Autumn Budget 2026 Calculator
What the Budget does to your costs from April 2027, for one venue or a mixed estate, and the plan that holds your profit.
Enter a typical site. The numbers of each kind of site multiply it up for the group. Leave anything you do not know at the default, and open Statutory rates at the bottom to change an assumption.
Your business
Wages, NI, pension and duty are UK-wide. Business rates are only modelled for England.
Sites that get the pubs and live music relief.
Every other hospitality site. Mixed estates enter both.
Site profit as a share of sales. Shows how much of it the Budget takes.
Blended food and drink GP. Used for the extra covers.
Fully loaded, today. Shows your labour percentage after April and the takings needed to hold it.
Your team, per site per week
Salaried managers above the minimum are not affected and do not go in either way.
Supervisors, team leaders, experienced bartenders and chefs de partie.
Gross hourly pay for a typical week. Leave salaried staff out.
Counted at the 21 and over rate.
Keep the gap gives them the same pence rise as the minimum. Holding pay is cheaper on paper and is how you lose your best supervisors in May.
Employer NI and the employment allowance
The employment allowance takes up to £10,500 off your employer NI bill each year, once per company. If your bill is under it, some of the extra NI never gets paid.
Whole company. Leave at 0 if it is comfortably over £10,500, which it is for most venues with a full team.
Your premises, per site in England
Use your bill if it includes transitional relief: the cap holds hospitality bills to inflation including transitional step-ups.
After any relief. In London, before the Crossrail supplement.
From your bill or the VOA. With only one property in total, the new small business relief applies.
Your drinks, per site per week
Duty rises with RPI from 1 February 2027 and your suppliers will pass it straight on.
Counted as 330ml.
Four large glasses is about one bottle.
Close the gap: build your plan
Mix the three levers and see what is left. Per site, per week, from April.
A pint, a main course, anything. Shows where it goes at the price rise needed.
Statutory rates and our assumptions
Set centrally and editable here. Change one if the published rates differ.
Assumed: today's rate plus 3.9%, until the rate is published.
Unchanged at the Budget. Not charged on pay to under-21s or apprentices under 25.
Set to zero if the hours already include holiday.
September 2026 CPI. Hospitality bills are held flat in real terms, so this is the most a bill should rise.
RPI. Our assumption until HMRC publishes the new rates.
Modelled at 4.5% ABV.
Still cider, modelled at 4.5% ABV.
Modelled at 4.5% ABV.
Modelled at 12.5% ABV.
Modelled at 40% ABV.
How the bill is worked out
- Wages: hours at each rate × the pence increase, plus the same pence rise for hours just above the minimum if you keep the gap. From a wage bill, hours are the share at each level divided by its rate. Holiday accrual goes on top. Employer NI and pension are added on hours for those 21 and over only, because there is no employer NI on under-21s or apprentices under 25, and auto-enrolment starts at 22.
- Employment allowance: if your NI bill is under the allowance, the extra NI that still fits under it comes off.
- Pubs, social clubs and live music venues: this year's bill is grossed up for the 15% relief, uprated by inflation, then the 35% relief comes off.
- Every other site: the bill rises by inflation at most.
- From rateable value: rateable value × the multiplier for its band in each year, with next year's bill held to inflation, small business relief if you have one property, and the pub relief on top.
- Alcohol duty: litres of alcohol a week × duty per litre × the RPI rise. Suppliers are assumed to pass it on in full.
Then the levers. On their own: price rise = extra cost ÷ yearly sales, extra covers = extra cost ÷ (spend per head × GP%), rota hours = extra cost ÷ the new National Living Wage, fully loaded. Your plan adds the three together and shows what is left.
A worked example
The seeded figures: one pub taking £25,000 a week, with 450 hours at the National Living Wage, 60 at the 18 to 20 rate, 20 at the under-18 rate and 150 just above the minimum, a £7,000 rates bill, and 1,200 pints, 60 bottles of wine and 600 spirit measures a week.
- Labour adds about £22,460 a year once holiday, NI and pension are in.
- Rates fall by about £1,460 as the relief moves from 15% to 35%.
- Duty adds about £2,023.
- Net, £23,023 a year, around £440 a week, or 17.7% of a 10% EBITDA.
- To hold profit: prices up 1.77%, which takes a £6.20 pint to £6.31, or 22 more covers a week, or 25 fewer rota hours.
The rates relief everyone is talking about covers less than a tenth of the extra wage bill, and on a busy wet-led pub the duty rise alone outweighs it. That is the point to take into the 2027 budget: the headline is rates, the cost is labour.
Common questions
What did the Autumn Budget 2026 change for hospitality?
Four things matter for a venue's P&L. The National Living Wage rises 3.9% to £13.21 an hour from 1 April 2027, and the 18 to 20 rate to £11.27. Pubs, social clubs and live music venues in England get 35% business rates relief from April 2027, up from 15%. Small business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure now covers rateable values up to £18,000 in full, tapering to £21,000. Hospitality bills are held to inflation for two years. Alcohol duty rises with RPI from 1 February 2027.
Not in it: any cut to hospitality VAT, and any change to employer National Insurance, which stays at 15%.
I run pubs and restaurants. How do I model a mixed estate?
Enter how many of each you run. The pubs get the 35% relief; the restaurants, cafes, bars and hotels get the inflation cap instead, so their bills rise. Wages and duty use your typical site and multiply up across every site.
If your pubs and restaurants are very different sizes, run the calculator once for each and add them together. That is closer than one average.
Why is my wage cost higher than the rise in the hourly rate?
Because the rate is not the cost. Every extra pound of pay carries holiday pay accrual, employer NI at 15% on adults and employer pension. A 50p rise on the National Living Wage costs you closer to 66p an hour for a 22-year-old on the rota.
The other half of the bill is the people just above the minimum. If your supervisors are on £13.20 today and you do nothing, from April they earn a penny less than the people they supervise. Most operators keep the gap, and that is usually the right call.
How does the employment allowance change the answer?
The allowance takes up to £10,500 a year off your employer NI bill, once per company. If your bill after the rise is still under it, the NI on the increase is never paid; if the rise takes you over it, part of it is. Enter your NI bill and the calculator works that out.
For most venues with a full team the bill is well over £10,500 already, so the allowance is used up and every pound of extra NI is real. Groups get one allowance across all their sites, not one per site.
My bill is for a restaurant, not a pub. Why does my rates bill go up?
Restaurants, cafes and hotels do not get the pubs and live music relief. What they get is a cap: the bill can rise by no more than inflation for 2027/28 and 2028/29, including any transitional relief step-up. Flat in real terms is still a cash increase.
If your rateable value is under £21,000 and you have one property, the new small business rate relief may take the bill to nil. Choose to work rates out from rateable value and the calculator shows it.
What is the right response: prices, covers or rota?
Usually a mix, which is what Close the gap is for. Price is the fastest and the most dangerous: a 2% rise on a menu already at its ceiling costs you covers. Covers are the hardest to bank. Rota productivity is the one fully in your control and the one most operators leave until last.
Build a plan that leaves the gap at nil, then put it in the 2027 budget and report against it every week from April.
Is anything I type stored?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser. Nothing is submitted, and nothing is sent to us or anyone else. Save as PDF and Email my results both happen on your own device, and Copy shareable link puts your figures in the link itself.
Rates and thresholds shown are for 2026/27, correct as at 6 April 2026 for England. They are editable above, confirm the current figures before relying on any output.
Business rates are modelled for England: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own. Wages, NI, pension and duty apply across the UK. The under-18 rate, the inflation cap and RPI are working assumptions until the detailed rates are published, and every rate is editable under Statutory rates. An estimate to help you plan your 2027 budget, not advice on your own business. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Rebuild your 2027 budget before April, not after
We rebuild the budget site by site with the Budget changes in it, then report against it every week so you see slippage while it can still be fixed.