Which Cornwall parish charges the most council tax?
Most of a Cornwall council tax bill is fixed. Cornwall Council takes £2,086.36 of a Band D bill and the Devon & Cornwall Police take £303.20, and those figures are the same in every one of Cornwall's 212 parishes. Everything above £2,389.56 is the parish or town council's own precept — the only part of the bill that depends on where a home sits, and the only part set by a council most residents could not name.
That part ranges from nothing at all to £488.15 a year.
Dearest precept
£488.15
Falmouth, on Band D
Typical precept
£70.70
Towednack, the middle parish of 212
Charging nothing
7
parishes levy no precept at all
The average precept describes almost nobody
Cornwall Council publishes an average parish precept of £201.37 on Band D, and that is the figure most coverage repeats. It is weighted by where people live, so the large towns pull it upwards: only 24 of 212 parishes actually charge more than it. The parish sitting in the middle — Towednack — charges £70.70, barely a third of the published average.
The ten dearest parish and town councils
Band D, 2026/27. “Precept” is the parish or town council's own charge; the total adds Cornwall Council's and the police element.
| Rank | Parish or town | Its precept | Total bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Falmouth | £488.15 | £2,877.71 |
| 2 | Truro | £459.89 | £2,849.45 |
| 3 | Bodmin | £389.90 | £2,779.46 |
| 4 | Launceston | £389.83 | £2,779.39 |
| 5 | Redruth | £384.74 | £2,774.30 |
| 6 | Newquay | £349.10 | £2,738.66 |
| 7 | Camelford | £336.84 | £2,726.40 |
| 8 | Hayle | £334.52 | £2,724.08 |
| 9 | Bude-Stratton | £333.88 | £2,723.44 |
| 10 | Penzance | £328.07 | £2,717.63 |
The 7 that charge nothing
These parishes levy no precept at all, so a Band D household pays £2,389.56 — Cornwall Council and the police, and nothing else:
- Boconnoc
- Braddock
- Morvah
- Padstow
- St Michael Caerhays
- St Michael's Mount
- Treneglos
Every parish, ranked
All 212 parish and town councils. Change the band to see the ranking at your own valuation band — the order stays the same, the amounts scale.
Loading all 212 parishes…
How this is worked out
Every figure comes from Cornwall Council's statutory Notice of Council Tax, published under section 38 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which lists the all-in charge for each parish at each band. Cornwall Council's element (£2,086.36) and the police element (£303.20) are set county-wide and total £2,389.56 at Band D. Subtracting that from a parish's published charge leaves the parish precept exactly; it is not an estimate. Charges at other bands follow the statutory ratios fixed in the same Act.
Figures for 2026/27. Last updated 6 June 2026.
- Council Tax Bands 2026 — Cornwall Council
- Council Tax 2026 — Cornwall Council
- Adult Social Care Precept 2026 — Cornwall Council
- How do we spend the money 2026 — Cornwall Council
- Where the money comes from 2026 — Cornwall Council
- Notice of Council Tax 2026/27, charges by parish — Cornwall Council (PDF)
- Council Tax Bands 2025 — Cornwall Council
- Council tax bands (1991 valuation ranges) — GOV.UK
For the Cornwall-wide picture — what every band costs, how the bill is made up and where the money is spent — see the Cornwall council tax guide.