Your Business Rates Bill Just Changed. Here Is What Happened.

If you run your business from any kind of physical premises, a shop, a salon, a cafe, an office, a workshop, your business rates bill changed on the 1st of April. Not by a small amount and not in a simple way.

The government overhauled the entire system. New multipliers, a full revaluation of every commercial property in England, and the end of the temporary relief that has been propping up retail and hospitality businesses since COVID. Some businesses will pay less. Some will pay more. Most will pay something different, and a lot of people I have spoken to have not looked yet.

This is the third "not a web design post" this month. We covered Making Tax Digital and employment law changes already. Same reason for writing this one: too many of you do not know about it yet, and the bill is either sitting on your doormat or about to arrive.

What actually changed#

Two things happened at once, which is why it is confusing.

First, every commercial property in England was revalued. The Valuation Office Agency reassessed the rateable value of every non-domestic property based on market rental values as of April 2024. The previous valuation was based on 2021 figures. If rents in your area have gone up since then, your rateable value probably went up too. If they went down, yours might have dropped. Either way, it is different from what it was.

Second, the multiplier system was completely replaced. Until March, there were two multipliers: a small business one and a standard one. Now there are five. The rate you pay per pound of rateable value depends on two things: whether your property is classed as retail, hospitality, or leisure (RHL), and how high your rateable value is.

The five new rates#

Here is the full picture for 2026/27.

For properties with a rateable value under £51,000:

• Retail, hospitality, and leisure: 38.2p in the pound
• Everything else: 43.2p in the pound

For properties with a rateable value between £51,000 and £499,999:

• Retail, hospitality, and leisure: 43.0p in the pound
• Everything else: 48.0p in the pound

For properties with a rateable value of £500,000 or more:

• All types: 50.8p in the pound

If you run a shop, cafe, restaurant, pub, hotel, gym, or leisure venue with a rateable value under £51,000, you are on the lowest rate. That is a permanent discount built into the system, not a temporary handout that gets renewed every year. For most small premises in that category, this is actually better than what came before.

The temporary relief is gone#

This is the part that will catch some people out.

Since the pandemic, the government has been running a temporary 40% retail, hospitality, and leisure relief, capped at £110,000 per business. It was renewed annually, always at the last minute, and always with uncertainty about whether it would continue. That relief ended on the 31st of March 2026. It is not coming back.

In its place, RHL properties get the lower multipliers described above. For many small RHL businesses the maths works out roughly similar or slightly better. The government says the new permanent RHL rates are worth nearly £1 billion a year across more than 750,000 properties. But the key word is "across." Your individual bill depends entirely on your specific rateable value, and if that went up in the revaluation, the lower multiplier might not fully offset it.

Small Business Rate Relief still exists#

If your property has a rateable value of £12,000 or less and it is your only business premises, you still pay nothing. Zero. That has not changed.

Between £12,001 and £15,000, you get tapered relief that slides from 100% down to 0%. Above £15,000, you are into the multiplier rates above.

If you have been on full Small Business Rate Relief and your rateable value just went above £12,000 because of the revaluation, you have gone from paying nothing to paying something. That is the kind of surprise that makes April an expensive month.

Transitional relief caps the pain#

The government knows that revaluations create winners and losers, so there is a transitional relief scheme worth £3.2 billion designed to phase in large increases gradually. The key rule for small businesses: your bill cannot go up by more than £800 per year, or the relevant percentage cap, whichever is higher.

That means even if your rateable value jumped significantly, the actual hit to your bank account this year is limited. But it is limited, not eliminated. The increase is spread over multiple years, not forgiven. If your rateable value went up by a lot, you will feel it over the next two to three years as the cap phases in the full amount.

Extra help for pubs and music venues#

If you run a pub or a live music venue, you get an additional 15% relief on top of the RHL multiplier for this year. Your bills will then be frozen in real terms for 2027/28 and 2028/29. That is three years of relative stability, which is the most certainty the sector has had in a while.

What counts as retail, hospitality, or leisure#

This matters because the RHL multiplier is 5p cheaper per pound of rateable value than the non-RHL one for small properties.

The definition includes shops, restaurants, cafes, pubs, bars, takeaways, cinemas, gyms, hotels, B&Bs, holiday lets, and leisure facilities. It also includes hairdressers, beauticians, and similar service businesses operating from a shop-front premises.

It does not include offices, warehouses, factories, or workshops, even if they serve retail customers. A plumber's office is not RHL. A barber shop is. If you are not sure where your property falls, your local council should be able to tell you which multiplier they have applied.

What to do this week#

1. Check your new rateable value. Go to the Valuation Office Agency website and look up your property. Your rateable value for 2026 is listed there. Compare it to what it was before. If it went up, that is the revaluation at work, and it directly affects your bill.

2. Check your bill. When it arrives, or if it has already arrived, make sure the right multiplier has been applied. If you are an RHL property and you have been charged at the non-RHL rate, that is wrong and you need to tell your council.

3. Check your relief. If you were on Small Business Rate Relief or the old RHL temporary relief, check whether you still qualify for something. The rules have changed but the reliefs have not disappeared entirely.

4. Consider challenging your rateable value. If you think the VOA got it wrong, you can use the Check, Challenge, Appeal process on their website. Start with "Check" to see how they arrived at the figure. If comparable properties in your area have lower rateable values, or if your property has issues that should reduce its value, a challenge may be worth it. These take time, but if successful, the correction is backdated.

5. Talk to your accountant. If you are a limited company, business rates are a deductible expense. If you are a sole trader now on Making Tax Digital, the quarterly reporting means these costs flow through your records more frequently. Either way, make sure the new figure is in your forecasts.

The bigger picture#

This is the fourth set of April changes we have written about this month. MTD, employment law, late payment rules, and now business rates. Each one individually is manageable. Stacked together, they represent a serious increase in the cost and complexity of running a small business in 2026.

The FSB estimates that 87% of small firms are seeing costs rise compared to last year, with over a quarter reporting double-digit increases. If that matches your experience, you are not imagining it. April 2026 is one of the most expensive months for regulatory change that small businesses have faced in years.

None of this means the sky is falling. But it does mean the margin for getting your admin wrong is thinner than it used to be. An afternoon checking your rates bill, your payroll, and your tax reporting setup is an afternoon well spent. The businesses that stay on top of this stuff quietly do well. The ones that ignore it until there is a problem are the ones that get hurt.