In fiscal 2026 the Office of Budget Responsibilty estimates that central government revenue will be £1,157.3 billion and that local authority revenue for 2026 will be £71.7 billion.

Total public revenue in the United Kingdom is estimated to be £1,229.0 billion in 2026.

UK Public Revenue: the Big Picture

The biggest tax bite is from indirect taxes like VAT and excise taxes.

Table 3.02: Total Revenue Breakdown

In 2026 it is expected that income tax will collect £458.9 billion, National Insurance collections will amount to £200.6 billion, indirect taxes will amount to £442.3 billion, and Business revenue will be £124.8 billion.

Government Revenue: the Details

Almost all public revenue is collected by the central government.

Table 3.03: Total Revenue Details

The three big sources of revenue for the UK central government in 2026 will be income tax at £458.9 billion, national insurance at £200.6 billion and indirect taxes at £392.1 billion, for a total of £1,229.0 billion.

We estimate local authorities will collect about £50.2 billion in council tax in FY 2026 and £19.6 billion in other revenue, for a total of £71.7 billion.

Pie Chart of Total UK Public Revenue

Indirect taxes are the biggest bite of UK taxes, at 37 percent of total revenue.

Chart 3.04: Total Revenue Details

Total UK public revenue will amount to £1,229.0 billion in 2026. Of this 37 percent will be in income taxes, 16 percent in national insurance contributions, 36 percent in indirect taxes, and 10 percent in business and other revenue.

Pie Chart of UK Local Authority Revenue

Indirect taxes are the biggest bite of local taxes, at 68 percent of total revenue.

Chart 3.06: Total Revenue Details

Total local authority public revenue will amount to £71.7 billion in 2026. Of this 70 percent is in indirect taxes, and 27 percent is in business and other revenue.

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Data Sources for 2026:

GDP: OBR EFO supp. economy tables
Revenue: OBR March 2018 Economic and fiscal outlook – charts and tables: fiscal
Debt: OBR Public Finances Databank

> revenue data sources for other years

PESA 2025 Update

On July 23, 2025, HM Treasury published its Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) for 2025. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses the PESA tables of public spending at the "sub-function" level as its major data source for UK public spending.

ukpublicspending.co.uk has now updated its spending tables using data from PESA 2025. The update includes outturn spending data for 2023-24, and plans data for 2024-25. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses PESA's Table 6.4 for Central Government expenditure, Table 7.4 for Local Authority expenditure, and Table 8.3 for Public Corporation capital expenditure.

Since HM Treasury does not provide plans estimates for future Local Authority spending, ukpublicspending.co.uk provides "guesstimates" instead. This is done by extending the percentage increase in spending between 2023-24 and 2024-25 for each sub-function for the plans year. It is assumed that local authority spending reductions will not carry through to plans years.

Country and Region spending has been updated up to 2023-24. These are obtained from Chapters 9 and 10 in the PESA document.