Autumn Budget 2026

The Budget is the Chancellor's annual statement to Parliament setting out tax and spending plans, normally delivered in the autumn, with the date confirmed by HM Treasury a few weeks ahead. The speech itself is only headlines: the substance lands in the accompanying documents and, crucially, in the Finance Bill that follows.

Announcement is not law. Most measures follow a path: announced on Budget day, consulted on or draft-legislated, passed in a Finance Act, then switched on from a start date, usually the next 6 April. Some measures take effect immediately at midnight (fuel and alcohol duties, anti-avoidance rules); others, like this year's mileage rate rise, even apply retrospectively. That is why our tracker above shows each measure's real status rather than treating every announcement as done.

What to actually do on Budget day: nothing, usually. Most personal-finance reactions can wait a week for the details to settle, and the documents often soften or sharpen what the speech implied. The exceptions are cliff-edge measures with a pre-announced start date, where acting before 6 April (or occasionally midnight) genuinely matters: capital gains timing, dividend declarations and pension contributions are the classic examples.

When a Budget lands, we update this page the same day, recalculate every affected tool against the new figures, and publish plain-English analysis of the measures that touch ordinary taxpayers. Between events, the what changed this tax year page tracks everything already in force.