Understanding your council tax bill

The amount you have to pay depends on which of the eight Council Tax bands your home is in. A government body called the Valuation Office Agency decides which band your property is in. Your bill tells you which band you’re in. You may have to pay the full amount or you may be entitled to a discount (e.g. if you live on your own or you are on a low income and qualify for Council Tax Support).

Example breakdown for the 2025/26, council tax band D (excluding the charge for individual towns and parishes):

• North Northamptonshire Council and adult social care - £1,827.06
• Police - £320.04
• Fire - £80.39
• Total - £2,227.49

Town and parish councils can levy a separate amount called a precept that may form part of your council tax bill.

Our income in 2025/26

Similar to other councils, we receive funding for services from a few key sources.  These are the main sources of income:

• Council tax: £217.13 million, 54.2%
• Business rates:  £112.47 million, 28%
• Grants and other external funding: £66.15 million, 16.5%
• Use of reserves: £5.1 million, 1.3%
• Total resources: £400.85 million

Each year the government expects local authorities to raise money to help pay for the cost of providing local services. Some of this money comes from residents of North Northamptonshire and is collected by the council in the form of council tax.

The council also collects council tax on behalf of the police and fire services, and town and parish councils. Your council tax bill includes the charges from these authorities as well as that from North Northamptonshire Council.

Our expenditure in 2025/26

Your council tax helps to fund local services, such as social care for vulnerable people and support for children, young adults and elderly people. It also pays for waste and recycling, schools, libraries, leisure centres, street cleaning, parks and much more:

• Adult social care services - 40.3%, £161.75 million
• Children’s services - 22.3%, £89.21 million
• Highways, waste and asset management - 17.7%, £71 million
• Enabling services (including Customer Services, Revenues and Benefits and support services) - 10.9%, £43.67 million
• Corporate core (including borrowing costs, contingency and resources to be allocated) - 4%, £15.96 million
• Housing, communities, culture and leisure - 3%, £12.12 million
• Growth and regeneration - 1%, £3.87 million
• Regulatory services (including Trading Standards, Environmental Health and Building Control) - 0.8%, £3.27 million
• Total expenditure: £375.33 million

This year, the government changed how we need to show the adult social care precept on council tax bills.

There is no longer a requirement to show separate information about the adult social care precept. The regulations now require us to show a single line for the council tax we are charging. This single line shows the total cash charge and the annual increase.

As a result of this change, there is now just one cash figure and one percentage figure for North Northamptonshire Council’s charge. 

The presentation of charges from other authorities in the area (police, fire, town and parish councils) remains unchanged.

Unlike larger authorities, they have no caps on what they can increase their demand by. For more information on your Parish Council's budget and plans, please visit their own respective websites or contact them directly.

North Northamptonshire Council has chosen to increase the part of the Council Tax bill relating to general council expenditure and adult social care by 4.99%. 

This percentage increase is shown as 5% on your bill. This is because the system is restricted to printing to one decimal place.