26th February 2026
A Special Highland Council meeting on 5 March 2026 will see councillors vote on a proposed 7% increase in council tax.
For the 2026/27 financial year, Highland Council has proposed a 7% increase in Council Tax. This proposal is part of an £868 million budget aimed at balancing the books without using reserves, while addressing significant investment needs in the region.
Key Budget Details (2026/27)
Proposed General Increase: 7% for all standard household bands.
Allocation of the Rise: 5% of the increase is designated for core services, while the remaining 2% is ring-fenced for the Highland Investment Plan to improve schools and roads.
Impact on Band D: The annual bill for a typical Band D property is expected to rise by £106.90, bringing the total to £1,633.99.
Second Homes & Empty Properties: Significant surcharges are planned to tackle the housing crisis:
Second Homes: To be charged at 300% of the standard rate.
Long-term Empty Properties: To be charged at 250% initially, with further escalations planned for subsequent years.
Timeline and Status
Proposal Date: Announced on 26 February 2026.
Formal Vote: Councillors are scheduled to vote on the budget next Thursday (expected 5 March 2026).
Effective Date: If approved, the new rates will apply from 1 April 2026.
Other service charges, such as school meals and burial costs, are also projected to rise by approximately 3.8%.
Highland Investment Plan
The Highland Investment Plan (HIP) is a 20-year, £2.1 billion capital programme designed to modernize the region's infrastructure and services. It is financed by ring-fencing 2% of annual Council Tax revenue to create a long-term investment fund.
Core Objectives
Infrastructure Replacement: The plan aims to replace or refurbish approximately 90 schools across the Highlands, many of which are currently rated in poor condition.
Community "PODs": A central feature is the creation of Points of Delivery (PODs)—integrated community hubs that co-locate schools, health services, leisure, childcare, and public offices in a single flexible location.
Transport & Roads: Over £1 billion is allocated in the first 10 years for roads, transport networks, and essential infrastructure like bridges and culverts.
Phase 1 Projects (2025-2030)
The council recently appointed preferred contractors for the first major projects, which are expected to be operational between 2027 and 2030.
Priority School PODs:
Beauly Primary (Morgan Sindall)
Charleston Academy (Morgan Sindall)
Dingwall Primary (including St Clements School; Robertson Group)
Fortrose Academy (Morrison Construction)
Inverness High School (Ogilvie Construction)
Tornagrain Primary (Robertson Group)
Major Masterplans: Includes a £100 million masterplan for Thurso, which will deliver a new high school and community POD.
Roads Allocation (2026/27)
Specifically for the 2026/27 financial year, the council has approved a £21.55 million Roads Capital Programme:
£12.15 million in "top-up" funding for priority schemes across all areas.
£7.8 million for base road capital.
£1 million for emergency repairs and emerging issues.
The meeting on 7 March will be webcast and can be viewed at https://highland.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/998512
Highland Council Statement
Budget 2026 to 2027
The public sector continues to face significant financial challenges - local council budgets are decreasing, costs are increasing, and there are greater demand on services.
We are being proactive in how we approach these challenges. Budgets are being squeezed, but we have a strategy which includes growing the number of houses - helping address the housing challenge and providing more income in council tax - changing the way we work to create more jobs across the region, being more entrepreneurial, and ensuring we see community benefit from energy infrastructure investment.
But we still have difficult decisions to make when it comes to our services. We had a £805 million revenue budget in 2025/26 to deliver a range of services including education, adult social care, housing, welfare, and waste and recycling services, as well as sustaining roads, footpaths, bridges, and harbours. Government funding is based on population. With more schools per head of population than any other mainland council and over 4,000 miles of road to sustain we need to budget carefully to manage our geographical differences.
We need your help to decide how we spend our budget for 2026/27, which will be confirmed by The Scottish Government in January 2026. Feedback from our communities will help councillors understand what matters most to people across Highland and help inform decisions they taken when setting the budget in March 2026.
Our approach
The Highland Council is working hard to deliver savings - we have delivered £217million in savings over the past 12 years.
We have also taken a more proactive approach to address the pressures we face, supporting more entrepreneurial activity and a culture of innovation to drive incomes and growth through 'Our Future Highland' vision. This includes projects like:
Our Highland Investment Plan. We are setting aside 2% of council tax revenue each year to fund a £2 billion investment plan over the next 20 years. This money will support capital investment in local service points, roads, and schools. This includes the replacement or refurbishment of around 90 schools, and investment in Community PODs (Points of Delivery) in Thurso and Dingwall.
The Highland Social Value Charter. We are working with developers to encourage them to commit to our Social Value Charter. This ensures community benefit and a legacy from renewable investment over the next 20 years. Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Transmission is the first company to sign this Charter, committing to £1.8 billion of contracts for local businesses, more than £200 million spending on roads and bridges, and support the development of 500 permanent homes, if they get the go ahead through planned infrastructure works to support the energy sector.
Entrepreneurial activity. We have cut costs by running our own bus service and made public transport improvements for local communities. Meanwhile, the Council-run Storr visitor attraction in Skye is supporting local jobs and local suppliers. It generated around £450,000 in profit in its first year, which has supported reinvestment in the path network and public toilets.
At the same time, we are developing our own future operating model to support sustainable communities. Our focus is on job roles across our region, flexible workspaces, better use of technology, seamless access to services through local points of delivery, and greater collaboration with partners.
Our proactive approach to financial sustainability and cultural transformation has been commended by Audit Scotland.
The budget challenge we face
We are forecasting a budget gap of :
£16.3 million in 2026/27
£16.2 million in 2027/28
and £14.2 million in 2028/29.
As part of addressing this gap, we want to work with our communities to find out what services are important to you, get your views on where we can save money, how we can generate more income, and how we could do things differently.
This will build on extensive engagement on our budget in 2023, when communities told us we needed to redesign our services, change how we manage our buildings, generate more income, and be more efficient in how we do things. We have already started to do these things, and we will continue to work hard on this.