Band D in Elstree and Borehamwood is £2,441.47 this year. Every band for all five parts of Hertsmere, and three charges the council's own page gets wrong.
A Band D household in Elstree and Borehamwood pays £2,441.47 in 2026/27. In Bushey and Potters Bar it is £2,357.21. In Radlett, which sits in Aldenham parish, it is £2,494.55.
Hertsmere does not have one council tax. It has five, because the parish or town council precept changes with where you live, and this year those precepts moved by wildly different amounts. Shenley’s went up 57.1%.
Check your figure against the table below before you pay. The council’s own charges page publishes three totals that do not match the charge the council legally set in February, and one of them is £272.40 too high. The detail is further down.
What makes up the bill
Four bodies take a share, and the borough council that sends the bill keeps the smallest of the three principal ones.
| Who | Band D 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Hertfordshire County Council | £1,858.19 | up £88.32, or 4.99% |
| Police and Crime Commissioner | £280.00 | up £15.00, or 5.66% |
| Hertsmere Borough Council | £199.93 | up £5.80, or 2.99% |
| Special expenses | £0.10 to £19.09 | up about 2.96% |
| Parish or town council | £0 to £156.33 | up 9.61% to 57.10% |
The county’s 4.99% is made up of 2.99% general and a 2% adult social care precept, which is the maximum allowed without a referendum. Hertfordshire will spend more than £1.2 billion in 2026/27.
Special expenses are the part nobody explains. Where an area has no parish council, the borough provides the services a parish would and charges that area separately. Bushey, Potters Bar and Meriden each pay £19.09 at Band D. South Mimms and Ridge pays the same. Elstree and Borehamwood and Shenley pay £18.29. Aldenham pays 10p, because its parish council does almost all of it.
There is no separate fire precept in Hertfordshire. The fire and rescue service is funded out of the county council’s share.
Depending on where you live, the county takes between 75p and 79p of every pound. The council’s two pages on this disagree slightly: the charges page puts Hertsmere’s share at 9% of the bill, while the how it is spent page gives 78% county, 10% borough, 10% police and 2% parish.
Parish precepts: Shenley is the outlier
| Parish or town council | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aldenham (Radlett, Letchmore Heath) | £142.62 | £156.33 | up 9.61% |
| Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council | £72.66 | £85.06 | up 17.07% |
| Shenley Parish Council | £60.68 | £95.33 | up 57.10% |
| South Mimms and Ridge | £61.43 | £82.63 | up 34.51% |
| Bushey, Potters Bar, Meriden | none | none | none |
Those are Band D figures from the council tax resolution passed by Full Council on 25 February 2026. Across the borough, parish and town precepts will raise £2,211,951 this year, against £1,919,075 last year.
A parish precept is not capped. The referendum limits that stop the county going past 5% and the borough past 3% do not apply to parishes, which is how Shenley’s could rise by more than half in one year. That matters right now, because Potters Bar is deciding whether to create a parish council of its own. Hertsmere’s Full Council votes on it on 16 September 2026.
Every band, every area
These are the amounts Hertsmere formally set for 2026/27, taken from Appendix A to the council tax resolution. They include the county, police, borough, special expenses and parish shares.
| Band | Bushey, Potters Bar, Meriden | Elstree and Borehamwood | Shenley | South Mimms and Ridge | Aldenham |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | £1,571.48 | £1,627.65 | £1,634.49 | £1,626.57 | £1,663.04 |
| B | £1,833.39 | £1,898.93 | £1,906.92 | £1,897.66 | £1,940.21 |
| C | £2,095.31 | £2,170.21 | £2,179.34 | £2,168.76 | £2,217.39 |
| D | £2,357.21 | £2,441.47 | £2,451.74 | £2,439.84 | £2,494.55 |
| E | £2,881.03 | £2,984.01 | £2,996.56 | £2,982.02 | £3,048.89 |
| F | £3,404.85 | £3,526.56 | £3,541.40 | £3,524.20 | £3,603.23 |
| G | £3,928.69 | £4,069.12 | £4,086.23 | £4,066.41 | £4,157.59 |
| H | £4,714.42 | £4,882.94 | £4,903.48 | £4,879.68 | £4,989.10 |
Band D is the reference point and every other band is a fixed fraction of it: A is six ninths, B seven ninths, C eight ninths, E eleven ninths, F thirteen ninths, G fifteen ninths and H eighteen ninths. That is set by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, not by the council.
Three charges the council’s own page gets wrong
We added up the county, police and borough columns on Hertsmere’s published charges page and compared each total with the figure in the resolution Full Council actually passed. Three do not match:
| Where | Council’s page says | Legally set charge | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shenley, Band C | £2,451.74 | £2,179.34 | £272.40 too high |
| Bushey, Potters Bar, Meriden, Band B | £1,883.39 | £1,833.39 | £50.00 too high |
| Shenley, Band G | £4,066.40 | £4,086.23 | £19.83 too low |
The Shenley Band C figure is the Band D total repeated. The Shenley Band G figure is South Mimms and Ridge’s Band G repeated. The Bushey Band B figure has one digit out.
Two smaller things on the same page. Shenley’s Band A police charge is printed as £186.56 where every other area shows £186.67, and the £186.67 is the one the total is built on. And the page says the police precept rose by £14, when the resolution records £265.00 rising to £280.00, which is £15.
None of this changes what you owe. Your bill is generated from the resolution, not from the web page. But if you are checking a bill against the website, or budgeting from it, three of those cells will mislead you. We will update this page if the council corrects them.
The council’s own summary of the Hertsmere rise, “2.99%, which is £6.28 for Band D”, is right but easy to misread. £6.28 is the rise in the borough-wide average Band D charge including special expenses, from £210.06 to £216.34. The borough’s own charge before special expenses rose by £5.80, from £194.13 to £199.93.
Checking and challenging your band
Your band is based on what your home was worth on 1 April 1991, not today. A 2004 flat is banded on an estimate of its 1991 value.
- Look your band up free on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax band search.
- Challenges also go to the VOA, not the council. Hertsmere’s banding page gives the VOA on 03000 501 501.
- Keep paying while you appeal. If you stop, the council will start recovery action. A successful appeal is refunded.
Nobody should pay to have a band checked. The VOA service is free.
Discounts, and the ones people miss
The bill assumes two adults live in the property. Everything below comes from the council’s discounts page.
- Single person: 25% off if you are the only adult in the property.
- Disability band reduction: if the home has a room used mainly by a disabled person, an extra bathroom or kitchen for them, or space for a wheelchair, the bill drops to the band below. A Band D home is billed as a Band C. The property’s actual banding does not change.
- Carers: a live-in carer providing at least 35 hours a week is disregarded, provided they are not the spouse or partner of the person they care for, and the person cared for gets a qualifying disability benefit.
- Annexes: 50% off where occupied by a dependent relative or used as part of the main home, and sometimes exempt altogether.
- Disregards cover students, apprentices, under-20s still at school, people who are severely mentally impaired, hospital and care home residents, and people in prison. Disregard every resident and the discount is 50%.
Empty homes get nothing. All empty home discounts have been 0% since 1 April 2022. Worse than nothing, in fact:
- after 12 months empty: a 100% premium, so double council tax
- after 5 years: 200%, triple
- after 10 years: 300%, four times the standard charge
- second homes: a 100% premium from day one since 1 April 2025
The 12-month trigger was two years until the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act changed it in April 2024, and a stay of under six months does not reset the clock. Exceptions exist for a property actively marketed for sale or let, for the 12 months after probate is granted, and for homes undergoing major structural work. All of them are on the council’s empty and second homes page and need evidence sent to revenues@hertsmere.gov.uk.
Council Tax Support
If you are on a low income you can claim Council Tax Support. Households on Universal Credit fall into a banded scheme that looks only at earned income and takes the figure straight from the DWP, so there are no wage slips to send.
| Weekly earnings | Protected group | Working group |
|---|---|---|
| Out of work | 100% | 80% |
| Under £80.00 | 80% | 80% |
| £80.00 to £125.00 | 60% | 60% |
| £125.01 to £250.00 | 40% | 40% |
| £250.01 to £498.00 | 20% | 20% |
| Over £498.00 | none | none |
The protected group covers lone parents with a child under five, anyone in the household on Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment at any rate, and anyone on Employment Support Allowance including the support component. Support for people outside the protected group is capped at the Band D rate, however large the property. Note that the worked examples on the council’s page use charges from an earlier year.
Questions people actually ask
How much is council tax in Borehamwood?
£2,441.47 at Band D for 2026/27, covering the county, police, borough, special expenses and the Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council precept.
Why is my Radlett council tax higher than my friend’s in Potters Bar?
Aldenham Parish Council charges £156.33 at Band D and Potters Bar has no parish council at all. Potters Bar pays £19.09 in special expenses where Aldenham pays 10p, so the two differences net out to exactly the £137.34 between the two Band D bills.
Is there a fire precept in Hertfordshire?
No. Fire and rescue is paid for from Hertfordshire County Council’s share.
How many properties pay council tax in Hertsmere?
The 2026/27 tax base is 43,121.1 Band D equivalents, down 210.3 on last year. The council’s own page puts it at over 43,000 properties and almost £84 million collected.
Related
- Borehamwood bin collection days: what the borough’s 9% share pays for at the kerb.
- Parking in Borehamwood: the council’s other charge on residents.
- Potters Bar parish council decision: the vote that could add a precept to 9,300 homes.
- Hertsmere house prices: what those 1991 bands look like against today’s values.
Sources
- Hertsmere Borough Council, Setting the overall Council Tax: Council Tax Resolution 2026-27, report C/26/15 to Council, 25 February 2026, and its Appendix A, for every band figure, the parish precepts, the county and police precepts and the tax base.
- The same meeting’s Analysis of Council Tax Band D Charges by Area 2026-27 for the borough charge of £199.93, the special expenses by area and the year-on-year changes.
- Hertsmere Borough Council, Charges for the published band tables we checked against the resolution.
- Hertsmere Borough Council, What is Council Tax and how is it spent? for the property count and the £84 million.
- Hertsmere Borough Council, Council Tax Banding for the 1991 valuation date and the VOA appeal route.
- Hertsmere Borough Council, Discounts and Council Tax Support and the banded scheme guide for every discount and support band.
- Hertsmere Borough Council, Empty Properties and Second Home Levy for the premiums and exceptions.
- Valuation Office Agency for band searches and challenges.
Every figure above was checked against the council’s published resolution and its service pages on 26 August 2026.
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