Band D in Kendal is £2,525.45 for 2026/27, up 5.1% on last year. Full A to H table, what each precept adds, and the 100% premium now charged on second homes.
Four separate bodies take a share of a Kendal council tax bill, and the council publishes the total for all 146 parishes in one long table without saying what any of them is made of. This page pulls the Kendal row out, breaks it into its parts, and shows what each one changed by.
All figures are Westmorland and Furness Council’s own, checked on 26 August 2026.
The full Kendal table, bands A to H
These are the total charges for a home in the Kendal Town Council area for the year to 31 March 2027.
| Band | 1991 property value | 2026/27 charge |
|---|---|---|
| A | Up to £40,000 | £1,683.62 |
| B | £40,001 to £52,000 | £1,964.25 |
| C | £52,001 to £68,000 | £2,244.84 |
| D | £68,001 to £88,000 | £2,525.45 |
| E | £88,001 to £120,000 | £3,086.65 |
| F | £120,001 to £160,000 | £3,647.86 |
| G | £160,001 to £320,000 | £4,209.06 |
| H | Over £320,000 | £5,050.89 |
Source: Council Tax charges 2026 to 2027, Westmorland and Furness Council. Bands are set on what a property was worth on 1 April 1991, not today.
Where the money goes
A band D bill in Kendal splits like this:
| Part of the bill | Band D | Change this year |
|---|---|---|
| Westmorland and Furness Council, general | £1,684.74 | up £57.38 |
| Adult social care precept | £329.99 | up £38.38 |
| Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner | £338.94 | up £14.94 |
| Cumbria Fire and Rescue Authority | £103.14 | up £4.95 |
| Kendal Town Council | £68.64 | up £6.02 |
| Total | £2,525.45 | up £121.67 |
That is a rise of about 5.1% on last year’s £2,403.78. The council does not publish last year’s table any more: the 2025 to 2026 charges page now redirects to this year’s, so the comparison above is ours, built from each authority’s own published change.
Two of those changes need explaining.
The council’s 4.99% appears on your bill as 5%. Westmorland and Furness put its own charge up by 2.99% for general spending and 2% for adult social care. The council states that “increases on your Council Tax bill must be shown to the nearest decimal point”, so 4.99% is printed as 5%. In cash it took the band D charge from £1,918.97 to £2,014.73, up £95.76. (Adult Social Care Precept)
The police element is set to rise by the same £14.94 every year to 2031. The Commissioner’s precept proposal takes band D from £324.00 to £338.94, a rise of 4.61%, and the medium term plan behind it assumes £14.94 again in each of the next four years. On that plan the police share alone reaches £398.70 by 2030/31. (Precept proposal and medium term budget 2026/27, PDF)
The fire service is a separate precepting body from the police, even though the same Commissioner sets both. It asked for £4.95 a year on a band D property, which it called “the equivalent of a penny per day”. (Cumbria PFCC)
What Kendal Town Council added, and why
Kendal Town Council raised its precept from £712,496 to £785,488 for 2026/27, an increase of 10.24%. Because it is spread over a slightly larger tax base, that came out as a 9.6% rise in the parish share, from £62.62 to £68.64 at band D. The town council put it at “less than 12p per week”.
The reason the precept rise and the bill rise differ is the tax base. Kendal’s grew by only 0.577% this year, from 11,378 band D equivalent properties to 11,443.70. The town council’s own report notes that last year it grew by more than 4%. A near-flat tax base means almost the whole precept increase lands on existing bills.
The town council published its contribution for bands A to F but not for G or H:
| Band | Kendal Town Council share |
|---|---|
| A | £45.76 |
| B | £53.39 |
| C | £61.01 |
| D | £68.64 |
| E | £83.89 |
| F | £91.52 |
Source: Kendal Town Council Management Committee, 5 January 2026 agenda pack, PDF.
How Kendal compares with the villages around it
Strip out the parish and every home in Westmorland and Furness pays the same £2,456.81 at band D. The parish precept is the only thing that varies, and in this district it varies a lot. These are the amounts added to a band D bill in 2026/27:
| Parish | Added at band D |
|---|---|
| Kirkby Lonsdale | £139.44 |
| Grange-over-Sands | £120.89 |
| Kendal | £68.64 |
| Coniston | £54.91 |
| Sedbergh | £50.26 |
| Milnthorpe | £49.67 |
| Burneside | £43.62 |
| Lakes (Ambleside and Grasmere) | £40.73 |
| Windermere and Bowness | £36.65 |
| Hawkshead | £30.61 |
| Staveley with Ings | £23.19 |
| Natland | £21.10 |
| Docker, Lambrigg, Longsleddale, Whitwell and Selside | nothing |
A Kendal household pays nearly twice what a Windermere or Bowness household pays towards its parish, and about half what Kirkby Lonsdale pays. Several small parish meetings, including Longsleddale and Lambrigg, levy nothing at all, so their band D bill is the bare £2,456.81.
Calculated from the council’s 2026/27 basic council tax amounts including parish precepts, PDF, which lists every parish before police and fire are added.
A figure on the council’s own page that does not add up
The council’s How Council Tax is calculated page states: “The tax base for Westmorland and Furness for 2026 to 2027 is £96,326.50. This gives an average Band D tax of £1,966.81 including parish and town council precepts.”
The table immediately below it on the same page gives the total average band D council tax as £2,507.99. That second figure is the correct one. The council’s own funding table shows £241.586m to be raised across a tax base of 96,326.50, which works out at £2,508 a property. The £1,966.81 sentence should be ignored.
If you are checking your own bill, use £2,507.99 as the district average and £2,525.45 as the Kendal figure.
Second homes and empty homes now pay double
This is the biggest change to hit the Lakes side of this district, and it applies in Kendal too.
Westmorland and Furness decided on 22 February 2024 to charge a 100% premium on furnished second homes, meaning 200% of the normal council tax. It started charging on 1 April 2025. A band D second home in Kendal therefore pays £5,050.90 a year, twice the £2,525.45 standard charge.
A second home means a furnished property that is nobody’s sole or main residence. There is no discount for an unoccupied furnished property. Properties genuinely let as holiday lets may fall into business rates instead, which the Valuation Office decides on how many nights a year the property is available and actually let.
Long-term empty homes are charged on a sliding scale:
- Empty and unfurnished under six months: 100% discount, so nothing to pay. The discount attaches to the property, not the owner, so a sale part-way through does not restart it.
- Empty one to five years: 100% premium, 200% of the normal charge.
- Empty five to ten years: 200% premium, 300% of the normal charge.
- Empty over ten years: 300% premium, 400% of the normal charge.
Mandatory exceptions to both premiums came in on 1 April 2025, and the council also runs discretionary local exceptions. There are separate application forms for the former Barrow, Eden and South Lakeland areas, so pick the South Lakeland one.
The council also dropped a discount that used to exist: there is no longer any reduction for a property undergoing structural alteration or major repair. The route now is to ask the Valuation Office to take the property off the valuation list entirely.
Sources: council tax second homes and homes that are empty for over a year.
Discounts you may be entitled to
- Single occupier: 25% off. The bill assumes two adults live in the property.
- Council Tax Reduction: up to 100% off for people on a low income.
- Annexe: 50% off, if it is lived in by a relative of the person paying for the main house, or if it is empty and used as part of the main home.
- Disregarded people: some adults are not counted at all when the council works out how many adults live there. The list includes full-time students, student nurses, apprentices, people who are severely mentally impaired, live-in care workers on a low income, unpaid carers looking after someone with a disability who is not a spouse or a child under 18, people in hospital or a care home, 18 and 19 year olds still at or just out of school, and people in prison other than for non-payment.
- All-student households are exempt entirely.
The severe mental impairment disregard needs a certificate from a registered medical practitioner plus receipt of a qualifying benefit. The council lists PIP daily living component, Attendance Allowance, ESA, the higher or middle rate care component of DLA and Universal Credit with limited capability for work among them. It is the most commonly missed discount in the country and it can be backdated.
Source: Council Tax discounts, exemptions and reductions.
Checking and challenging your band
Your band is on your bill. You can also look up any address free on GOV.UK, which shows the bands of your neighbours as well. If a comparable house on the same street is in a lower band, that is the evidence a challenge is built on.
Bands are the Valuation Office Agency’s job, not the council’s, so a challenge goes to the VOA and not to Westmorland and Furness. The council’s own page only describes the six month window to appeal after the VOA writes to you about a change to your banding. The VOA also accepts challenges outside that window where a property has been altered or its surroundings have changed materially, so use the GOV.UK challenge service rather than assuming the six months is the only route.
A warning that applies everywhere: a successful challenge can move a band up as well as down, and it can affect neighbouring properties.
More Kendal local information
Kendal bin collection days covers the bank holiday shift and the £60 garden waste subscription. Parking in Kendal has every car park tariff in the town. Kendal house prices tracks what homes here are actually selling for.
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