Every North Tyneside band, from A at £1,641.17 to H at £4,923.54, up 5.36%. The council, police and fire split, and the new banded reduction scheme from April 2026.
Whitley Bay, Monkseaton, Cullercoats and the rest of the borough all pay the same council tax, because North Tyneside has no parish or town councils to add a precept on top. That makes this simple: one table covers every address from Wallsend to St Mary’s Island.
Bills went up 5.36% in April 2026. Below is the full band A to H table for 2026/27, what the increase is made of, and the discounts, including a reduction scheme the council replaced from 1 April this year.
Council tax bands 2026/27
The right hand column is what you pay if you are the only adult in the property and have claimed the single person discount.
| Band | 1991 value | Full charge | With single person discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | up to £40,000 | £1,641.17 | £1,230.88 |
| B | £40,000 to £52,000 | £1,914.71 | £1,436.03 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 | £2,188.23 | £1,641.17 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 | £2,461.77 | £1,846.33 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 | £3,008.83 | £2,256.62 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 | £3,555.89 | £2,666.92 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 | £4,102.94 | £3,077.20 |
| H | over £320,000 | £4,923.54 | £3,692.65 |
Source: North Tyneside Council, what you will pay 2026 to 2027. Every band rose by the same 5.36%.
Two things worth noticing. A band C household claiming the single person discount pays £1,641.17, which is exactly what a band A household pays in full. And band H is three times band A, not eight times, because every band is a fraction of band D: band A is 6/9 of it and band H is 18/9.
What the bill is made of
Your bill is three separate charges collected on one demand notice. At band D:
- North Tyneside Council: £2,142.32, up 4.99%, which includes 2% for the adult social care precept. From 2026/27 the two are shown as a single line on the bill rather than split, under the 2025 amendment to the demand notice regulations.
- Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria: £214.34, up from £195.84, an increase of £18.50 a year at band D. The Commissioner describes that as 36p a week at band D and 24p a week at band A, raising over £7.9m, and says it remains the lowest police precept of any commissioner in England and Wales. North Tyneside’s share of the force’s council tax requirement is £14.026m (Northumbria Police budget).
- Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority: £105.11, up £5 at band D. The authority’s council tax requirement rose from £30.657m to £32.748m (fire authority budget).
At band A the same three charges come to £1,428.21, £142.89 and £70.07.
There is no combined authority precept. The North East Combined Authority funds Metro, buses and the Tyne Tunnel through a transport levy paid by the councils, £74.581m across Tyne and Wear for 2026/27, not through a line on your bill. The Tyne Tunnel pays for itself from tolls and reserves with no levy funding at all (combined authority budget).
Checking and challenging your band
Bands are set by the Valuation Office Agency, not the council, on what the property would have sold for on 1 April 1991. What it is worth now tells you nothing about what band it should be in. You can look up any address free on gov.uk.
If you think the band is wrong, you contact the VOA, not North Tyneside. You can generally only make a formal appeal within six months of becoming a new council tax payer at the property, or of the VOA telling you the band has changed. Outside that window you can still appeal at any time if the property has been demolished, adapted for someone with a disability, or physically affected by changes nearby that would have altered its 1991 value.
Keep paying while you appeal. Withholding payment is not allowed, and you get a refund if you win (council tax appeals).
Discounts
Single person discount, 25%. One adult in the property, and the figures in the table above already show it. The council reviews every discount annually and writes to ask you to confirm; ignore the letter and it stops, with a backdated bill.
Disabled band reduction. If the home has been adapted for a substantially and permanently disabled resident, with an extra bathroom or kitchen, a room mainly used by that person, or space for indoor wheelchair use, the bill drops one band, and that applies even in band A. Stairlifts and handrails do not count.
People who are not counted at all. A property can qualify as if they were not there: full-time students and their non-British spouses, student nurses, apprentices earning no more than £195 a week, carers giving at least 35 hours a week to someone on a qualifying benefit and paid no more than £44 a week, people who are severely mentally impaired, hospital and care home residents, people in detention, 18 and 19 year olds still at or just out of school, and members of religious communities (other discounts).
Expect a wait. The council’s own notice says discount and support applications are currently taking around five weeks to reach and assess, and asks people not to chase before then.
The reduction scheme changed in April 2026
From 1 April 2026 North Tyneside replaced its working age council tax support with a banded scheme. Pensioners are unaffected. Instead of a calculation, your net weekly income puts you in a band, and your entitlement only moves when your income crosses a band line (income banded scheme):
| Reduction | Single | Couple | Family, 1 child | Family, 2+ children |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | £0 to £105 | £0 to £160 | £0 to £250 | £0 to £330 |
| 80% | £105.01 to £150 | £160.01 to £205 | £250.01 to £300 | £330.01 to £375 |
| 50% | £150.01 to £185 | £205.01 to £260 | £300.01 to £360 | £375.01 to £435 |
| 25% | £185.01 to £215 | £260.01 to £325 | £360.01 to £430 | £435.01 to £500 |
Figures are net weekly income for you and your partner. Existing claimants were transferred across automatically and did not need to reapply. A lone parent with two children on £400 a week net gets 50% off.
Empty homes and second homes
North Tyneside charges some of the steeper empty property premiums in the region, on top of the normal bill (empty homes and second homes premium):
- Empty and unfurnished one to five years: +100%, so double.
- Five years or more: +200%, so triple.
- Ten years or more: +300%, so quadruple.
- Second homes, furnished with nobody’s main residence there: +100% since 1 April 2025.
There are 12 month exceptions while a property is in probate or genuinely on the market for sale or let, and exceptions for annexes and job-related dwellings. Revenues can be reached on 0345 2000 104.
Have your say
We read every message. To comment on this story, email the newsdesk and we may publish a selection of responses: hello@whitleybaynews.co.uk.