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The past few months have been a real roller coaster for pubs in the UK.
In November Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her Budget that business rates would rise for all businesses in Britain in April 2026. This was obviously bad news for pubs, many of which were already struggling.
Following widespread backlash from pubs, today (January 28) Reeves declared that all pubs and music venues would receive a 15 percent discount on their rates business bills from April 2026 until 2029. However, many pubs are still in trouble thanks to a range of factors, including the rise of the National Living Wage, climbing energy costs, increasing alcohol duty and falling consumer spending.
That’s why Ben Guerrin created ismypubfucked.com, a map showing the risk of closure for every pub in the UK. Guerrin’s site also includes a leaderboard of the ‘most fucked’ pubs in Britain which can be filtered by postcode, ranking 45,936 drinking spots on a scale of ‘fine’ to ‘absolutely fucked’.
The website uses official data from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the government body responsible for business rates in England and Wales. It compares the current rates with the proposed new rates for 2026 to calculate how big the risk of closure will be when the rates change in April of this year.
According to the map, some of the most at-risk pubs in London include the Spit and Sawdust in Southwark, the Duke of Wellington in the City of London, the Nobody Inn in Newington Green and the Bell House in Marylebone. These pubs all fell under the ‘absolutely fucked’ category, meaning they could see more than a 200 percent increase on their ratable value.
Want to discover the fate of your own local? Check out Guerrin’s website here.
Want to support your local boozer? Here’s Time Out’s official list of the best pubs in London. Long may they live.
Plus: This iconic part of the City of London wants to become the capital’s next major foodie destination.
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