Council Tax API

Look up UK council tax bands and rates for residential properties across England, Scotland, and Wales

REST API

JSON Responses

API Key Authentication

Real-time Data

Overview

The Council Tax API provides comprehensive access to UK council tax information including band lookup by postcode and specific property council tax calculations. Our API integrates with the UK Government's Valuation Office Agency (VOA) database and official postcode data to deliver accurate, up-to-date council tax information.

This API provides:

Council tax band lookup by postcode for billing authorities across England, Scotland, and Wales
Property-specific council tax band and amount calculation using VOA band data
Authority search and authority-level rate lookup for local-authority-based workflows
Historic and current council tax year support using the optional taxYear parameter
VOA property details including property type and rateable value where available
Coverage for Great Britain billing authorities. Northern Ireland is excluded because it uses domestic rates rather than council tax.

UK Council Tax Bands:

Council Tax Bands

Band A: Up to £40,000
Band B: £40,001 - £52,000
Band C: £52,001 - £68,000
Band D: £68,001 - £88,000
Band E: £88,001 - £120,000
Band F: £120,001 - £160,000
Band G: £160,001 - £320,000
Band H: Above £320,000

Key Features

Real-time VOA database integration
Property-specific band determination
Billing authority search by name or code
Accurate postcode-to-council mapping
Current and historical tax year lookup
Fast response times (<2 seconds typical)

This API is ideal for:

Property portals displaying council tax costs
Estate agents providing comprehensive property information
Mortgage calculators including all property costs
Property investment analysis platforms
Conveyancing software requiring council tax data
Financial planning applications

Important Note

Council tax calculations are based on official UK government data from the VOA and local authorities. Rates may vary slightly between authorities and can change annually. Always verify critical calculations directly with the relevant local authority.

Authentication

All requests to the Council Tax API require authentication using an API key. You can obtain your API key from your PropertyInsights dashboard after subscribing to an API plan.

Include your API key in the request header as follows:

X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

Security Warning

Never expose your API key in client-side code. Always make API calls from your server-side application to protect your credentials.

Endpoints

Base URL

https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/

Council Tax Bands by Postcode

GET

/council-tax/lookup?postcode={postcode}&taxYear={taxYear}

Get all council tax band amounts (A-H) for a given postcode. Returns the full local authority name and all band rates. The taxYear parameter is optional.

Property-Specific Council Tax

GET

/council-tax/property-lookup?postcode={postcode}&address={address}&taxYear={taxYear}

Get the exact council tax band and amount for a specific England/Wales property. Includes property details from the VOA database and the specific council tax amount for that property's band. The taxYear parameter is optional.

Property Candidate Discovery

GET

/council-tax/property-candidates?postcode={postcode}

Return VOA candidate address strings for an England/Wales postcode. Use this zero-credit diagnostic endpoint to resolve ambiguous inputs such as flat-only addresses before calling property lookup.

Search Council Tax Authorities

GET

/council-tax/authorities?q={query}&nation={nation}&category={category}&limit={limit}

Search selectable billing authorities by name or authority code. Useful when you want to look up rates by local authority instead of postcode or address.

Council Tax by Billing Authority

GET

/council-tax/authority-lookup?authorityCode={authorityCode}&taxYear={taxYear}

Get authority-wide council tax rates for a billing authority and tax year. This endpoint returns the richer versioned response, including tax year, source metadata, and band I where available for Welsh authorities.

Request Parameters

GET /council-tax/lookup

Query parameters for council tax band lookup by postcode.

Parameter	Required	Type	Description
postcode	Required	String	UK postcode (e.g., "SW1A 1AA")
taxYear	Optional	String	Financial year in the format "YYYY-YY" (e.g., "2026-27"). If omitted, the current active council tax year is used.

GET /council-tax/property-lookup

Query parameters for property-specific council tax lookup.

Parameter	Required	Type	Description
postcode	Required	String	UK postcode (e.g., "SW1A 1AA")
address	Required	String	Most complete property-identifying address available, including flat/unit, building name or number, and street where relevant (e.g., "Flat 4, Riverside Court, 20 Thorburn Road"). Do not send agent names, company names, or flat numbers without building/street context.
taxYear	Optional	String	Financial year in the format "YYYY-YY" (e.g., "2026-27"). If omitted, the current active council tax year is used.

GET /council-tax/property-candidates

Query parameters for diagnostic VOA candidate discovery. This endpoint returns candidate address strings only and does not select a council tax band.

Parameter	Required	Type	Description
postcode	Required	String	England or Wales postcode to retrieve VOA property candidates for.

GET /council-tax/authorities

Query parameters for authority search. All parameters are optional.

Parameter	Required	Type	Description
q	Optional	String	Authority name or authority code fragment (for example "Westminster" or "E09000033").
nation	Optional	String	Filter to `England`, `Wales`, or `Scotland`.
category	Optional	String	Filter by authority category such as `London Borough`, `Unitary Authority`, or `Scottish Council`.
limit	Optional	Integer	Maximum rows to return. Defaults to `25` and is capped at `100`.

GET /council-tax/authority-lookup

Query parameters for authority-level council tax rate lookup.

Parameter	Required	Type	Description
authorityCode	Required	String	Authority LAD/GSS code such as `E09000033` or `W06000015`.
taxYear	Optional	String	Financial year in the format "YYYY-YY". If omitted, the current active council tax year is used.

Address Matching: For property lookups, provide enough detail to uniquely identify the property. House numbers and street names work best. For flats, include the flat, building name, and street where available. Avoid agent, company, or property manager names because they are not residential VOA addresses.

Examples: Good: "Flat 4, Riverside Court, 20 Thorburn Road". Weak: "Flat 4". Bad: "Martin & Co".

Postcode Format: Accepts postcodes with or without spaces. Both "SW1A1AA" and "SW1A 1AA" are valid.

Scotland: Property-level bands require Scottish Assessors data, so /council-tax/property-lookup and /council-tax/property-candidates return PROPERTY_LEVEL_COUNTRY_UNSUPPORTED for Scottish postcodes. Use /council-tax/lookup for authority-level Scottish rates.

Billing details in the response

Successful chargeable JSON responses include a top-level billing object. The endpoint examples on this page focus on the endpoint-specific data, so this repeated block may not be shown in every example.

"billing": {
  "mode": "prepaid",
  "creditsCharged": 1,
  "creditsRemaining": 1999,
  "creditsRefreshAt": "2026-08-14T09:30:00.000Z"
}

Field or header	Meaning
billing.creditsCharged X-Credits-Charged	Credits charged by this call. Failed and non-chargeable calls return `0` in the header.
billing.creditsRemaining X-Credits-Remaining	The credit balance after the call.
billing.creditsRefreshAt X-Credits-Refresh-At	The next monthly credit refresh as an ISO 8601 timestamp. Trial and non-renewing balances return `null` and omit the header.

All authenticated API-key calls expose the billing headers, including validation errors and zero-credit status or management requests. Only successful chargeable JSON responses add the billing object to the response body.

Response Format

All API responses are returned in JSON format. The standard response structure is as follows:

{
  "success": boolean,
  "data": {
    // Response data varies by endpoint
  },
  "error": {
    "code": string,
    "message": string
  } // Only present if success is false
}

Council Tax Lookup Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
    "authority": "City of Westminster",
    "ons_code": "E09000033",
    "taxYear": "2026-27",
    "councilTaxBands": {
      "band_a": 699.70,
      "band_b": 816.32,
      "band_c": 932.93,
      "band_d": 1049.55,
      "band_e": 1282.78,
      "band_f": 1516.02,
      "band_g": 1749.25,
      "band_h": 2099.10
    }
  }
}

Property-Specific Council Tax Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "postcode": "SW1A 2AA",
    "searchAddress": "10 DOWNING STREET",
    "matchedAddress": "FLAT 2ND FLR 10, DOWNING STREET, LONDON, SW1A 2AA",
    "councilTaxBand": "H",
    "councilTaxAmount": 2099.10,
    "authority": "City of Westminster",
    "ons_code": "E09000033",
    "taxYear": "2026-27",
    "propertyDetails": {
      "voaDetailsLink": "https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-council-tax-band/property/617413c2-7ced-5b4b-bb72-4298e46e27d1"
    },
    "allBandAmounts": {
      "band_a": 699.70,
      "band_b": 816.32,
      "band_c": 932.93,
      "band_d": 1049.55,
      "band_e": 1282.78,
      "band_f": 1516.02,
      "band_g": 1749.25,
      "band_h": 2099.10
    }
  }
}

Property Candidate Discovery Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "postcode": "CH62 1EW",
    "candidateCount": 2,
    "candidates": [
      "FLAT 4 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW",
      "FLAT 5 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW"
    ],
    "executionTime": 1420
  }
}

Candidate discovery is a diagnostic helper. Treat candidates as options for the customer to choose from, not confirmed matches.

Authority Search Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "authorities": [
      {
        "authorityCode": "E09000033",
        "name": "City of Westminster",
        "category": "London Borough",
        "nation": "England",
        "isBillingAuthority": true,
        "isSelectable": true,
        "websiteUrl": null
      }
    ]
  }
}

Authority Lookup Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "authorityCode": "E09000033",
    "authority": "City of Westminster",
    "ons_code": "E09000033",
    "category": "London Borough",
    "nation": "England",
    "taxYear": "2026-27",
    "sourcePublishedAt": "2026-03-25T09:30:00+00:00",
    "sourceUpdatedAt": "2026-04-14T11:06:14+00:00",
    "councilTaxBands": {
      "band_a": 699.70,
      "band_b": 816.32,
      "band_c": 932.93,
      "band_d": 1049.55,
      "band_e": 1282.78,
      "band_f": 1516.02,
      "band_g": 1749.25,
      "band_h": 2099.10,
      "band_i": null
    }
  }
}

For Welsh authorities, band_i is populated instead of null.

Response Fields

Field	Type	Description
councilTaxBand	String	Property's council tax band (A-H) - property lookup only
councilTaxAmount	Number	Annual council tax amount for the property's band - property lookup only
councilTaxBands	Object	All council tax band amounts for the local authority. Postcode and property lookup return bands A-H. Authority lookup returns A-I.
taxYear	String	The financial year used for the returned council tax values. On postcode and property lookups this is the resolved year for the returned row.
propertyDetails	Object	VOA property information including type and rateable value
candidateCount / candidates	Number / Array	Returned by property-candidates and no-match property lookup errors to help resolve ambiguous addresses.
authorityCode	String	Billing authority LAD/GSS code returned by authority search and authority lookup.
taxYear	String	Returned by authority lookup to show which financial year the rate row belongs to.
sourcePublishedAt / sourceUpdatedAt	String	Publication and update timestamps for the imported authority-level rate row. Authority lookup only.

Examples

Example 1: Council Tax Bands by Postcode

GET https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/council-tax/lookup?postcode=SW1A%201AA&taxYear=2026-27
X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
        "authority": "City of Westminster",
        "ons_code": "E09000033",
        "taxYear": "2026-27",
        "councilTaxBands": {
            "band_a": 699.70,
            "band_b": 816.32,
            "band_c": 932.93,
            "band_d": 1049.55,
            "band_e": 1282.78,
            "band_f": 1516.02,
            "band_g": 1749.25,
            "band_h": 2099.10
        }
    }
}

Returns all council tax band amounts for the City of Westminster for the explicit 2026-27 tax year.

Example 2: Property-Specific Council Tax

GET https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/council-tax/property-lookup?postcode=SW1A%202AA&address=10%20DOWNING%20STREET&taxYear=2026-27
X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "postcode": "SW1A 2AA",
        "searchAddress": "10 DOWNING STREET",
        "matchedAddress": "FLAT 2ND FLR 10, DOWNING STREET, LONDON, SW1A 2AA",
        "councilTaxBand": "H",
        "councilTaxAmount": 2099.10,
        "authority": "City of Westminster",
        "ons_code": "E09000033",
        "taxYear": "2026-27",
        "propertyDetails": {
            "voaDetailsLink": "https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-council-tax-band/property/617413c2-7ced-5b4b-bb72-4298e46e27d1"
        },
        "allBandAmounts": {
            "band_a": 699.70,
            "band_b": 816.32,
            "band_c": 932.93,
            "band_d": 1049.55,
            "band_e": 1282.78,
            "band_f": 1516.02,
            "band_g": 1749.25,
            "band_h": 2099.10
        }
    }
}

Returns Band H and £2,099.10 annual council tax for 10 Downing Street for the explicit 2026-27 tax year.

Example 3: Property Candidate Discovery

GET https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/council-tax/property-candidates?postcode=CH62%201EW
X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "postcode": "CH62 1EW",
        "candidateCount": 2,
        "candidates": [
            "FLAT 4 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW",
            "FLAT 5 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW"
        ],
        "executionTime": 1420
    }
}

Use candidate strings to collect or send a full property-identifying address into property lookup. This diagnostic endpoint does not deduct credits.

Example 4: Search Billing Authorities

GET https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/council-tax/authorities?q=Westminster&limit=5
X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "authorities": [
            {
                "authorityCode": "E09000033",
                "name": "City of Westminster",
                "category": "London Borough",
                "nation": "England",
                "isBillingAuthority": true,
                "isSelectable": true,
                "websiteUrl": null
            }
        ]
    }
}

Useful when the user knows the council name but not the postcode.

Example 5: Authority-Level Rates

GET https://propertyinsights.co.uk/api/v1/council-tax/authority-lookup?authorityCode=E09000033&taxYear=2026-27
X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "authorityCode": "E09000033",
        "authority": "City of Westminster",
        "ons_code": "E09000033",
        "category": "London Borough",
        "nation": "England",
        "taxYear": "2026-27",
        "sourcePublishedAt": "2026-03-25T09:30:00+00:00",
        "sourceUpdatedAt": "2026-04-14T11:06:14+00:00",
        "councilTaxBands": {
            "band_a": 699.70,
            "band_b": 816.32,
            "band_c": 932.93,
            "band_d": 1049.55,
            "band_e": 1282.78,
            "band_f": 1516.02,
            "band_g": 1749.25,
            "band_h": 2099.10,
            "band_i": null
        }
    }
}

Use this endpoint for local-authority-based council tax workflows and historical tax year lookup.

Error Handling

Failed validation, unsupported country, no-match, and candidate-discovery errors do not deduct standard property lookup credits. Successful property-specific council tax lookups remain chargeable.

HTTP Code	Error Code	Description
400	MISSING_POSTCODE	Postcode parameter is required
400	MISSING_ADDRESS	Address parameter is required (property lookup only)
400	FLAT_ONLY_ADDRESS	Address is too ambiguous; include flat/unit, building name or number, and street
400	ORGANISATION_OR_AGENT_NAME	Address appears to be an organisation or agent name rather than a residential address
400	PROPERTY_LEVEL_COUNTRY_UNSUPPORTED	Property-level lookup is not supported for Scotland; use postcode or authority-level rates
400	MISSING_AUTHORITY_CODE	authorityCode parameter is required (authority lookup only)
400	INVALID_POSTCODE	Invalid UK postcode format
400	INVALID_TAX_YEAR	taxYear must use the format YYYY-YY
404	POSTCODE_NOT_FOUND	Postcode not found in UK database
404	PROPERTY_NOT_FOUND	Property not found in VOA database
404	AUTHORITY_NOT_FOUND	Council tax authority not found
404	COUNCIL_TAX_NOT_FOUND	Council tax data not available for the requested authority or tax year
502	CANDIDATE_LOOKUP_FAILED	Unable to retrieve VOA property candidates
503	VOA_ERROR	Unable to retrieve property information from VOA
401	AUTHENTICATION_REQUIRED	Valid API key is required
402	INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS	Not enough API credits remaining to perform operation
500	DATABASE_ERROR	Error accessing database - please try again
500	INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR	An unexpected error occurred

Error Response Format

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "PROPERTY_NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "Property not found in VOA database. Please check the postcode and address.",
    "candidateCount": 2,
    "suggestions": [
      "FLAT 4 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW",
      "FLAT 5 RIVERSIDE COURT, 20 THORBURN ROAD, WIRRAL, CH62 1EW"
    ]
  }
}

Use FLAT_ONLY_ADDRESS and ORGANISATION_OR_AGENT_NAME as validation signals before retrying with a full residential address. Use PROPERTY_LEVEL_COUNTRY_UNSUPPORTED to route Scottish postcodes to /council-tax/lookup for authority-level rates.

Rate Limits

API requests are subject to rate limiting based on your subscription plan. The current limits are:

Plan	Requests per Minute	Requests per Day	Requests per Month
Basic	10	500	5,000
Standard	30	2,000	30,000
Premium	100	5,000	100,000
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Custom

When you exceed your rate limit, the API will return a 429 Too Many Requests response. Each response includes the following headers to help you track your usage:

X-RateLimit-Limit: [requests-per-minute limit]
X-RateLimit-Remaining: [requests remaining in current window]
X-RateLimit-Reset: [timestamp when limit resets]

Performance Note: Property lookup requests may take 5 to 6 seconds whilst we gather the data from the VOA, while postcode-only lookups are typically under 200ms.

Need Help?

If you need assistance with implementation or have questions about the Council Tax API, our support team is here to help.

Contact Support