Reliefs and reductions
Pages in Reliefs and reductions
- 1. Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Relief
- 2. Public Toilet Relief
- 3. Improvement Relief
- 4. Supporting Small Businesses
- 5. You are here: Small Business Rate Relief
- 6. Mandatory Charitable Rate Relief
- 7. Discretionary Rate Relief
- 8. Community Amateur Sports Club Relief
- 9. Hardship Relief
- 10. Partly Occupied Property Relief
- 11. Unoccupied Property Relief
- 12. Film Studio Relief
- 13. Pub Relief Discount
- 14. Business Rates Flooding Relief
- 15. Relief for Newspapers
5. Small Business Rate Relief
Ratepayers who are not entitled to another mandatory relief or are liable for unoccupied property rates and occupy a property with a 2017 rateable value which does not exceed £50,999 will have their bill calculated using the lower small business non-domestic rating multiplier, rather than the national non-domestic rating multiplier. In addition, generally, if the sole or main property is shown on the 2017 rating list with a rateable value which does not exceed £15,000, the ratepayer will receive a percentage reduction in their rates bill for this property of up to a maximum of 100%. For a property with a rateable value of not more than £12,000, the ratepayer will receive a 100% reduction in their bills.
Generally, this percentage reduction is only available to ratepayers who occupy either (a) one property, or (b) one main property and other additional properties providing those additional properties each have a rateable value which does not exceed £2,899. The rateable value of the property mentioned in (a), or the aggregate rateable value in (b), must not exceed £19,999 outside London or £27,999 in London.
Scheme funding
The scheme is funded through a supplement built into the standard non-domestic rating multiplier.
Change of circumstances notification
The ratepayer is required to notify the billing authority, within four weeks, of any change in circumstances, which could affect their entitlement to small business rate relief. Failure to meet this requirement will bring the existing relief to a retrospective end and any new relief will only apply from the receipt date of a new claim.
In addition a further application is required where there is occupation of an additional property in England. The ratepayer must also give written notification to the billing authority where a change in the rateable value of any property not in that area has occurred.
The Government has introduced additional support to small businesses. For those businesses that take on an additional property which would normally have meant the loss of small business rate relief, the Government has confirmed that they will be allowed to keep that relief for a period of 12 months.