Eight pubs a week ceased trading across the UK during the first half of the year, new figures reveal, as the industry grapples with escalating tax and labour costs.
Industry leaders have described the trend as "heartbreaking", urging the Treasury to implement supportive tax measures in the upcoming autumn budget.
Official government statistics show 209 pubs were either demolished or repurposed for other uses in the six months leading up to June.
This decline has seen the total number of pubs in England and Wales, including those vacant or available to let, fall to 38,780.
Since the beginning of 2020, commercial real estate specialists at Ryan found a staggering 2,283 pubs have permanently disappeared from communities across England and Wales.
Valuation Office Agency data indicates many of these establishments have been converted into residential properties, offices, or even day nurseries.
The South East bore the brunt of these closures in the first half of 2025, losing 31 pubs within just six months.
The closures come amid an intensifying backdrop for UK pubs, which were impacted by increases to the national minimum wage, national insurance payments and business rates payments.
In April, the national living wage rose by 6.7 per cent to £12.21 an hour for workers aged 21 and older.
At the same time, the Government increased the rate of employer national insurance contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent and also lowered the threshold at which firms would pay the tax.
Many pubs were also hit by changes to discounts on business rates, the property tax affecting high street businesses.
Hospitality businesses received a 60 per cent discount on their business rates bills up to a cap of £110,000 but saw this cut to only 25 per cent in April.
Industry bosses had warned that the jump in taxes particularly would lead to an acceleration in pub closures.
Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the Government needs to act quickly to save pubs across the country.
She said: “It’s absolutely heartbreaking and there is a direct link between pubs closing for good and the huge jump in costs they have just endured.
“Pubs and brewers are important employers, drivers of economic growth, but are also really valuable to local communities across the country and have real social value.
“This is a really sad pattern, and unfortunately a lot of these pubs never come back.
“The Government needs to act at the budget, with major reforms to business rates and beer duty.”
Alex Probyn, practice leader of property tax at Ryan, warned the squeeze on the pub trade is intensifying.
He said: “Slashing business rates relief for pubs from 75 per cent to 40 per cent this year has landed the sector with an extra £215 million in tax bills.
“For a small pub, that’s a leap in the average bill from £3,938 to £9,451 – a 140 per cent increase.
“The combination of soaring business rates, higher national insurance contributions, the rising national minimum wage and packaging taxes are all quietly draining profits until staying open becomes impossible.
“When that happens, developers are quick to snap up the plots for more lucrative uses.”
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