A house in London (Tower Hamlets) lived in only by full-time students pays no council tax — but the exemption is not automatic, and it is not backdated indefinitely if you never claim it.
| All-student household | Fully exempt |
| How to claim | Apply on the council's online student application form; what it asks for depends on where you study. |
| Evidence they want | A student certificate uploaded with the form — the council says you cannot complete the form without it — unless you study at Queen Mary University of London, whose students do not have to provide one. |
| University sends your data directly | Yes |
'If all of the occupiers of a home are students, the dwelling is completely exempt from council tax.' The qualifying course must be higher education, not a correspondence course, not job-related, and taught between 8am and 5.30pm. The Queen Mary arrangement is the clearest data-sharing case in this set — QMUL students are told explicitly not to upload anything. Band D is null because the council's bands-and-charges page returned 404 on every path tried, so no 2026/27 figure could be read from its own site.
If all but one of the occupiers is a student, a 25% discount is granted on the bill.
The councils nearest Tower Hamlets Council on the Band D charge — what the exemption is worth where you might have gone instead. The full table has every one.
| City | Council | Band D |
|---|---|---|
| Liverpool | Liverpool City Council | £2,674 |
| Oxford | Oxford City Council | £2,676 |
| Bristol | Bristol City Council | £2,714 |
| Nottingham | Nottingham City Council | £2,755 |
| Aberdeen | Aberdeen City Council | — |
| Belfast | Belfast City Council | — |
| Chester | Cheshire West and Chester Council | — |
| London (Greenwich) | Royal Borough of Greenwich | — |
| London (Hillingdon) | London Borough of Hillingdon | — |
| London (Islington) | Islington Council | — |
| London (Tower Hamlets) | Tower Hamlets Council | — |
No, not if every adult in the property is a full-time student — the household is exempt. The exemption has to be claimed; it does not apply itself just because you are a student.
Apply on the council's online student application form; what it asks for depends on where you study.
A student certificate uploaded with the form — the council says you cannot complete the form without it — unless you study at Queen Mary University of London, whose students do not have to provide one.
If all but one of the occupiers is a student, a 25% discount is granted on the bill.
Checked 19 August 2026 against towerhamlets.gov.uk. Councils change their forms and evidence rules; the council's own page is the authority when you claim.
Processes checked 19 August 2026 against each council's own pages. This is information, not advice, and the council's page is the authority when you claim.