JD Wetherspoon’s founder and chair Tim Martin has told The Times that the pub giant paid £837.1m in tax for 2024/25 – the equivalent of more than £1m per pub – but urged the government to recognise that VAT equality between pubs and supermarkets could bring even more into the national coffers.
JD Wetherspoon’s founder and chair Tim Martin has revealed that the pub giant paid £837.1m in tax for the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to more than £1m per pub in the company’s 794-strong UK estate.
However, despite the firm publishing a profit warning earlier this month, Martin encouraged the Government to recognise it could stand to gain even more if pubs and supermarkets were granted VAT equality.
“Analysis shows that if you have a Wetherspoon pub in your high street by a raft of different taxes, it’ll generate a lot of income for the country and for the town,” Martin told The Times. “Taxes are a political issue. Parties put forward their ideas and voters decide, that’s democracy. But the inequality between pubs and supermarkets is unfair. It is hobbling pubs.”
“If you had equality between pubs and supermarkets, you’d find you’d have a much stronger hospitality industry in the UK, bringing in much more tax than you’d lose from the VAT cut.”
Martin told the paper that, like supermarkets, pubs should be exempt from charging VAT on food, while the VAT on hospitality should be reduced from 20 percent to 10 percent, in line with levels set by EU neighbours such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
During the interview, Martin also suggested his time at the helm of JD Wetherspoon may be coming to an end, with the search already on to potentially find his successor.
“I’ve got to find people to take over from me.”
Martin keeps aim on supermarket tax
Tim Martin said… “Taxes are a political issue. Parties put forward their ideas and voters decide, that’s democracy. But the inequality between pubs and supermarkets is unfair. It is hobbling pubs…
Originally published on Coinslot on February 9, 2026. Republished with permission.