Band D in unparished Stafford is £2,269.85 this year, up 4.13%. Full A to H charges, all 41 parish rates, and why only £184.09 of it reaches the borough.
A band D household in the unparished part of Stafford pays £2,269.85 in 2026/27, up £90.05 or 4.13% on last year.
Stafford Borough Council keeps £184.09 of that. The rest goes to Staffordshire County Council, the police and the fire service. The full band A to H table is not on the council’s website in any readable form: it is in a PDF of 41 parish areas, three rows deep for each, with the parish name printed against the middle row. We have pulled the numbers out.
The charge for each band
These are the charges for Stafford town, which is unparished, and for Marston, which is the only parish in the borough that levies no precept at all. Everywhere else adds a parish charge on top.
| Band | 1991 value | Borough | County | Fire | Police | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Up to £40,000 | £122.73 | £1,124.28 | £64.51 | £201.71 | £1,513.23 |
| B | £40,001 to £52,000 | £143.18 | £1,311.66 | £75.27 | £235.33 | £1,765.44 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 | £163.64 | £1,499.04 | £86.02 | £268.95 | £2,017.65 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 | £184.09 | £1,686.42 | £96.77 | £302.57 | £2,269.85 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 | £225.00 | £2,061.18 | £118.27 | £369.81 | £2,774.26 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 | £265.91 | £2,435.94 | £139.78 | £437.05 | £3,278.68 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 | £306.82 | £2,810.70 | £161.28 | £504.28 | £3,783.08 |
| H | Over £320,000 | £368.18 | £3,372.84 | £193.54 | £605.14 | £4,539.70 |
A separate reduced rate applies where a property has been adapted for a disabled resident. That drops the bill to the band below, and band A properties get a reduction worth roughly one band. The charges PDF prints those figures too, at 75% and 50% of each band.
Where each pound goes
Four authorities charge, and the borough collects for all of them.
| Authority | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Increase | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staffordshire County Council | £1,621.71 | £1,686.42 | £64.71 | 3.99% |
| Staffordshire Commissioner (Police and Crime) | £287.57 | £302.57 | £15.00 | 5.22% |
| Stafford Borough Council | £178.75 | £184.09 | £5.34 | 2.99% |
| Staffordshire Commissioner (Fire and Rescue) | £91.77 | £96.77 | £5.00 | 5.45% |
| Total | £2,179.80 | £2,269.85 | £90.05 | 4.13% |
The county takes 74p in every pound. The borough takes just over 8p, and it took the smallest percentage rise of the four. The two biggest percentage rises, fire at 5.45% and police at 5.22%, are both flat £5 and £15 additions rather than proportional increases.
The borough’s own budget requirement funded by council tax is £9.259 million, £329,000 up on last year. Its leaflet blames the increase mainly on food waste, which added £1.069 million, plus £888,000 of service investment and £415,000 of inflation, offset by £1.399 million of income changes. Staffing rises from 241.02 to 245.50 full time equivalents. The council has no outstanding debt.
What your parish adds
Thirty-nine of the borough’s 41 charging areas add a parish or town precept. The gap between the cheapest and dearest place to live in Stafford borough is £151.15 at band D, and it is entirely down to which parish you are in.
The most expensive:
| Parish | Band D total | Parish share |
|---|---|---|
| Colwich | £2,421.00 | £151.15 |
| Stowe by Chartley | £2,386.82 | £116.97 |
| Barlaston | £2,374.71 | £104.86 |
| Sandon and Burston | £2,362.72 | £92.87 |
| Weston | £2,341.14 | £71.29 |
| Stone Town | £2,336.84 | £66.99 |
And the cheapest:
| Parish | Band D total | Parish share |
|---|---|---|
| Stafford (unparished) | £2,269.85 | Nil |
| Marston | £2,269.85 | Nil |
| Forton | £2,277.80 | £7.95 |
| Ellenhall | £2,278.92 | £9.07 |
| High Offley | £2,282.36 | £12.51 |
| Creswell | £2,282.51 | £12.66 |
Colwich is the outlier and it moved this year. Its precept rose from £241,166.25 to £287,931.41, a 19.4% increase, and its band D parish element went from £127.56 to £151.15. Colwich Parish Council covers Colwich, Great Haywood and Little Haywood. Its published budget shows staffing up from £225,567 to £240,353 and administration up from £41,633 to £47,379. It has put £5,000 into leisure for the first time, and cut its draw on reserves from £32,000 to £2,400.
For the other places this site covers, the band D total is £2,329.90 in Gnosall, £2,327.61 in Hixon, £2,325.83 in Berkswich, £2,313.02 in Eccleshall, £2,306.65 in Brocton, £2,293.92 in Doxey and £2,293.54 in Stone Rural.
Total parish precepts across the borough rose from £1,537,483.82 to £1,650,981.29.
Checking and challenging your band
Bands come from the Valuation Office Agency, part of HMRC, not from the council. Every band reflects what a property was worth on 1 April 1991. Nothing that has happened to prices since then changes it.
Look up any address free on gov.uk/council-tax-bands.
You can only appeal the band itself in three situations, and two of them are time limited:
- within six months of becoming the person liable for the property
- within six months of the Valuation Office changing the band
- where there has been a specific material change in the property’s value
Appeals about the band go to the Valuation Office. Appeals about whether you are liable at all, or entitled to a discount or exemption, go to the council. Keep paying while you appeal. A refund follows if you win.
Discounts, and the ones that cost you if you forget
- Single occupant: 25% off.
- Disabled band reduction: the bill drops to the band below. Not means tested.
- Annexe: 50% off a separately assessed annexe occupied by the family or a relative.
- Council tax reduction, working age: the borough runs a banded discount scheme worth between 20% and 100%, depending on income and household. Pension age households use the national scheme.
Several groups are not counted as adults for the two-adult assumption, so a household can qualify for a discount even with more than one person in it: full time students, student nurses and apprentices, people in hospital or care homes, the severely mentally impaired, live-in carers who are not a partner or a child under 18, people in detention, members of religious communities, and visiting forces.
The rule people get caught by: if you have a reduction and your circumstances change, you must tell the council within 21 days or face a £70 penalty.
Empty and second homes
The premiums here are steep and were tightened last year.
| Situation | Charge |
|---|---|
| Furnished and unoccupied second home | 200% |
| Unfurnished and unoccupied, first 28 days | 100% discount |
| Unfurnished and unoccupied, 28 days to 1 year | 100% |
| Empty 1 to 5 years | 200% |
| Empty 5 to 10 years | 300% |
| Empty over 10 years | 400% |
| Job related or armed forces second home | 50% |
The 200% second home charge replaced a 100% charge on 31 March 2025. Government exceptions from April 2025 can suspend a premium for up to 12 months, including homes actively marketed for sale or to let, homes left empty after a death until 12 months from probate, and properties undergoing major repairs or structural alteration.
One thing to watch
Stafford Borough Council was due to be absorbed into a new South and Mid Staffordshire unitary authority on 1 April 2028, at which point the borough’s £184.09 share and the county’s £1,686.42 would be set by a single body. The government paused that plan on 7 September 2026 and has not published a new date. The parish precepts, which are what actually vary across the borough, would not be affected by reorganisation either way.
More local information
We also cover bin collection days, parking in Stafford, roadworks and travel, planning news and house prices for Stafford and Stone.
Sources
- Stafford Borough Council Tax Amounts 2026/2027, Stafford Borough Council, downloaded and parsed 1 September 2026, for the band A to H charge in all 41 parish areas including Stafford (unparished) and Marston.
- The equivalent 2025/2026 charges, used to work out the year on year change and last year’s parish elements.
- Your Council Tax Explained 2026/2027, Stafford Borough Council, for the four-authority split by band on page 9, the average band D comparison table, the parish precept table on page 12, Colwich Parish Council’s budget on page 13, the discount and exemption lists, the empty and second home premiums, the £70 penalty and the £9.259 million budget requirement.
- Council tax bands, GOV.UK and the Valuation Office Agency, for the 1991 valuation bands and the band lookup.
- Stafford’s absorption into a South and Mid Staffordshire unitary, decided in July 2026 and paused on 7 September 2026: see our reports on the new council’s name and the pause.
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