How many UK takeaways have a 0 or 1-star food hygiene rating?

1,410 of 52,213 rated UK takeaways and sandwich shops (2.7%) hold a 0 or 1-star Food Standards Agency hygiene rating — 165 at 0 stars and 1,245 at 1 star. These are the two lowest marks the FSA gives.

Are takeaways the worst food businesses for hygiene in the UK?

Takeaways and sandwich shops have a lower top-marks rate than restaurants: 61% of 52,213 rated takeaways hold a 5-star rating, versus 75.3% of 117,909 rated restaurants and cafes. Takeaways sit near the bottom of every high-street food business type for 5-star pass rate, based on official FSA data.

Does a low hygiene rating mean a takeaway is unsafe?

No. A 0 or 1-star Food Standards Agency rating means major improvement was needed in hygienic food handling, cleanliness, or management of food safety at the last inspection — not that anyone has been harmed. Most low-rated premises are re-inspected and improve. The rating reflects the inspection snapshot, not an ongoing verdict.

What share of UK takeaways pass their hygiene inspection?

61% of rated UK takeaways and sandwich shops (31,855 of 52,213) hold the top 5-star rating, and 2.7% sit at 0 or 1 star. The average takeaway rating is 4.33 out of 5.

UK Takeaway Hygiene 2026 — Cities With the Most 0 & 1-Star Takeaways (Real FSA Data) | GeraEats

The headline

1,410 UK takeaways hold a 0 or 1-star food hygiene rating.

Of 52,213 rated takeaways and sandwich shops in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 1,410 (2.7%) sit at the bottom of the scale — 165 rated 0 stars and 1,245 rated 1 star. Just 61% of takeaways hold the top 5-star rating, against 75.3% of restaurants and cafes — making takeaways one of the worst-scoring food business types on the UK high street.

Takeaways score worse than restaurants

The share of premises holding each star rating, takeaways vs restaurants & cafes, across the whole FSA register.

Rating	Takeaways & sandwich shops	Restaurants & cafes
5★ (Very Good)	61% (31,855)	75.3% (88,807)
4★	20% (10,432)	14.4% (16,973)
3★	13.3% (6,940)	6.9% (8,085)
2★	3% (1,576)	1.8% (2,126)
1★	2.4% (1,245)	1.4% (1,639)
0★ (Urgent improvement needed)	0.3% (165)	0.2% (279)

See the full head-to-head: Takeaways vs Restaurants: which is cleaner? →

UK cities with the most 0 & 1-star takeaways

Local authorities ranked by the number of rated takeaways holding a 0 or 1-star rating. Each links to its full GeraEats hygiene directory. Data as of 2026-06-16.

#	Local authority	0-1★ takeaways	Share	Rated takeaways
1	Birmingham	74	8.6%	856
2	Manchester	35	5.9%	593
3	Hillingdon	31	11.4%	272
4	Liverpool	29	6.1%	476
5	Bolton	26	7.8%	334
6	Newham	26	7.4%	350
7	Camden	26	4.2%	620
8	Ealing	24	9.3%	257
9	Waltham Forest	24	9.2%	260
10	Redbridge	18	6%	301
11	Doncaster	18	5.7%	317
12	Sandwell	18	4.5%	399
13	Bury	17	7.5%	227
14	Wigan	16	4.6%	348
15	Durham	16	3%	533
16	Enfield	15	5.8%	258
17	Walsall	14	5.2%	269
18	Kirklees	14	2.6%	542
19	Ashfield	13	11.6%	112
20	North Yorkshire	13	2.9%	446

A higher count partly reflects a larger high street — bigger cities have more takeaways overall. The share column controls for that: it is the percentage of a city's rated takeaways that sit at 0 or 1 star. Of 52,213 rated takeaways nationally, 1,410 are at 0 or 1 star.

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Cite this report

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Citation

GeraEats (2026). UK Takeaway Hygiene 2026. Retrieved from https://geraeats.com/reports/uk-takeaway-hygiene-2026

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<blockquote>1,410 of 52,213 rated UK takeaways (2.7%) hold a 0 or 1-star food hygiene rating (FSA data, 2026-06-12) — <a href="https://geraeats.com/reports/uk-takeaway-hygiene-2026">UK Takeaway Hygiene 2026</a>, GeraEats.</blockquote>

Go deeper

UK Food Hygiene Report 2026 — cleanest & dirtiest major UK cities.
Takeaways vs Restaurants: which is cleaner? — the head-to-head comparison.
UK Food Hygiene by Business Type 2026 — every food business type ranked.
UK Food Hygiene Ratings Directory — the full dataset, browsable by authority and postcode.

Methodology

National takeaway figures are computed directly from the Food Standards Agency Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) public register, restricted to the FSA business type Takeaway/sandwich shop in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that carry a published 0-5 rating: 52,213 rated premises, generated 2026-06-12. Percentages are over rated takeaways only (premises awaiting inspection or exempt are excluded). Scotland uses a separate pass/fail scheme and is not included in the 0-5 figures. The per-local-authority league table is the same data grouped by the FSA's localAuthority field and ranked by count of 0 and 1-star takeaways. No figures are estimated or modelled. A 0 or 1-star rating reflects the last inspection and does not by itself mean a premises is currently unsafe.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Food hygiene ratings are sourced from the Food Standards Agency at ratings.food.gov.uk. Ratings reflect the most recent inspection on record and may have changed since publication.