Pay your business rates online
The 2024/25 Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Rates Relief scheme will provide eligible, occupied, retail, hospitality and leisure properties with a 75% relief, up to a cash cap limit of £110,000 per business. You must inform us if you exceed this limit. The aforementioned relief will end with effect 31 March 2025.
What are Business Rates
Non-Domestic Rates, or business rates, collected by local authorities are the way that those who occupy non-domestic property contribute towards the cost of local services.
Under the business rates retention arrangements introduced from 1st April 2013, authorities keep a proportion of the business rates paid locally. The money, together with revenue from council tax payers, locally generated income and grants from central government, is used to pay for the services provided by local authorities in your area.
Further information about the business rates system may be obtained on the gov.uk website.
Businesses who occupy, or have entitlement to occupy, a commercial premises will be liable to pay business rates.
How are business rates calculated?
The local authority works out the business rates bill for a property by multiplying the rateable value of the property by the appropriate non-domestic multiplier.
There are two multipliers: the standard nondomestic rating multiplier and the small business nondomestic rating multiplier. The Government sets the multipliers for each financial year. Ratepayers who occupy a property with a rateable value which does not exceed £50,999 (and who are neither entitled to certain other mandatory relief[s] nor liable for unoccupied property rates) will have their bills calculated using the lower small business nondomestic rating multiplier, rather than the standard non-domestic rating multiplier. Below are multipliers for the current and previous years.
|
Year |
Small Business Multiplier |
Standard Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
|
2024/25 |
0.499 | 0.546 |
|
2023/24 |
0.499 | 0.512 |
|
2022/23 |
0.499 |
0.512 |
|
2021/22 |
0.499 |
0.512 |
|
2019/20 |
0.491 |
0.504 |
Apart from properties that are exempt from business rates, each non-domestic property has a rateable value which is set by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), an agency of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. They compile and maintain a full list of all rateable values, available at www.gov.uk/voa.
The rateable value of your property is shown on the front of your bill. This broadly represents the yearly rent the property could have been let for on the open market on a particular date specified in legislation. For the current rating list, this date was set as 1st April 2015. The VOA may alter the valuation if circumstances change. The ratepayer (and certain others who have an interest in the property) can also check and challenge the valuation shown in the list if they believe it is wrong.
Further information about the grounds on which challenges may be made and the process for doing so can be obtained by contacting the VOA, or by consulting the VOA website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/valuation-office-agency
