Money off your Business Rates

The most you can claim in each tax year is £110,000 per business or £315,000 over 3 years.

From 1st April 2026 the government is introducing two lower business rates multipliers for RHL properties (hereditaments) with rateable values (RVs) below £500,000:

• Small business RHL multiplier – For RHL hereditaments with RVs under £51,000           43.2p 

• Standard RHL multiplier – For RHL hereditaments with RVs between £51,000 and £499,999  38.2p

Qualifying Businesses include 

the retail sale or hire of goods

• Shops
• Supermarkets
• Charity shops
• Shopping centres
• Motorway service stations
• Florists
• Bakers
• Butchers
• Grocers
• Greengrocers
• Jewellers
• Stationers
• Off licences
• Chemists
• Opticians
• Newsagents
• Hardware stores
• Markets
• Petrol stations
• Garden centres
• Furniture shops/display rooms
• Car/caravan show rooms (including those for second-hand vehicles)
• Art galleries where art is for sale/hire
• Hereditaments from which domestic goods are hired
• Hereditaments from which tools are hired
• Hereditaments from which cars are hired
• Hereditaments from which bicycles are hired

the provision of a service

• Funeral directors
• Launderettes
• Hair and beauty salons (for instance, hairdressers, nail bars, beauty salons, tanning shops, salons carrying out non-surgical cosmetic procedures, and salons carrying out piercings)
• Tattooists
• Garages
• Shoe repairers
• Key cutters
• Dry cleaners
• PC/TV/Domestic appliance repairers
• Photo processers
• Post offices (excluding post office sorting offices and post depots where customers can only collect missed deliveries)
• Travel agents
• Ticket offices (e.g. for the theatre)
• Animal grooming parlours/stabling of animals (unless stabling working animals, such as professional racehorses, as these would not be open to visiting members of the public)

 use for the sale of food or drink, where the food or drink is for consumption on or off the hereditament by visiting members of the public

• Restaurants
• Takeaways (providing that the hereditament is generally open to visiting members of the public, even if the majority of their sales are online and/or done by delivery)
• Sandwich shops
• Coffee shops
• Cafes
• Pubs
• Bars

use as a hotel or as a boarding or guest house by members of the public, provided that no significant element of nursing care is provided as part of the services provided by the hotel, boarding house or guest house

 use as a caravan park, campsite, self-catering accommodation or holiday home by members of the public

• Hotels
• Boarding/guest houses
• B&Bs
• Holiday homes
• Apartments used for short-term lets (including serviced apartments where they are within scope of business rates)
• Caravan parks
• Campsites

use for the provision of cultural, community or recreational facilities, to visiting members of the public

• Live music venues
• Nightclubs
• Cinemas
• Theatres
• Libraries
• Museums
• Galleries
• Archives
• Stately homes/historic houses
• Tourist information centres
• Public halls/village halls
• Venues for hire for events or activities, where the events and activities are principally for the benefit of visiting members of the public
• Premises used wholly or mainly for meetings by voluntary associations
• Premises used by youth groups for meetings and activities, such as scout huts
• Premises used for lectures or lessons undertaken for recreational purposes (such as art classes, pottery classes, language lessons and performing arts classes)
• Sport and leisure facilities, such as gyms, sports grounds, and sports clubs
• Health spas, wellness centres, and massage parlours
• Casinos, gambling clubs, and bingo halls
• Theme parks
• Soft play centres
• Marinas
• Hereditaments used for activities such as bowling, laser tag, paintballing, escape rooms, and miniature golf
• Zoos
• Swimming pools (unless exclusively used by professional athletes, as these would not be open to visiting members of the public)
• Skating rinks (unless exclusively used by professional athletes, as these would not be open to visiting members of the public)

Examples of Excluded Hereditaments

• Financial services (such as banks, building societies, cash points, bureaux de changes, short-term loan providers, insurance agents, financial advisers)
• Medical and health services (such as medicine, dentistry, audiology/hearing services, cosmetic surgery, physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic services, acupuncture, herbal medicine)
• Professional services (such as law, accountancy, tax advice, management consultancy, engineering services, architectural or surveying services, veterinary services, estate agency work, letting agency work)
• Storage and distribution of goods for online sales (i.e. warehouses)
  • Please note that this means warehouses for online distributors are excluded, even if there is a small part of the warehouse that is open to visiting members of the public for in-person sales. However, where the hereditament is wholly or mainly used for the sale of retail goods to visiting members of the public, the hereditament remains inside the definition of RHL, even if the hereditament is also used for online/click-and-collect services.
• Recording studios and film studios for business or professional use
• Crematoria
• Taxi/minicab firms
• Show homes
• Conference centres
• Betting shops
• Postal sorting offices
• Citizens’ advice bureaus
• Job centres
• Wharfs, piers and jetties
• Car parks
• Public transport hereditaments other than bicycle docking stations (such as bus/coach stations, bus/tram shelters, railway stations, tramway stations, airports, ferry ports, riverboat services, including piers used for river services)
• Schools, creches, nurseries, colleges, and universities (as they are not open to visiting members of the public)
• Hereditaments used for the production of alcohol (such as breweries), unless wholly or mainly open to visiting members of the public (e.g. mainly used as a bar and/or for providing tours to the public, with the production of alcohol being ancillary to this)
• Film and theatre production companies (as they are not open to visiting members of the public)