Businesses across the country are spending an additional £6bn a year under the Conservative government as they battle with red tape, according to the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS).
Tory policies have upped expenses to £35bn a year in today's money although some of that has been accompanied by offsetting gains, according to the study.
The right-leaning think tank has scrutinised more than 3,500 pieces of legislation passed between 2010 and 2019 and is critical of the government's failure to properly asses new regulatory costs.
The government claimed that the plastic bag tax introduced at supermarkets was a "deregulatory" measure that would result in £1bn of regulatory savings across parliament.
'Glaring flaws' in regulation
The report, titled "The Future of Regulation" found the annual net increase of £6bn is equivalent to a two-pence rise in corporation tax.
That's despite promises to shrink the regulatory burden.
The report also warns that its figures were an underestimate as a result of "glaring flaws in our regulatory regime including significant errors or miscalculations".
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the only government department to have had a full audit of the regulations it has imposed.
Robert Colvile, director of the CPS, said: "We simply do not know what regulations successive governments have imposed, or what their impact on the economy is - and the picture gets more blurry with every new measure.
"We need to do far more to monitor both the stock and flow of regulation - and to make ill-considered rules both harder to pass and easier to remove."
John Penrose, former government anti-corruption champion, added: "Every pound of red tape costs has the same effect on our economic growth, jobs and exports as a pound taken through tax. But governments of every stripe behave as though it is free.
"Treating red tape costs as seriously as taxpayer-funded spending is long overdue."
'The price you pay for sovereignty'
Exporters have also been widely critical of the government since Brexit for financial losses from levies when trading with the EU.
A government source said: "It’s hard to argue with the findings of this Centre for Policy Studies report.
"Successive governments have been guilty of regulating as a first choice, rather than a last resort - as Kemi Badenoch noted in her speech to TheCityUK last week.
"But as of 1 January this year we have scrapped over 2,000 EU laws, with many more to come; and started a smarter regulation programme that will reduce the burden on businesses."
Government minister Andrea Leadsom also hit back at criticism earlier this year, claiming it's the "price you pay for sovereignty".