UKHospitality has carried a British Retail Consortium analysis that places hospitality at the top of the UK tax table. The BRC commissioned the analysis from the economic consultancy Flint Global. It compares the taxes and profits paid across 11 main sectors of the economy.
The document and its two dates
The BRC published the release on 30 September 2026 under the heading that high streets carry the highest tax burden in the UK economy. UKHospitality carried its copy under a page date of 1 October 2026. The figures cover 2025/26, and the rate movement covers 2026/27.
How the burden is measured
The analysis counts business rates, employer National Insurance Contributions, VAT and other government taxes. It compares those taxes against pre-tax profit, sector by sector, and reports the result as pence paid per pound of profit.
The rates, with each figure and its owner
The BRC release records hospitality at 82p in business taxes for every £1 of pre-tax profit and retail at 72p. It calls both the highest rates of any sector, above the 50p average across the eleven sectors and the 40.5p rate in banking. It states that both rates rose further in 2026/27.
The release body does not carry a per-sector cash total. The £22.9 billion hospitality figure appears in the chart caption on the UKHospitality copy and in TheIndustry.fashion. That report gives retail £39.1 billion, hospitality an effective tax rate of 81.6% and retail 71.5%, and names Flint Global as the consultancy.
The employment record in each document
The BRC release attributes the pressure to employment costs added in the 2024 Budget. It records that retail lost 122,000 jobs in two years and that hospitality employment fell by 93,000 people.
The UKHospitality copy carries neither number. It carries Helen Dickinson's line that over 100,000 jobs were lost in the last two years, and it frames the outcome as fewer jobs for young people, foregone investment and higher prices.
The business rates pool
Retail and hospitality together cover almost a third of the total raised by business rates. One in seven high street properties across the country lie empty. The BRC release puts inflation at 3.1%, above the Bank of England target of 2%.
The asks in each document
The BRC release asks the Chancellor to reduce the cost burden on the two sectors and names one measure: removing high street retail and hospitality businesses from the government's business rates high-value multiplier.
UKHospitality chief executive Allen Simpson adds a larger retail, hospitality and leisure discount and support for the businesses hardest hit by the 2026 revaluation, in line with the support given to pubs.
The two statements in full
Simpson said: "This staggering data proves what we have long been saying: that hospitality is vastly overtaxed and has the highest tax burden in the economy."
"With more than 80% of every pound made going back to the Government, it is no surprise that our ability to create jobs, drive growth and regenerate the high street has been severely damaged."
Dickinson said: "The Chancellor faces a choice: to continue to pile taxes onto our high streets and the millions of households that rely on them, or to give these businesses the breathing space needed to create jobs, deliver growth, and hold down prices."
"For every £1 of pre-tax profit made by retail, the equivalent of 72p is now paid in business taxes," she said. "For the benefit of high streets, young people and shoppers everywhere, the Chancellor should use the Budget to deliver a clear path to reducing the rates burden, now and in the future."