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Wetherspoon Annual Pre-Tax Profit Falls 28% as Chairman Blames Tax Rises

Wetherspoon’s annual profit fell 28% as wage, repair and business rate costs rose, though the pub group says the new financial year has started strongly, with recent like-for-like sales up 8.6%.

JD Wetherspoons pub location
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J D Wetherspoon (JDW.L), the pub operator, reported a 28% fall in annual profit before tax and separately disclosed items to £58.6m today. The measure strips out one-off or non-core accounting gains and charges, and compares with £81.4m a year earlier, for the 52 weeks to 26 July 2026.

The London market opens at 08:00. The shares closed yesterday at 813p, about 22.5% above the 663.5p of a year earlier. Since early August they have traded between roughly 770p and 850p, and the one-year closing low is 555.5p, set in March.

The company reported a 5.3% cost increase, including £46m more on wages, £31m on repairs and £9m on business rates. Sales rose 5.2% to £2,238m, and like-for-like sales, which count only pubs open throughout both periods, grew 4.2% over the year.

Operating margin, which is operating profit as a share of sales, slipped to 5.37% from 6.88%. Earnings per share before separately disclosed items fell to 42.4p from 50.8p.

Bar chart of Wetherspoon profit before tax and separately disclosed items, rising from a £30.4m loss in FY2022 to £81.4m in FY2025 before falling to £58.6m in FY2026.
Wetherspoon profit before tax and separately disclosed items, £m, financial years 2022 to 2026. Source: company results.

Chairman Tim Martin blamed government-led tax and regulatory increases for the squeeze:

The hospitality industry, as many commentators and companies have noted, has borne the brunt of government-led tax and regulatory cost increases, especially in the last two budgets. This has resulted in pubs becoming even more expensive than supermarkets, leading to job losses, closures and high street dereliction.

Tim Martin, Chairman, J D Wetherspoon plc

Trading has since improved. Like-for-like sales rose 8.6% in the nine weeks to 27 September 2026. August growth of 7.7% compared with 0.8% for the industry, on the NIQ RSM tracker. Martin said the good start to the year was “at least partially due to weather, which will inevitably revert to the norm”.

The company said FY27 profit before tax and separately disclosed items should be in line with current market expectations, which its own compilation puts at £74m, in a 53-week year. The total dividend is held at 12.0p, with an 8.0p final due on the 26th of November to holders on the register on the 23rd of October.

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