Band D in Bedford town is £2,447.66 this year, and the borough charges four different rates by area. The full A to H table, and who takes what off the bill.
A Band D home in Bedford town pays £2,447.66 in council tax this year. In Kempston it is £2,484.19, in Brickhill £2,470.81, and across the borough’s 48 parishes it ranges from £2,419.52 to £2,577.05.
That spread exists because Bedford Borough Council does not charge one rate. It charges four, through something called a special area charge, and then parish precepts sit on top. The council publishes the full result in a PDF and nowhere else on its website.
Here is the table, and then the arithmetic behind it.
Bedford council tax bands 2026/27
| Band | 1991 value | Charge for the year |
|---|---|---|
| A | Up to £40,000 | £1,631.77 |
| B | £40,001 to £52,000 | £1,903.73 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 | £2,175.69 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 | £2,447.66 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 | £2,991.59 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 | £3,535.50 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 | £4,079.43 |
| H | Over £320,000 | £4,895.32 |
Source: Bedford Borough Council, Council Tax Resolution 2026-2027 (PDF), set at Full Council on 25 February 2026.
Bedford town is unparished, so this is the borough’s charge plus the police and fire precepts and nothing else. It is the figure most readers of this site want.
Kempston council tax bands 2026/27
| Band | Charge for the year |
|---|---|
| A | £1,656.12 |
| B | £1,932.15 |
| C | £2,208.16 |
| D | £2,484.19 |
| E | £3,036.23 |
| F | £3,588.27 |
| G | £4,140.31 |
| H | £4,968.38 |
Those 1991 values are not an error. Every band in England still rests on what a property was worth on 1 April 1991, and there has never been a revaluation.
Who takes what off a Bedford bill
| Who | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bedford Borough Council | £1,915.69 | £2,011.28 | +4.99% |
| Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire | £279.09 | £297.59 | +6.63% |
| Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Authority | £117.72 | £122.72 | +4.25% |
| Parish or town council (average) | £38.44 | £40.15 | +4.44% |
| Total | £2,350.94 | £2,471.74 | +5.14% |
Source: Bedford Borough Council, Your Council Tax 2026-2027.
The borough keeps about 81 per cent of the bill. It is a unitary authority, so there is no county council layer: Bedfordshire County Council was abolished in 2009 and Bedford has run both district and county services since.
The police precept rose fastest. At 6.63 per cent it went up at more than twice the rate of the fire precept and comfortably ahead of the borough’s own 4.99 per cent.
The borough’s 4.99 per cent is made of two parts: 2.99 per cent core, and 2 per cent ringfenced for adult social care. The cumulative adult social care charge now built into a Band D bill is £343.04.
The bit nobody explains: special area charges
Bedford Borough’s own share of the bill is not the same everywhere. The council strips out what it spends on community centres and parks, then adds it back only to the areas that get those services. It calls this a special area charge.
| Area | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bedford | £1,940.04 | £2,027.35 | +4.5% |
| Brickhill | £1,923.49 | £2,015.18 | +4.8% |
| Kempston | £1,920.37 | £2,010.54 | +4.7% |
| Rural | £1,895.72 | £1,999.21 | +5.5% |
Read the last column. The borough’s headline increase was 4.99 per cent, but rural households took 5.5 per cent while Bedford town took 4.5. Rural areas still pay the lowest borough charge of the four, but this year they absorbed the steepest rise, and the council’s explanation is a single line: it reassessed open space across the borough ahead of setting the tax.
The four figures are what the borough alone takes. Add £297.59 for the police and £122.72 for the fire authority and you have the bill for an unparished area. For Bedford town that is exactly £2,447.66.
The cheapest and dearest parishes
| Parish | Band D |
|---|---|
| Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick | £2,577.05 |
| Harrold | £2,564.64 |
| Bletsoe | £2,540.38 |
| Wymington | £2,538.86 |
| Great Barford | £2,536.24 |
| Bedford town, unparished: £2,447.66 | |
| Great Denham | £2,444.23 |
| Renhold | £2,440.90 |
| Little Barford | £2,419.52 |
The gap between Little Barford at £2,419.52 and Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick at £2,577.05 is £157.53 a year, and that number is not a coincidence. Little Barford levies no parish precept at all, so its bill is the bare rural rate. Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick charges £157.53 per Band D property. The entire spread across the borough is one parish council’s precept.
What your parish put up
The borough’s 48 parish and town councils raised £2,612,850 between them this year, up from £2,490,093, an increase of 4.9 per cent. The averages hide a lot.
| Parish | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cardington | £66.88 | £93.09 | +39.2% |
| Wymington | £87.27 | £119.34 | +36.7% |
| Ravensden | £27.78 | £33.33 | +20.0% |
| Felmersham | £56.92 | £67.76 | +19.0% |
| Pavenham | £45.54 | £52.37 | +15.0% |
| Stevington | £72.52 | £83.14 | +14.6% |
| Riseley | £63.74 | £72.96 | +14.5% |
| Kempston Town | £56.48 | £53.34 | -5.6% |
| Kempston Rural | £41.99 | £39.92 | -4.9% |
Source: Bedford Borough Council, Parish Precepts 2026-2027. Percentages are our calculation from the council’s own per-Band-D figures.
A parish precept is not capped. The referendum limit that stops the borough raising council tax by 5 per cent or more does not apply to town and parish councils, which is how Cardington and Wymington could put theirs up by more than a third in one year.
Cardington’s precept went from £9,600 to £13,398. Wymington’s went from £25,300 to £34,600. Both are small enough that a single project moves the percentage a long way, which is worth remembering before reading too much into it.
Kempston Town went the other way, cutting its precept from £350,000 to £330,589.
Where the money goes
| Service | Net budget | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Adults Services | £84.3m | 33% |
| Children's Services | £57.3m | 23% |
| Environment | £44.7m | 18% |
| Financing | £43.1m | 17% |
| Chief Executive and Resources | £23.7m | 9% |
| Sub total | £253.0m | 100% |
| Less Exceptional Financial Support | -£25.0m | |
| Total for 2026/27 | £228.0m |
That last line matters. Bedford’s budget only balances with £25m of Exceptional Financial Support, the mechanism councils in financial difficulty use to capitalise costs they cannot otherwise meet. The council’s own explanation cites reduced government funding and cost pressures in children’s services, housing and adult social care.
One figure in that budget table cuts against the framing. The council’s own numbers show government grants at £43.9m in 2026/27 against £7.8m the year before, and retained business rates up from £44.8m to £53.2m. Both went up. The net budget rose faster still, from £177.6m to £228.0m.
Checking and challenging your band
Your band is set by the Valuation Office Agency, not the council. You can look up any property free at gov.uk/council-tax-bands, which searches by postcode.
You can challenge a band, but only on limited grounds: the VOA will look at it if your property has changed physically, if it has been demolished or converted, or if you have become the taxpayer within the last six months. The route is Challenge your Council Tax band on gov.uk. There is no fee, and you should not pay anyone who offers to do it for you.
Bedford’s own guidance is on its How much Council Tax will I pay? page. A rise or fall in market value does not change a band.
Discounts
- Single person: 25 per cent off if only one adult lives there as their main home. It has to be cancelled when another adult moves in.
- Students: full exemption where every adult is a full-time student. One non-student adult means the 25 per cent single person discount instead.
- Disabled band reduction: a property with a room used mainly for a disabled person, a second bathroom or kitchen, or space for a wheelchair, is charged one band lower. Band A properties get a reduction too.
- Severe mental impairment: a reduction where a resident is diagnosed and receives a qualifying benefit. This covers dementia and Alzheimer’s. The form needs a doctor to complete part two.
- Disregards: apprentices earning up to £195 a week, people in prison, long-term hospital and care home residents, carers in some cases, and 18 and 19 year olds still at school. If everyone in the home is disregarded, the discount is 50 per cent.
- Council Tax Support for people on low incomes, applied for through the same online account.
Source: Bedford Borough Council, Apply for a discount / exemption.
Empty homes and second homes: no grace period at all
Bedford is at the strict end of what the law allows.
- There is no discount for an empty property, not even briefly. The council charges the full amount from the day it becomes unoccupied.
- There is no discount while a property is being repaired, including repairs needed to make it habitable.
- Second homes pay a 100 per cent premium on top of the full charge, from 1 April 2025.
| Unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for | Premium |
|---|---|
| 1 to 5 years | 100% |
| 5 to 10 years | 200% |
| 10 years or more | 300% |
A 300 per cent premium means four times the normal bill. On a Band D house in Bedford town that is £9,790.64 a year.
Exceptions exist and are worth checking before you pay: armed forces accommodation, annexes, a property genuinely on the market for sale or to let (12 months), probate recently granted (12 months), major structural repairs (12 months), and cases where the liable person lacks mental capacity.
Note that the council’s own page still describes the one-year premium threshold in the future tense as a change coming “on 1 April 2025”. It took effect on that date and is the rule now.
Source: Bedford Borough Council, Empty properties and Council Tax.
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