How much does it cost to run a pub? The weekly bill line by line, updated for 2026

How much does it cost to run a pub? On the BBPA's own cost model for a community wet-led pub taking about £5,500 a week before VAT, about £2,490 goes on drink and food and £2,250 on running costs, so roughly £4,740 a week, or £246,000 a year, before a penny of rent. Wages are the biggest running cost by miles, then energy, then Sky if you have it. That model is built on 2022 accounts, and with today's minimum wage the running costs on the same pub come out nearer £2,400 to £2,550 a week.

Everything that ranks for this question is either a start-up blog guessing at fit-out costs or a pubco brochure. Neither tells you what lands on the doormat every week once you're open. So here's the weekly bill, line by line, from the trade's own benchmark, then each line checked against what it actually costs in 2026, then the one number I'd want any new licensee to know before they sign: what it costs per hour just to have the doors open.

The weekly bill, line by line

The British Beer and Pub Association publishes a guide to costs for tied tenants and lessees, built from accounts its pubco members supplied across hundreds of pubs. It's one of the benchmarks the Pubs Advisory Service points tenants to, and it's what a lot of rent assessments are argued against. The latest edition I can find, September 2023, uses mostly 2022 figures. This is its community wet-led pub, about 90% drink and 10% food:

Community wet-led pub, c£5,000 a week. BBPA weighted averages, ex VAT, mostly 2022 data

Line	Per week	% of sales
Sales (drink £4,782, food £711)	£5,493	100%
Cost of drink and food	£2,493	45.4%
Gross profit	£3,000	54.6%
Wages and salaries	£1,034	18.8%
Utilities (gas, electric, water)	£354	6.4%
Repairs and renewals	£124	2.3%
Pay TV (Sky, BT Sport, averaged across pubs with and without)	£122	2.2%
Business rates	£108	2.0%
Marketing, promotion and phone	£101	1.8%
Other costs	£83	1.5%
Professional fees (accountant and the like)	£72	1.3%
Insurance	£62	1.1%
Waste disposal, cleaning and hygiene	£61	1.1%
Live music	£50	0.9%
Bank charges	£38	0.7%
Interest on capital	£26	0.5%
Consumables	£9	0.2%
Equipment hire	£5	0.1%
Total running costs	£2,249	40.9%
Left before rent (divisible balance)	£751	13.7%

Two things the table leaves out on purpose. It doesn't include a wage for you, the tenant, because the money left after rent is meant to be your wage. And it leaves out machine income, which it shows separately at £61 a week for this model.

Across all nine of the BBPA's pub types, running costs come out at 36% to 51% of sales. Wet-led locals sit at the bottom, roughly 36% to 44%. Food-led pubs sit at the top, 45% to 51%, because kitchens need more staff.

What's moved since 2022

A 2022 benchmark is useful for the shape of the bill. It's dangerous for the size of it. Here's each big line checked against figures from 2026:

The big lines, then and now (2026 figures from the sources below, per-week sums are my arithmetic)

Line	BBPA model	What it looks like in 2026
Wages	£1,034	The minimum wage was £9.50 in April 2022 and is £12.71 now, 34% higher, going to £13.21 in April 2027. If the wage bill had moved with it, that's about £1,383 a week now and £1,438 from April. Employer's NI went up in 2025 too, so probably more
Utilities	£354	Broker figures from August 2026 put a small wet-led pub at £650 to £1,300 a month all in, so £150 to £300 a week. 2022 was the height of the energy crisis, so this line has mostly come down
Pay TV	£122	Sky doesn't publish pub prices. Bills that have been printed start at £754.38 a month at a village pub, about £174 a week, and go well past £2,000 a month. If you show sport, the £122 average is light. If you don't, it's nothing
Business rates	£108	Pubs relief is 15% this year and 35% from April 2027, which the Treasury says is worth over £3,000 a year to the average pub. Small business rates relief covers the whole bill up to £18,000 rateable value from April 2027
Music licence (inside "other" and "live music")		TheMusicLicence for background radio in a pub up to 400 square metres is £364.62 a year plus VAT on PPL PRS's 2026 example, about £7 a week
Bank charges	£38	Card readers charge 1.69% to 1.75% with no monthly fee, on the price the customer pays, VAT included. A pub taking about £6,600 a week over the bar with nine in ten on card pays about £100 a week, so this line will be higher than the BBPA shows
Licences		Premises licence annual fee £70 to £1,050 depending on rateable value, £295 for most mid-sized pubs. TV licence £180 a year if you show live TV

Put the two biggest changes through, wages up and energy down, and the same pub's running costs come out at about £2,390 to £2,540 a week. Prices on the bar have gone up since 2022 as well, so sales would be higher too and the percentage won't have moved as much as the pounds. But the pounds are what you pay. Budget for those.

Then the rent

In this model, £751 a week is left before rent. That's the divisible balance, and a tied rent is a share of it. The BBPA guide says RICS allows a range of 35% to 65%, and most settlements land between 45% and 55%. On £751 that's about £338 to £413 a week of rent, leaving you roughly the same again as your wage for running the place.

Which is the sum that should stop anyone thinking about taking a pub. £340 to £410 a week, for a job that's sixty-plus hours. I worked that through properly in how pub rent is calculated, and on the BBPA's own numbers it comes out at about £7.42 an hour for the tenant. It's also why a pub makes about 3p in the pound once the rent's paid.

The number I'd want to know first: what it costs to open the doors

Here's a way of looking at it that I've never seen in a pubco pack. Take the weekly running costs and divide by the hours you're open. That's what it costs you every hour the lights are on, whether there's one person in or forty.

Running costs per opening hour, assuming 70 hours a week (my arithmetic)

Running costs a week	Per opening hour	Pints of gross profit an hour to cover it, at £2.45
£2,249 (BBPA model, 2022)	£32	13
£2,600 (same pub, 2026 wages)	£37	15

Thirteen to fifteen pints an hour, every hour, before rent. A Friday night does that easily. A Tuesday at three in the afternoon doesn't come close. It's an average, and plenty of the cost is fixed whether you open or not, but it's the quickest way I know to see which hours are carrying the week and which are being carried. Stick it on the office wall. Then look at your till by hour. My guide on whether to close on quiet nights does the sum properly for one shift, and it's a lot smaller than people expect, because the rent and rates don't stop when you shut.

What it costs to get in

This guide is about the running bill. The ingoing cost to take a tied pub is a separate number: stock at valuation, a deposit, fixtures and fittings on a lease, training, and working capital for the first weeks. Robinsons, for one, quotes total ingoings of £12,000 to £100,000 plus VAT depending on the pub, covering the bond, stock, rent in advance and fixtures. The breakdown and the questions to ask are in how to become a pub landlord and taking over a pub: the first stocktake.

The costs nobody budgets for

Stock loss. The BBPA model assumes you make the gross profit the prices say you should. If 2% of your drink goes walkabout in over-pours, line cleaning and unlogged waste, on £4,782 of drink sales that's around £95 a week straight out of the £751. That's a quarter of your wage. It's the one line on this page you can do something about by Friday, which is why I bang on about what variance is acceptable.

Duty in February. Draught beer duty goes from £19.45 to £20.34 a litre of alcohol on 1 February 2027, about 2.3p a pint on a 4.5% beer. Small per pint, but it lands on every one. The Budget guide has the full list.

The annual stuff. Premises licence fee, insurance renewal, the music licence, a boiler service, the fire risk assessment. None of them is big. All of them arrive in the same bad month. Divide each by 52 and put it in a separate pot every week, and January stops being a surprise.

Common questions

How much does it cost to run a pub per week?

On the BBPA's cost model for a community wet-led pub taking about £5,500 a week ex VAT, around £4,740 a week: £2,490 on drink and food and £2,250 on running costs, before rent. With 2026 wages and energy prices the running costs on the same pub are nearer £2,400 to £2,550.

What is the biggest cost of running a pub?

After the drink itself, wages. In the BBPA model they're about 19% of sales in a wet-led pub and up to 30% in a food-led one. Energy is usually next, then Sky for pubs that show sport.

What percentage of turnover are a pub's running costs?

Between about 36% and 51% of sales across the BBPA's nine pub types, before rent. Wet-led locals are at the lower end, food-led pubs at the top.

How much rent does a tied pub pay?

A share of the divisible balance, the profit before rent. The BBPA guide says RICS allows 35% to 65% and most settle at 45% to 55%. On the BBPA's £5,000-a-week wet-led model that's about £338 to £413 a week.

How much does it cost per hour to keep a pub open?

On the BBPA model, running costs of £2,249 a week over 70 opening hours is about £32 an hour, roughly 13 pints of gross profit an hour, before rent. With 2026 wages it's nearer £37 an hour.