Where Does Your Coffee Money Go?

☕ Local vs Global UK Focus

Each coffee: £5.00

For a £5 coffee in a typical UK-owned independent café, a rough breakdown might look like this:

Where your £5 goes Local café

👩‍🍳 Wages & staff costs Stays in UK

£2.00

🥛 UK suppliers (milk, bread, services) Mostly UK

£1.50

🏛️ UK taxes & business rates UK public services

£0.75

💼 Profit for the owner Owner lives here

£0.75

Roughly £4.33–£4.50 of your £5 stays in the UK as wages, local bills, and profit that gets taxed here.

🔁

Money circulates locally

Staff spend their wages on UK rent, food, bills. The café pays UK suppliers and UK taxes.

🩺

Funding public services

Corporation tax, business rates and VAT help pay for NHS, schools, roads and everything else.

The same £5 coffee in a big multinational chain might look more like this:

Where your £5 goes Big global chain

👩‍🍳 Wages & UK shop costs Stays in UK

£2.00

🌐 Global supply chain Mixed

£1.33

💸 Brand fees & royalties Often overseas

£0.83

🏛️ UK profit taxed here Usually small

≈£0.17–£0.33

After paying brand fees, “management charges” and other internal costs, only a thin slice of profit may be taxed in the UK. More of the real profit shows up on accounts in low-tax countries.

✈️

Profit flies away

A chunk of what you pay can end up as royalties and fees to a parent company in a lower-tax country.

📉

Less tax, less UK benefit

The chain still uses the UK’s roads, police, NHS, but pays relatively less tax here than a similar-sized UK-only business.

How to keep more of your money working in the UK 🇬🇧

Pick local first. Independent cafés, bakeries and shops usually keep far more of each pound in the UK.

Check who owns the brand. Some “nice-looking” brands are just local faces for giant global groups.

Support fair-tax companies. Some firms publicly commit to paying the right tax in the right place.

Talk about it. Most people simply don’t realise that their everyday coffee choice affects tax and local jobs.

🧠 Simple explanation

No jargon

You don’t need an economics degree. Just remember this:

Local shop → money stays in UK wages, UK suppliers, UK taxes.
Global chain → more money leaks out to other countries.

Small number, big impact:
In the UK, a tiny share of very wealthy people and big companies pays a huge share of tax. When they shift profits or move abroad, the missing tax has to be made up by:

you paying more tax, or
you getting less public service.

It really is that simple:
Every time you choose a UK-owned local café over a giant chain, you are:

keeping more money in your local area,
supporting UK jobs and suppliers,
and helping fund UK public services.

Where does your £5 coffee actually go?

How to keep more of your money working in the UK 🇬🇧