UK Has Lost 7,330 Pubs Since 2010

Most of us can name a pub that isn’t there any more. Maybe it’s flats now, or a convenience store, or just boarded up with a faded sign. Headlines about pub closures have been running for years, but it’s hard to get a sense of the scale from one story at a time.

So Homefords went to the official numbers. Every March, the Office for National Statistics counts the business sites operating across the UK, including every pub and bar. We looked at those counts from 2010 to 2026, the latest release, to see how many pubs have gone, when they went and where.

The short answer is 7,330 pubs, roughly one in six.

How many pubs are there in the UK?

In March 2026 the UK had 37,350 sites classed as pubs and bars. In 2010 it had 44,680.

Over the same period, licensed restaurants went the other way, rising from 27,885 to 38,735. We look at where restaurants are growing fastest in a separate post. This year restaurants overtook pubs for the first time, a shift we cover in full in our main research.

UK pub numbers year by year

The fall hasn’t been a sudden collapse. It’s been a steady loss, year after year, with only two short breaks.

Bars are scaled from 35,000 so the year-on-year change is easier to see.

Pub numbers fell in 14 of the 16 years. The only rises came in 2019, up 320, and 2022, up 360. The 2019 rise matches an ONS analysis of the pubs and bars sector, which found the number of small pubs grew that year for the first time in more than 15 years.

The worst years for pub closures

Three years stand out. The 2013 count showed the biggest single drop, with 1,570 fewer pubs than the year before. The 2011 count was close behind, down 1,450.

The third came in March 2021, the first count taken after the pandemic began, when the UK had 1,020 fewer pubs than a year earlier. Since then the losses have been smaller but they haven’t stopped. The UK lost 420 pubs between 2022 and 2025, then another 455 in the year to March 2026.

Which parts of the UK have lost the most pubs?

Every region has fewer pubs than it did in 2010, but some have been hit much harder than others.

Wales has lost more than a quarter of its pubs, a fall of 26.3%. Northern Ireland and Scotland have both lost more than a fifth. The South East lost the most pubs in number, 1,165, but it also started with by far the most.

At the other end, London and the North East have held on best, each down by less than 8%. London is also the only region where pub numbers have grown since 2019.

Why are pubs closing?

The ONS figures count sites. They don’t say why a pub closed. But other research helps fill in the picture.

An earlier ONS study of the pub trade found it was mainly small, independent pubs that were disappearing. Larger pub companies had moved away from small venues and focused on bigger sites, and total pub turnover held up even as numbers fell. In other words, fewer pubs, but bigger ones.

Costs are the other big theme. The British Beer and Pub Association says roughly a third of everything spent in a pub goes on tax, according to figures reported by The Drinks Business. Under the 2026 revaluation, the average pub rateable value in England and Wales is set to rise by 30%, the Morning Advertiser reported.

The government has responded with a 15% business rates discount for pubs in England in 2026/27, rising to 20% from April 2027, as Grant Thornton sets out. Pubs in Scotland and Wales aren’t covered by those English measures.

How these figures compare with other counts

You may see other numbers in the news. The BBPA tracks closures through the year, and its latest figures suggest around 360 pubs will close permanently across Britain in 2026, according to the Yorkshire Post. Tax firm Ryan counted 38,623 pubs in England and Wales at the end of 2025, a figure that includes empty pubs still liable for business rates.

Those counts won’t match ours exactly, and that’s expected. The ONS register only includes businesses registered for VAT or PAYE, and it rounds each count to the nearest 5. It also classes each site by its main activity, so a food-led pub could be counted as a licensed restaurant. ONS widened its register in 2015, which means the long-run fall here may be slightly understated.

What it means for the pubs still trading

The pubs that remain are changing. By 2019, the ONS found, pubs and bars employed more people serving food than working behind the bar. That helps explain why licensed restaurants are growing as pub numbers fall.

For the full picture, including interactive charts and a lookup that shows how your region compares, see our research on restaurants now outnumbering pubs in the UK.

Source: Office for National Statistics, UK Business Counts (local units by industry), via Nomis. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5 by ONS. Media enquiries: hello@homefords.co.uk