Thurrock Council is the local authority for the borough of Thurrock in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. Since 1998 the council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council. It is a member of the East of England Local Government Association. The council is based in Grays.

In 2022 the council's level of debt arising from failed investments led to it issuing a Section 114 notice, being the local authority equivalent of declaring bankruptcy. The government directed neighbouring Essex County Council to take over Thurrock's finances and also appointed a new managing director for the council.

Thurrock Urban District had been created in 1936 from the former urban districts of Grays Thurrock, Purfleet and Tilbury and the Orsett Rural District.

Urban districts were abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. A new non-metropolitan district called Thurrock was created covering almost the same area as the former Thurrock Urban District, with just a minor change on the border with Basildon to place the whole designated area for Basildon new town in that district. The reformed Thurrock district was given borough status at the same time, allowing the council to call itself "Thurrock Borough Council" and letting the chair of the council the title of mayor.

The council was made a unitary authority on 1 April 1998, taking over county-level services in the area from Essex County Council. The way the change was implemented was to create a new non-metropolitan county of Thurrock covering the borough, but with no separate county council; instead, the existing borough council took over county council functions, making it a unitary authority. Since 1998 the council has generally styled itself "Thurrock Council" rather than "Thurrock Borough Council". Thurrock remains part of the ceremonial county of Essex for the purposes of lieutenancy.

The planning function for large developments was exercised by the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation in the whole of the borough from 2003 to 2012.

In 2020, it emerged that the council had borrowed £420 million to buy into the solar power market, eventually rising to a total investment of £655 million. One of the companies in which the council had invested, Toucan Energy, went into administration on 11 November 2022. Businessman Liam Kavanagh is accused of cheating the council out of as much as £130 million in relation to the deals. Thurrock also made a £94 million loan to the Just Loans Group plc, a business lender which went bankrupt in June 2022.

On 2 September 2022, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities intervened in the running of Thurrock Council, passing financial control of the council to Essex County Council, as well as ordering a Best Value Inspection, in response to concerns about the council's level of financial risk and debt. The council's financial exposure arises from loans of more than a billion pounds used to fund commercial investments. Council leader Rob Gledhill resigned on 2 September 2022, the day the government intervention was announced.