UK Public Toilet Statistics 2026
Last updated: 30 August 2026 · 11,693 toilets mapped across 382 council areas
Quick summary
ToiletNearMe has mapped 11,693 publicly accessible toilets across 382 UK local authority areas. Of those, 47% are recorded as wheelchair accessible — but 28% of those accessible toilets are locked behind a RADAR key that has to be bought in advance. A quarter of all mapped toilets are not recorded as free to use, and only 8% are open around the clock.
These figures describe the toilets in our database, which is a crawl of publicly accessible toilets — not a census of council-run toilets. Read the methodology before citing.
Key findings
All figures are properties of the 11,693 toilets in our database.
More than a quarter of accessible toilets need a key you have to buy in advance
Of the 5,489 wheelchair-accessible toilets in our database, 1,516 (28%) are recorded as RADAR-key locked. A RADAR (National Key Scheme) key is not issued at the door — it has to be bought ahead of time, so a disabled visitor without one cannot use these facilities on the day.
Across the whole database, 2,197 toilets (19%) are recorded as needing a RADAR key. Note that 681 of those are not also flagged as wheelchair accessible, so the RADAR total and the accessible total should not be divided into one another — the 28% above is a true per-toilet overlap.
Not recorded as free
2,885 of 11,693 mapped toilets either charge for entry or have no fee information recorded. The other 8,808 (75%) are recorded as free.
Open 24 hours
Only 966 mapped toilets are listed as open around the clock. Opening hours are not recorded for every toilet, so treat this as a minimum.
Have baby changing
4,336 of 11,693 mapped toilets record baby changing facilities, leaving roughly two in three without.
The database at a glance
A missing facility flag means we have no record of that feature, not that the feature is absent. Every percentage here is therefore best read as a minimum.
Accessible share by council area
This ranks council areas by the share of their mapped toilets that are recorded as wheelchair accessible. It covers the 280 areas where we have mapped at least 15 toilets — below that, a single listing swings the percentage too far to be meaningful.
Read this as coverage, not provision. A low share means that among the toilets we have mapped in that area, few are recorded as accessible. It does not mean the area lacks accessible toilets, and these are not rankings of council performance.
| # | Council area | Accessible share | Mapped toilets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bracknell Forest | 93% | 27 of 29 mapped |
| 2 | Fermanagh and Omagh | 88% | 45 of 51 mapped |
| 3 | Middlesbrough | 86% | 19 of 22 mapped |
| 4 | Causeway Coast and Glens | 84% | 46 of 55 mapped |
| 5 | Basingstoke and Deane | 83% | 19 of 23 mapped |
| 6 | Barnsley | 82% | 28 of 34 mapped |
| 7 | Redcar and Cleveland | 81% | 17 of 21 mapped |
| 8 | North Norfolk | 79% | 48 of 61 mapped |
| 9 | East Riding of Yorkshire | 79% | 44 of 56 mapped |
| 10 | Aberdeen City | 79% | 22 of 28 mapped |
| 11 | Denbighshire | 79% | 15 of 19 mapped |
| 12 | Glasgow City | 78% | 73 of 94 mapped |
| 13 | Surrey Heath | 78% | 14 of 18 mapped |
| 14 | City of Edinburgh | 77% | 86 of 112 mapped |
| 15 | Oxford | 76% | 28 of 37 mapped |
| # | Council area | Accessible share | Mapped toilets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 280 | Erewash | 5% | 1 of 20 mapped |
| 279 | North East Derbyshire | 6% | 1 of 17 mapped |
| 278 | Oldham | 6% | 3 of 47 mapped |
| 277 | Torridge | 11% | 2 of 18 mapped |
| 276 | Perth and Kinross | 11% | 5 of 44 mapped |
| 275 | Sandwell | 11% | 5 of 45 mapped |
| 274 | Mid Devon | 13% | 2 of 16 mapped |
| 273 | Hounslow | 13% | 15 of 117 mapped |
| 272 | South Bucks | 14% | 3 of 21 mapped |
| 271 | Inverclyde | 14% | 3 of 21 mapped |
| 270 | Gateshead | 14% | 6 of 44 mapped |
| 269 | Isle of Anglesey | 15% | 3 of 20 mapped |
| 268 | North Ayrshire | 15% | 5 of 34 mapped |
| 267 | Newark and Sherwood | 19% | 3 of 16 mapped |
| 266 | Huntingdonshire | 19% | 3 of 16 mapped |
Sorted by accessible share, highest first. Rank numbers refer to position within the 280 areas that meet the 15-toilet threshold. Select any area to see the toilets we have mapped there.
Public toilets per 10,000 residents — best and worst councils
This sets the number of toilets we have mapped in each council area against its resident population, giving mapped toilets per 10,000 residents. We matched 358 of the 382 mapped areas (94%) to a population estimate. The “fewest” table is limited to councils with at least 50,000 residents, so a tiny authority with thin coverage cannot dominate it.
Read this as coverage per head, not provision. A low figure means we have mapped few toilets there per resident — not that the area lacks toilets. Population figures are ONS mid-year estimates and are approximate, and some recently merged authorities are excluded where we could not match a population.
| Council area | Per 10,000 residents | Mapped toilets | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of London | 126.74 | 109 | 8,600 |
| Orkney Islands | 20.91 | 46 | 22,000 |
| Shetland Islands | 13.04 | 30 | 23,000 |
| Na h-Eileanan Siar | 10.38 | 27 | 26,000 |
| Argyll and Bute | 8.60 | 74 | 86,000 |
| Highland | 8.47 | 199 | 235,000 |
| Stirling | 6.02 | 56 | 93,000 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 5.95 | 88 | 148,000 |
| Moray | 5.89 | 56 | 95,000 |
| North Norfolk | 5.87 | 61 | 104,000 |
| Eden | 5.74 | 31 | 54,000 |
| Derbyshire Dales | 5.69 | 41 | 72,000 |
| Chichester | 5.40 | 67 | 124,000 |
| Richmond upon Thames | 5.33 | 104 | 195,000 |
| Westminster | 5.17 | 106 | 205,000 |
| Cornwall | 5.04 | 289 | 573,300 |
| Crawley | 5.00 | 59 | 118,000 |
| Gwynedd | 5.00 | 59 | 118,000 |
| Tandridge | 4.89 | 43 | 88,000 |
| Pembrokeshire | 4.68 | 58 | 124,000 |
| Council area | Per 10,000 residents | Mapped toilets | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barrow-in-Furness | 0.15 | 1 | 67,000 |
| Bedford | 0.32 | 6 | 185,000 |
| Walsall | 0.32 | 9 | 284,000 |
| Doncaster | 0.32 | 10 | 312,000 |
| Dartford | 0.34 | 4 | 119,000 |
| Melton | 0.38 | 2 | 52,000 |
| Swindon | 0.38 | 9 | 235,000 |
| East Ayrshire | 0.41 | 5 | 122,000 |
| Peterborough | 0.42 | 9 | 216,000 |
| Ipswich | 0.43 | 6 | 138,000 |
| Maldon | 0.45 | 3 | 66,000 |
| Castle Point | 0.45 | 4 | 89,000 |
| Darlington | 0.46 | 5 | 108,000 |
| Halton | 0.47 | 6 | 129,000 |
| North West Leicestershire | 0.48 | 5 | 105,000 |
| Bridgend | 0.48 | 7 | 147,000 |
| Carmarthenshire | 0.48 | 9 | 189,000 |
| Fenland | 0.49 | 5 | 102,000 |
| Wigan | 0.49 | 16 | 329,000 |
| Gedling | 0.51 | 6 | 118,000 |
Population is ONS mid-year estimates; per-10,000 figures are rounded to two decimal places. Select any council to see the toilets we have mapped there. The full row-level dataset is available as a CSV download.
Methodology and limitations
Please read this section before citing any figure on this page. It sets out exactly what our data does and does not measure.
Where the data comes from
Figures are aggregated from publicly available sources and council open data. The database covers publicly accessible toilets of all kinds — council facilities, but also toilets in supermarkets, railway stations, shopping centres, parks and cafés.
This is not a census
It is a crawl of publicly accessible toilets, not a complete register of every toilet in the UK and not a register of council-run toilets. We cannot and do not claim that any area has only the number of toilets we list.
Counts per area reflect our coverage
If an area shows few mapped toilets, that tells you our coverage there is thin — not that the toilets do not exist. The per-10,000-residents table above is therefore a measure of our mapped coverage per head, not of how many toilets a council actually provides, and should not be read as a “toilet desert” ranking.
Percentages are of mapped toilets only
Every percentage on this page is a share of the toilets we have mapped, either nationally or within a given area. None of them is a share of all toilets that exist. Area comparisons are published as percentages precisely so that differences in our coverage do not masquerade as differences in provision.
Facility flags are as recorded
Accessibility, RADAR-key, baby changing, fee and opening-hours details come from the source listings and may be incomplete or out of date. Where a flag is absent we have no record of that feature, which is not the same as the feature being absent. Percentages should therefore be read as minimums.
How the figures are calculated
Each toilet is counted once, against a single local authority area. The RADAR figure is a true per-toilet overlap: it counts toilets recorded as both wheelchair accessible and RADAR-key locked, rather than dividing one standalone total by another. The area table is limited to areas with at least 15 mapped toilets.
Last updated
This dataset was generated on 30 August 2026. Figures are a snapshot from that date and will change as our coverage grows.
Citing this data
Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite these figures. Please attribute ToiletNearMe and link back to this page so readers can see the methodology behind the numbers.
ToiletNearMe, “UK Public Toilet Statistics 2026”, last updated 30 August 2026. https://toiletnearme.co.uk/uk-public-toilet-statistics
- Publisher: ToiletNearMe (toiletnearme.co.uk)
- Dataset last updated: 30 August 2026
- Coverage: 11,693 publicly accessible toilets across 382 UK local authority areas
- Please describe the data as “toilets mapped by ToiletNearMe” rather than “toilets in the UK” — the distinction matters, and is explained in the methodology.
Press enquiries
We can provide breakdowns for a specific council area, region or facility type, and can comment on what our data does and does not show. Please get in touch and mention your deadline.
Contact usFrequently asked questions
How many UK public toilets has ToiletNearMe mapped?
As of 30 August 2026 we have mapped 11,693 publicly accessible toilets across 382 UK local authority areas. This is a crawl of publicly accessible toilets — including those in supermarkets, stations, shopping centres and cafés — not a census of council-run toilets, so it is not a complete count of every toilet in the UK.
What share of mapped UK toilets are wheelchair accessible?
47% of the toilets in our database (5,489 of 11,693) are recorded as wheelchair accessible. Of those accessible toilets, 1,516 (28%) are recorded as RADAR-key locked, meaning a key must be bought in advance to get in.
How many UK public toilets are free to use?
8,808 of the 11,693 toilets we have mapped (75%) are recorded as free to use. The remaining 2,885 (25%) either charge for entry or have no fee information recorded.
How many public toilets are open 24 hours?
966 of the toilets in our database (8%) are listed as open 24 hours. Opening hours are not recorded for every toilet, so this figure is a minimum rather than a complete count.
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