Tim Martin, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Erling Haaland and Mo Salah are among the UK’s 100 biggest taxpayers, according to new rankings.
The billionaire brothers behind the gambling firm Betfred topped the Sunday Times 2026 tax List. Fred and Peter Done paid £400.1m in tax, about half of which relates to gambling duty from their betting shop empire.
Martin, who founded the Wetherspoon’s chain, is eighth with a personal contribution put at just shy of £200m.
JD Wetherspoon paid more than £1m tax a pub with the chain of 794 venues pumping £837.1m into the public finances – from levies including corporation tax, business rates, slot machine duty and VAT. Martin owns 26.7% of company shares.
In an interview, the Brexit-backing businessman criticised the government for adding VAT to pub meals when it is not paid in supermarkets, but not for the size of his tax bill. He said: “I can’t complain about the level of taxation really – that’s a political issue. Parties put forward their ideas and voters decide.”
The eighth edition of the list coincides with an exodus of wealthy people from the UK to offshore destinations in Europe and the Middle East. Five of the figures in the 2025 league table are now resident in Jersey or Guernsey, four in Monaco and two in Portugal. There are others based in Cyprus, Dubai and the US.
However, Peter Done, 78, told the newspaper he had no plans to quit Britain. “We owe this country,” he said. “I feel there is an obligation for people that have made the money in that country to pay the tax in that country. Fred and myself are stopping here.”
The list also includes the Harry Potter author JK Rowling, the Timpson family behind the shoe-mending empire, the tech entrepreneur James Dyson, and Douglas and Iain Anderson, whose GAP Group provides fences and loos for concerts and festivals.
The top 10 features the financiers Alex Gerko, Chris Rokos and Peter Hargeaves, Mike Ashley, who founded Sports Direct, Tom Morris of Home Bargains, the Perkins family who own Specsavers and Stephen Rubin, who owns a large stake in JD Sports as well as the company behind Speedo.
Fourteen of this year’s tax listers are now resident overseas, according to Companies House documents including Ian and Richard Livingstone, the billionaire brothers who own Berkshire mansion Cliveden, who last year quit the UK for Monaco.
HMRC official data indicates the UK’s highest-earning 1% – those with pre-tax incomes of at least £219,000 – contribute about a quarter (26.6%) of all UK income tax during the current tax year. This has fallen from 30.7% in 2021-22, mainly because of the freezing of income tax thresholds. The departure of some wealthy people to lower-tax jurisdictions may also have contributed to the change.
Harry Styles, who announced a new album world tour in recent weeks, was the top celebrity taxpayer at No 54, paying £24.7m, according to the Sunday Times list, most of which related to his touring and merchandise firm Erskine Records.
He sits 10 places ahead of fellow singer Ed Sheeran, who paid just under £20m in tax, on a £41m dividend he was paid last year. Sheeran has said: “I’ll always pay tax in uk coz that’s where I live.”
Ranked 72, Erling Haaland, Manchester City’s Norwegian striker, is the youngest person to appear on the list. He earns a basic wage of more than £500,000 a week, plus at least another £10m from image rights and bonus payments. His estimated tax bill of £16.9m is less than half that of JK Rowling, whose bill is reported to be £47.5m.
The tax list rankings are not a full account of all taxes paid but include corporation tax, dividend tax, capital gains tax, income tax and some payroll taxes, as well as gambling and alcohol duties, according to the most recently filed company accounts up to 10 January.
Tax attributable to individuals is calculated in proportion to their share of ownership of the company in question. Personal taxation is excluded if someone is not listed as resident in the UK.
