How Much Does Pest Control Cost in the UK? 2026 Prices

Pest control cost in a London home is usually somewhere between £70 and £400 for treatment alone. A pest controller, or exterminator as many people still say, charges very little for a simple ant problem and a lot more for bed bugs in several rooms. Our own starting prices run from £69 for ants to £149 for bed bugs in one room.

The table below gives you three figures for each pest: what we start at, what five London councils charge, and a market guide from a comparison site. Read the columns separately, because they do not measure quite the same thing. Our figure is a starting price. A council figure often includes two or three visits. The market guide is a broad range, not a quote.

So use this table to get a feel for the size of the bill, then ask every provider one question: what is the total for this job, including all the visits? That single question will protect you from most of the surprises in this guide.

The pest sets the method, and the method sets the price. Here is what drives the bill for each one, and what to ask for when you ring round.

This is where the cheapest-looking pest control price can stop being the cheapest. Wasps are usually one visit. Rats, mice, cockroaches and bed bugs normally need follow-up visits, because bait has to be checked, eggs hatch after the first treatment, and the pest controller has to confirm that activity has stopped.

London councils show this clearly in their own tariffs. The table sets out what each one includes. Notice how the same pest can be one visit in one borough and three in another, so a lower figure may simply mean fewer visits are included.

Our recommendation: for rats, mice, cockroaches and bed bugs, get a price for at least two visits from everyone you ask. If a firm quotes one visit only, ask what a second one costs before you agree. Exterminator fees for extra visits are not small sums. Lambeth charges £81.60 for an extra rodent visit and Hounslow £44, or £90 for an extra cockroach visit.

Yes, but less for rodents than for insects. Rodent work follows the routes the animals use, so a two-bed and a three-bed may be close in price. Insects are treated room by room, so each extra room adds real cost. Hounslow charges £165 for fleas in up to two bedrooms, then £30 for each extra bedroom. Barking and Dagenham charges £209.68 for fleas in three bedrooms and £272.99 for five, while its rat price stays at one figure.

Our own packages show the same pattern. The step from one bedroom to three adds tens of pounds and not hundreds. Each package also carries a written guarantee: one month on two visits, three months on three. A single visit does not come with a guarantee, so a one-off booking costs less but gives you less to fall back on.

If you live in a flat, the block matters too. Redbridge charges each household separately, so a house split into flats or rooms is booked and charged one unit at a time. Pests move through shared walls and service ducts, so ask your freeholder or managing agent whether neighbours are being treated. Treating one flat alone may not last, and our recommendation is to raise that before you pay for a second visit.

For homes above three bedrooms, ask for a written quote based on the rooms affected. Do not rely on any table, ours included.

Two homes with the same pest can get very different pest control charges. These are the real reasons, in rough order of how much they tend to matter. If you can answer them when you first make contact, you will get a firmer price and fewer changes later.

These are sums made from our published starting prices, set against council prices for the same kind of job. Your written quote may be different, but they show how a bill is built and where the council wins and loses.

Mice in a one-bed flat. Our 3-visit package is £210 to £230 with a 3-month written guarantee. Redbridge charges £200 for rats or mice, Hounslow £180 for up to three visits, and Barking and Dagenham £173.35 including two follow-ups. On this job the council can be cheaper, and we would rather say so. What you are comparing is the wait, the written guarantee and the advice on sealing entry points.

Bed bugs in three rooms. Our price is £149 for the first room, £45 each for the other two, and £79 for a follow-up visit: £318 for two visits, or £397 if a third is needed. Redbridge charges £325 for up to three rooms. Barking and Dagenham charges £308.29 for three bedrooms including two follow-ups. Tower Hamlets charges £213.60 per treatment for three rooms, which is £427.20 if you have two treatments. Bed bugs are where visit counts change the result most, so ask each provider how many visits their price includes.

One wasp nest under the eaves. Our price starts from £90 per nest. Hounslow charges £87.50, Redbridge £95 and Lambeth £112.80, or £147.60 where access equipment is needed. These are close, so pick whichever can attend soonest. Redbridge only treats wasps from 1 June to 31 October, and Kingston Council does not run a wasp service at all.

Treatment deals with the animals already inside. Proofing is what stops the next ones getting in, and it is often the difference between paying once and paying every winter. Tower Hamlets Council is blunt about it: rats cannot be eliminated by treatment alone, and proofing has to be done inside and outside the property.

Councils mostly will not do this for you. Redbridge says rodent proofing is not part of its treatment service. Tower Hamlets says it does not carry out proofing and that it is normally for the landlord or building manager. So if you choose the council, plan to pay someone else for this part.

Our add-ons are entry point mesh proofing at £45 to £85, an additional baiting station at £25, and a follow-up proofing and sealing package at £60. Larger work through our rodent proofing service is quoted for the property. For a wider view, Less.co.uk puts rat and mouse proofing at £200 to £600, covering mesh, cement, pipe collars and air brick guards. That is a referral site's general range, not a London survey, but it does show that a whole-house job can cost more than the treatment.

Our recommendation: ask for the treatment price and the proofing price as two separate lines, and ask the pest controller to show you each gap. Do not pay for proofing a roof when the rats are coming from a broken drain. If you suspect a drain, a drain and sewer camera survey comes first. Do the proofing once activity has stopped and the entry points are confirmed, so you do not trap animals inside.

People often assume the council will deal with pests for free. In most of London it will not. Barking and Dagenham says all its treatments are chargeable and must be paid in full before it attends. Hounslow says it offers no reduction for people on lower incomes or benefits. Redbridge may cut the fee by 50% for domestic occupiers receiving 85% or more Council Tax benefit, so that is worth asking about.

There are real exceptions. Tower Hamlets lists rats inside a domestic property as free, and Newham says there is no charge to residents for rat treatment in homes. Some social tenants get pests treated at no direct cost in both boroughs. If you live in Tower Hamlets or Newham and you have rats indoors, call the council first.

These pest control charges change, and not every council treats every pest, so check your own borough's page on the day. The cost of pest control through a council can also differ for council tenants, private tenants and owners. The table shows what five London tariffs said when we read them.

Price is only one part of this choice. The council wins when treatment is free or cheap and you can wait. Private pest control wins when you need someone sooner, want proofing done on the same job, or want evening or Saturday contact. Barking and Dagenham says staffing shortages mean its earliest appointments are several weeks away. Tower Hamlets takes calls from 9am to 5pm on weekdays. Our phone lines are open Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm.

Compare what happens if the pest returns as well. Redbridge offers a free repeat visit within four weeks if a correctly carried out treatment fails. Tower Hamlets says in its terms that it will keep treating until the pest is eliminated. Our 2-visit and 3-visit packages carry written guarantees of one and three months. Each promise is different, so read the wording and not just the headline.

Watch for fees that do not appear in the main price too. Hounslow charges £43 for an aborted visit where no work is carried out, and Lambeth charges £63.60 for a missed or cancelled appointment. Tower Hamlets asks for 48 hours' notice if you cannot make your slot, and says no refund can be made if you have paid and are not there.

Work through the path below in order. If you rent, stop at the first step until your landlord has answered, because the right person to pay may not be you.

A trap or a bottle of ant gel costs much less than any exterminator prices in this guide, and for a small problem that can be the right call. Citizens Advice notes that in some cases you can use traps or insecticides yourself. A trail of garden ants, or one mouse in a home with no droppings anywhere else, is a reasonable place to start.

Bed bugs are the clearest case for not trying. The NHS says it is very difficult to get rid of them yourself, because they are hard to find and may resist some insecticides, and it advises contacting your council or a pest control service. The self-help steps it lists, such as hot washing, are unlikely to clear them completely. Money spent on sprays is often money you then spend again on treatment.

Leave wasp nests alone. Do not block, spray or knock down an active nest. If someone stung has swelling of the lips, mouth, throat or tongue, is struggling to breathe, or faints and cannot be woken, the NHS says to call 999.

Rodent poison is another reason to think twice. From 1 January 2026, sellers of professional rodenticides accept only certified proof of competence under the CRRU UK scheme, so the products a pest controller uses are not ones you can simply buy. Loose bait can also harm children, pets and wildlife, so keep any bait product you do use to its label and in a locked bait box. Our recommendation is simple: try one small DIY step for ants or a single mouse. If you still see signs after two weeks, or you see rats or any droppings in a food area, book a professional. Our guides on getting rid of mice and getting rid of rats go through the steps.

A proper quote lets you compare two firms without ringing either of them back. It should be in writing, even if that is only a text or an email, and it should name each of these things. If one is missing, ask for it before you agree.

Written detail matters legally as well as practically. Under section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, what a trader says or writes about a service can become part of the contract if you relied on it when you decided to go ahead. So a promised second visit in a text message is worth keeping. Under section 51, if no price was fixed, you pay a reasonable price and no more, though what is reasonable can be argued about. It is far easier to agree the figure first.

If a contract is made at your home and the service costs £42 or more, Citizens Advice says you usually get a 14-day cooling-off period. There is a catch for pest control, where you often want work to start straight away. If you ask for work to begin during those 14 days and then cancel, you will probably have to pay for what has been done.

VAT is another detail that can shift a comparison. A business must register once its taxable turnover goes over £90,000, GOV.UK says, so a small sole trader may not charge it at all and a larger firm has to. Councils often quote commercial work plus VAT: Redbridge lists commercial rodent work from £280 plus VAT. Always compare two prices on the same VAT basis.

Most pest controllers are honest, and a low price is not suspicious on its own. These are the patterns worth stopping for. Any one of them is a reason to get a second quote before you agree anything.

Do not book or pay anything until you have told your landlord or agent in writing, with photos. Citizens Advice says a landlord is usually responsible only once they know about the problem, so that message starts the clock. It does not matter whether the infestation was there when you moved in or appeared later.

Citizens Advice says your landlord will probably be responsible if the tenancy agreement says so, if a failure to repair caused it, or if it makes the home unsafe. You may have to deal with it if you caused it, for example through rubbish left out. GOV.UK's How to Rent a Safe Home guide puts it in similar terms, excluding problems caused by a tenant's lifestyle. Tower Hamlets adds a case many tenants miss: in a furnished home, pests that were there before your tenancy began are the landlord's to deal with. It says a responsible landlord should pay for the specialist, seal the entry points and repair the damage.

The legal backstop is section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which requires a rented home in England to be fit for human habitation, unless the problem is wholly or mainly down to the tenant's own breach. If your landlord will not act, ask the council's environmental health team for help. The council can use the housing hazard rules, or a notice under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949, which can require treatment or structural works. Citizens Advice notes that private tenants may have to pay for council pest control.

Awaab's Law timescales differ by landlord. Citizens Advice says council and housing association landlords must make a home safe within 24 hours if an infestation is an emergency hazard. It does not yet cover private renters: the government's consultation on extending it runs until 18 December 2026, and the page gives no start date. If you are moving out after a pest problem, keep the treatment record and read our end of tenancy cleaning checklist.

If you own a rental, treat pest control as a repair cost and act on the first report. A tenant's message starts your responsibility, and a council notice under section 4 of the 1949 Act can require structural repairs. Paying for a 2-visit treatment now is likely to cost far less than repairing damage and answering an enforcement notice later. Tower Hamlets says its officers report proofing work they see needed in a landlord's property, and tenants can involve its housing team if the work is not done.

Keep a simple file for each property: the report date, the written quote, the safety report, and the proofing done. It helps you show what you did, and it helps at check-out. If you manage several properties, ask about pest control contracts for ongoing cover.

Businesses pay a different rate. Council domestic prices do not apply: Redbridge lists commercial rodent treatment from £280 plus VAT, and Hounslow charges commercial work at £91.67 per hour plus materials and VAT. If you run a food business, keep every treatment record. Our commercial pest control page explains what we need to know to quote.

One legal point applies to any occupier. Section 3 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 says that if you know rats or mice are living on or visiting your land in substantial numbers, you must tell the council in writing, unless the land is agricultural. Failing to do so is an offence. A single mouse is not what this is aimed at, but a large infestation is.

You do not need to know the pest before you contact us. Tell us what you have seen, which rooms are affected, how many bedrooms you have and your postcode, and send a photo if you can. We confirm the price, visits and inclusions in writing before booking, so you can set our figure against any other quote.

Our starting prices are £69 for ants, £89 for fleas, £90 for a wasp nest, £99 for mice, £109 for rats, £119 for cockroaches and £149 for bed bugs in one room, plus £45 for each extra room and £79 for each follow-up visit. Packages for a one-bed property are £160 to £190 for two visits, with a 1-month written guarantee, and £210 to £230 for three visits, with a 3-month written guarantee. Packages include follow-up and proofing advice, and you get a safety report. Our prices page has the full list, and our Ilford pest control page sets our prices beside Redbridge's line by line.

We are based on Clements Road in Ilford, cover London, and carry public liability insurance. Our phone lines are open Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm. If you are still unsure what you are dealing with, see all our pest control services or contact us and we will tell you what to ask for.