The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) expects about 360 pubs to close permanently in 2026, more than the net 336 recorded in 2025 and roughly one a day. The trade body said on 12 October 2026 that 295 had already shut by the end of September, and that around 5,000 jobs are expected to be lost across the year.
The BBPA is the trade body for brewers and pub companies, and its closure count is its own trade figure, not an official statistic. Pubs trade under several models, including managed houses, tied and free-of-tie tenancies and leases, and the figures reported do not separate them, so the forecast covers the pub estate as a whole and not franchised sites, a split explained in how to open a pub in the UK.
The closure figures by nation
Of the 295 pubs that had closed permanently by the end of September, 226 were in England, 64 in Scotland and 5 in Wales. Northern Ireland is not mentioned in the report. Within England, the south east recorded 42 closures and the north west 39, the two hardest-hit regions. The report gives no quarterly breakdown.
On those figures, England accounts for about 77% of closures to date and Scotland for about 22%, and the 295 already recorded equal about 82% of the 360 forecast, which implies around 65 further closures between October and December (L’Express calculation from the published figures). The 2025 comparison of 336 is described as a net figure, and the report does not say whether the 2026 forecast is net or gross.
Jobs and the cost to the Treasury
The BBPA expects about 5,000 jobs to be lost across the year, with more than half of those affected under 25. It also estimates that each pub contributes about £200,000 a year to the Treasury, so that 360 closures could cost almost £72m in lost tax revenue. That second figure is the trade body’s own estimate, and the report does not set out how the £200,000 contribution is calculated.
The tax and rates argument
The BBPA says rising taxes and regulatory costs are at the heart of many closures, and it attributes £322m of added costs for pubs and brewers to measures in the November 2025 budget. Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA, said: “When a local closes, the damage is felt far and wide”.
She asked the Government for “a permanently fair and sustainable rates burden”, among other measures. Business rates are set separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so a change in one nation does not carry across the others, a cost carried by the operator rather than the brand across the networks recruiting partners in the UK.
What happens next
The Budget is due on 28 October 2026, and retail and hospitality bodies have been lobbying on business rates ahead of it, as Retail Gazette reported on 12 October. The BBPA’s year-end count will be the next full-year figure, and the report cited here gives no date for it.
Until then, the 295 closures to September and the forecast of 360 remain the trade body’s own numbers, and the split between pubs that were tenanted, managed or freehold has not been published, nor whether any were franchised, since no UK register records which sites are, as what a franchise is explains.
