Council tax bands in Scottish Borders (2026/27)

Scottish Borders is the billing authority for Galashiels, Hawick, Peebles and Kelso and the surrounding areas, so the bands and charges on this page apply to homes in all of those places.

Scottish Borders council tax charges for 2026/27

Every band pays a fixed statutory fraction of the Band D charge, shown in the multiplier column. Bands in Scottish Bordersare based on each home's value on 1 April 1991.

Figures are for the 2026/27 council tax year. Water and sewerage charges are billed separately by Scottish Water and are not included. Scotland raised the statutory multipliers for bands E to H in April 2017, which is why they differ from the English and Welsh ninths.

How Scottish Borders compares

At £1,618.52, Band D in Scottish Borders is the 25th highest of the 32 councils in Scotland. Its 2026/27 rise of 8.5% is above the median rise of 7.8% across the 32 councils in Scotland.

Rankings and medians are our calculations from the official 2026/27 figures listed under Sources below, comparing councils in Scotland with each other because charges are not like for like across the three nations.

Paying Scottish Borders council tax

Scottish Bordersissues bills in March for the year starting 1 April. The default is 10 monthly instalments from April to January, and you have the right to ask for 12 instead, which lowers each payment without changing the total. Most people pay by direct debit through the council's own website; the bill also carries the reference for paying at a bank, Post Office or PayPoint. If you live alone, the 25% single person discount is claimed from the council itself, not through a band challenge, and can be backdated.

To see what your own band costs per month here, use the Scottish Borders council tax calculator; for every discount and exemption, see our guide to council tax discounts and exemptions. If the bill looks high for the size of home, the cheapest fix is a band check: challenging is free through gov.uk.

Which bands are homes in Scottish Borders in?

Band A is the most common council tax band in Scottish Borders, covering 15,664 of the 58,265 dwellings recorded in 2025. 48.1% of homes in Scottish Borders are in Bands A and B, against 41.3% across Scotland, and the most common band here, Band A, is one band lower than across Scotland as a whole (Band B).

Counts are chargeable dwellings from the Scottish Government dataset (September 2025).

Challenge your council tax band in Scottish Borders

Every home in Scottish Borders is banded by its open market value on 1 April 1991, and most bands have never been individually rechecked since. In Scotland a challenge is called a proposal and goes to your local Assessor through the Scottish Assessors Association (SAA), not the VOA. Making a proposal is free, and new taxpayers normally have 6 months from becoming liable to submit one.

For scale, in England and Wales the VOA resolved 39,590 challenges in the year to March 2024: 10,530 (27%) moved to a lower band and only 30 (0.08%) moved up. Scotland publishes its own figures separately, but the underlying problem is the same: bands set in a rush in the early 1990s and rarely revisited. Our Scotland challenge guide walks through the SAA proposal process step by step, and our breakdown of council tax band A to H costs explains how the Scottish multipliers for bands E to H differ from England's.

Council Tax Challenger is independent and not affiliated with the VOA, the Scottish Assessors, or any government body. The official challenge is always free.