Which councils owe the most per resident?

Highest areas

Lowest areas

Ranked by outstanding borrowing per resident, £, highest first; ties in alphabetical order. Areas without a value are not ranked.

What this map shows

361 of 361 local authority areas have a current value for borrowing per resident (outstanding borrowing per resident, £), Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025. Classes are quantiles of the areas with data, computed on the server, so the same link always gives the same legend.

Gross borrowing, not net of investments or the assets it bought. The population is the newest mid-year estimate, which runs a year or two behind the borrowing quarter.

Take the data

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<iframe src="https://civometry.com/embed/maps/council-borrowing-per-head/all/latest?level=lad&measure=ratio" width="720" height="700" style="border:0;max-width:100%" title="Borrowing per resident, outstanding borrowing per resident, £, by local authority: Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025 | Civometry" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Source and method

Data

Local authorities borrowing and investments: UK live table (MHCLG) (MHCLG).

Denominator

Mid-year resident population estimate for the same council (ONS for England and Wales, NRS for Scotland, NISRA for Northern Ireland), each area's newest published year. The population year runs behind the borrowing quarter and both periods are named on every figure. Estimates of the population for England and Wales (mid-year), local authority tables.

Coverage

Every UK council with a borrowing figure and a mid-year population estimate. County councils, police, fire, combined authorities and the GLA group borrow separately and are not shown.

Boundaries

ONS Open Geography Portal generalised boundaries, Open Government Licence v3.0 (2025-05 BGC v2 LAD_MAY_2025_UK_BGC_V2).

Basemap

Ordnance Survey Maps API (Light), used under the OS Data Hub terms.

Formula

outstanding borrowing (sum of published components) ÷ newest mid-year resident population

Stale areas

Both sides use the newest period each source publishes for the area. An area missing either side is no data, with the missing side named. Nothing is carried forward and no year is interpolated.

Method

Methodology

What this does not measure

Net indebtedness or financial health: borrowing is not offset against the authority's investments or the assets it bought, and much of it funds housing, regeneration and infrastructure with income attached. The UK figure covers every local government body — county councils, police, fire, combined authorities, national parks and the GLA group — so the council rows shown here do not sum to it.

Gross borrowing at the end of the quarter, summed by Civometry from the component columns of MHCLG's live table because the table publishes no total. It is not a measure of financial health: investments and the assets the borrowing bought are not netted off, and much council borrowing funds housing, regeneration or infrastructure with income attached, so a high figure is not by itself a problem nor a low one a virtue. In two-tier England the county council borrows separately from the districts, and police, fire, combined authorities, national parks and the GLA group borrow separately again — those bodies are in the UK total but have no page here. Every quarter is restated at each release.

Gross borrowing is not a verdict on financial health — much of it funds housing, regeneration and infrastructure with income attached — but per resident it is the comparable measure of how much debt sits on each place.

Other maps

• Police-recorded crime
• Country of birth (Census)
• Religion (Census)
• Ethnic group (Census)
• Ethnic group, five broad groups (Census)
• Usual residents (Census)
• Private rent a month (ONS)
• Median annual pay, full-time employees (ONS)
• Band D council tax (MHCLG)
• Average house price (HM Land Registry)
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• Recorded crime in Northern Ireland (PSNI)
• International migration by local authority (ONS)
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• Income deprivation rate
• Outstanding council borrowing (MHCLG)
• Asylum seekers supported (Home Office)
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• General election 2024
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