax levels around Wales have gone up consistently for decades. If you cast your
00:08minds all the way back to the mid-90s, you'd have been paying somewhere close to £500
00:12a year on council tax. But now in 2025, that number has basically quadrupled, with many
00:17people paying roughly £2,000 a year on council tax across Wales. In the last year alone,
00:23council tax rates have gone up by an average 7.7% across Wales, which accounts for roughly
00:28a £150 increase for all people across the country – a considerable uptick for many
00:32households. The story, though, is slightly different depending on where you are in Wales,
00:37with some councils charging more than others, and some increasing by more than others over
00:41the last year. D-band properties are often used as the standard setter for our official
00:46statistics, and some councils increase have been a significant amount, in particular Pembrokeshire,
00:52which has increased their annual band D council tax by over 11%, which makes it one of the
00:57biggest increases anywhere in the UK. Pembrokeshire, though, ranks relatively low down the list
01:03on the overall amounts at 19th out of 22 local authorities in Wales. For category D houses,
01:09Merthyr Tydfil has the highest yearly tax charges at over £2,300 – more than £300
01:15above the Welsh average. But curiously, they take the lowest average per dwelling across
01:19the country. In terms of the average dwelling, so taking all bands into consideration, it
01:25might come as no surprise that the relatively wealthy county of Monmouthshire has the highest
01:28amount of average council tax – over £500 above the national average in Wales. On the
01:34other side of the coin, the lowest D-band council tax charges across Wales can be found
01:38in Caerphilly, with Cardiff and Newport not far behind them. All of those councils charge
01:42somewhere around £1,800 to £1,900 per year. Whichever way you swing it, council tax is
01:48really expensive. But costs to the councils are getting more and more expensive too, with
01:52many needing to recoup millions of pounds worth of funding gaps, so these issues might
01:56continue.