Band D in Slough is £2,408.64 this year, up 5.06%, and the three parishes pay more. Full A to H tables, the precept split, and the support cut from 80% to 70%.
Slough Borough Council’s own council tax bands page does not contain the bands. It links you to GOV.UK to look up your band, and to GOV.UK to challenge it, and stops there. The actual charges are in a 22-page PDF booklet, filed under budget and spending.
Here they are. Every figure below comes from the council’s own Council Tax booklet 2026/2027, last updated 12 March 2026, and was checked on 1 September 2026.
Band A to H, most of Slough
This is the table for the unparished part of the borough, which is most of it.
| Band | Property value in 1991 | 2026/27 | 2025/26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | £40,000 or less | £1,605.75 | £1,528.45 |
| B | £40,001 to £52,000 | £1,873.39 | £1,783.20 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 | £2,141.01 | £2,037.93 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 | £2,408.64 | £2,292.68 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 | £2,943.89 | £2,802.16 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 | £3,479.15 | £3,311.65 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 | £4,014.39 | £3,821.13 |
| H | Over £320,000 | £4,817.28 | £4,585.36 |
Band D is up £115.96, or 5.06%.
Three parishes pay more
Slough is a unitary authority with only three parish councils. If you live in one, add its precept on top.
| Band | Colnbrook with Poyle | Britwell | Wexham Court |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | £1,638.75 | £1,648.61 | £1,656.20 |
| B | £1,911.89 | £1,923.39 | £1,932.24 |
| C | £2,185.01 | £2,198.16 | £2,208.27 |
| D | £2,458.14 | £2,472.93 | £2,484.31 |
| E | £3,004.39 | £3,022.47 | £3,036.38 |
| F | £3,550.65 | £3,572.01 | £3,588.45 |
| G | £4,096.89 | £4,121.54 | £4,140.51 |
| H | £4,916.28 | £4,945.86 | £4,968.62 |
The parish element at band D is £49.50 in Colnbrook with Poyle, £64.29 in Britwell and £75.67 in Wexham Court. A band D household in Wexham Court pays £75.67 a year more than an identical one in Cippenham.
All three parish charges fell slightly this year. Work the parish element out of last year’s totals and it was £49.63 in Colnbrook with Poyle, £67.67 in Britwell and £77.00 in Wexham Court. Britwell’s precept was cut outright, from £59,500 to £57,600, while Colnbrook with Poyle held at £93,600 and Wexham Court at £110,700 (council budget and spending). Flat cash across a growing tax base means a lower band D charge.
So the parishes are the only part of a Slough bill that went down. Their total increases are 4.95% in Colnbrook with Poyle, 4.77% in Britwell and 4.84% in Wexham Court, all below the 5.06% paid in the unparished borough.
Who gets what: the precept split
Three bodies share your bill. There is no county council, because Berkshire was split into six unitary authorities in 1998.
| Band | Slough Borough Council | Thames Valley Police | Royal Berkshire Fire | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | £1,346.03 | £198.85 | £60.87 | £1,605.75 |
| B | £1,570.37 | £232.00 | £71.02 | £1,873.39 |
| C | £1,794.71 | £265.14 | £81.16 | £2,141.01 |
| D | £2,019.05 | £298.28 | £91.31 | £2,408.64 |
| E | £2,467.73 | £364.56 | £111.60 | £2,943.89 |
| F | £2,916.41 | £430.85 | £131.89 | £3,479.15 |
| G | £3,365.08 | £497.13 | £152.18 | £4,014.39 |
| H | £4,038.10 | £596.56 | £182.62 | £4,817.28 |
What changed at band D:
- Slough Borough Council: up £95.96 to £2,019.05, an increase of 4.99%, of which 2.00 percentage points is the adult social care precept. That is the council’s own figure from the booklet.
- Thames Valley Police: up £15.00 to £298.28, an increase of 5.30%.
- Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue: up £5.00 to £91.31, an increase of 5.79%. The fire authority consulted on that £5 until 9am on Monday 2 February 2026 and said it would also deliver over £940,000 of savings in 2026/27 (RBFRS, council tax consultation 2026-2027).
The fire service is the smallest share of the bill and took the largest percentage rise.
Where the money goes
Slough’s total budget for 2026/27 is £236.619 million, up £60.891 million on last year, and council tax raises £91.193 million of it, which is 39%. The council attributes the jump mainly to growth, inflation and service pressures from the centralisation of grants under the new fair funding formula, offset by £10.329 million of savings and fee increases.
Adult social care and children’s services take just over half of every pound. The council’s published breakdown of each £1 budgeted:
| Service | Pence per £1 |
|---|---|
| Adult social care | 28p |
| Children’s services | 23p |
| Regeneration, housing and environment | 9p |
| Corporate services | 7p |
| Financial risk and budget resilience | 7p |
| Housing benefit | 8p |
| Minimum revenue provision | 5p |
| Capital financing | 5p |
| Chief executive’s office | 2p |
| Pension deficit | 2p |
| Transformation | 2p |
| Law and governance | 1p |
| Public health and public protection | 1p |
Two lines in the funding table are worth reading. Slough’s other sources of finance for 2026/27 include a £15.709 million capitalisation direction, the government permission that lets a council fund day-to-day spending from borrowing or asset sales. And the council is still under the intervention of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for failing its best value duty, a point it makes in its own consultation documents rather than in the budget summary.
The support scheme was cut this year
This is the change that will have hit hardest, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the council tax booklet. Maximum council tax support for working-age households who are not working fell from 80% to 70% for 2026/27, and support was cut in three of the seven earning bands (how we calculate council tax support 2026-27).
| Weekly earnings | Support 2025/26 | Support 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Not working | 80% | 70% |
| Under £115.38 | 50% | 50% |
| £115.39 to £184.61 | 40% | 32% |
| £184.62 to £253.84 | 30% | 20% |
| £253.85 to £323.07 | 20% | 15% |
| £323.08 to £392.30 | 10% | 10% |
| £392.31 to £461.53 | 5% | 5% |
| £461.54 and above | 0% | 0% |
The council’s consultation put numbers on it. 9,091 Slough households receive council tax support, of whom 2,625 are of state pension age and cannot be affected, because those rules are set by central government. The changes apply to 6,466 working-age households and were expected to cut spending on the scheme by £872,198 a year, a reduction of 13.6% (Council Tax Support scheme 2026-27).
The council’s stated reason was blunt: it is under intervention, must show it can operate without exceptional financial support, and so every area of spending had to be reviewed.
Two changes went the other way, both for people on Universal Credit. The council now uses the earnings figure the DWP has already calculated, and it disregards 100% of pension contributions instead of 50%.
Only earned income decides your band. If you have no earnings, other income is ignored and you go into band 1. Support can usually be backdated up to three months if there is good cause, and the smallest award the council will make is 1p a week.
Discounts and exemptions
Single person discount, 25%. A full bill assumes two adults. Certain people are not counted as adults at all, including full-time students, student nurses, apprentices, people who are severely mentally impaired, live-in carers who are not a spouse or partner, people whose main home is a hospital or care home, 18 and 19 year olds still attracting child benefit, and people in prison other than for non-payment of council tax or a fine.
That produces some larger discounts most people never hear about (single person discount):
- one countable resident, all others disregarded: 25%
- one adult resident who is disregarded: 50%
- more than one adult resident, all disregarded: 50%
If you get the single person discount you must tell the council within 21 days of your circumstances changing, or you may be fined.
Disability reduction. If your home has an extra bathroom or kitchen essential to a disabled person’s wellbeing, or a room adapted for their use, or a wheelchair is used indoors, the bill can be reduced. The council notes you can still apply even if your home is already band A.
Care leavers. People aged 18 to 25 who have left Slough Borough Council care get a discount.
Empty and second homes carry a premium, not a discount:
| Situation | Premium on top of the normal bill |
|---|---|
| Unoccupied and unfurnished for 1 year or more | 100% |
| Unoccupied and unfurnished for 5 years or more | 200% |
| Unoccupied and unfurnished for 10 years or more | 300% |
| Second home, unoccupied and furnished | 100%, from the day it becomes so |
Government exceptions apply from 1 April 2025 and cannot be backdated. They include dwellings being actively marketed for sale or let, with a 12 month limit, annexes forming part of the main dwelling, job-related armed forces accommodation, and unoccupied homes for 12 months from the grant of probate.
Checking or challenging your band
Bands are set by the Valuation Office Agency on 1991 property values, not by the council, so the council cannot change yours.
- Look up your band with Check your council tax band (GOV.UK).
- Challenge it with Challenge your council tax band (GOV.UK). The council says you may get a refund if you have been in a higher band than you should have been.
- The VOA’s helpline is 03000 501 501, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4.30pm, or email ccaservice@voa.gov.uk.
If you disagree with a council decision about your bill, rather than your band, you appeal to the council first. If you disagree with a council tax support decision, you have one month from the date of the letter to ask for a reconsideration, and one month after that to lodge a written appeal. Only then can you go to the independent Valuation Tribunal Service. An appeal sent straight to the tribunal without asking the council to look again will not be accepted. You must keep paying while you wait.
Paying
The council’s council tax service is currently running behind. It warns of “delays due to a high volume of cases and an existing backlog”, with responses taking longer than the usual 10 working days (council tax).
You can spread the bill over 12 instalments instead of 10, which lowers each monthly payment but means you pay in every month from April to March. Direct debit dates are the 1st, 8th, 15th, 25th or 28th, and over 63% of Slough residents already pay that way. The 24-hour payment line is 0300 456 0480.
One warning from the council: it is not contacting residents by text about parking
fines, and separately it now does send council tax texts, but only from web addresses
beginning https://smsctax.slough.gov.uk/t/. Anything else claiming to be a Slough council
tax message is worth treating with suspicion.
More Slough local information
- Slough bin collection days: the three-week Christmas catch-up, garden waste and bulky waste prices.
- Parking in Slough: car park tariffs, permit costs and the free hours you still have to register.
- Slough roadworks and travel: current closures and restrictions.
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