Office rates in Bath & North East Somerset run from £315 per square metreThe value per square metre used to build up a property's Rateable Value. Comparing your £/m² rate to similar nearby properties is the main way to check whether your RV looks too high. on South Quays down to £80 on High Street, against a area median of £195. The median office is assessed at £11,250, below the £12,000 threshold at which Small Business Rate Relief covers the whole bill — so 51.5% of offices here pay no business rates at all.
How an office is valued
Offices are valued on floor area, not on frontage. The Valuation OfficeThe government body that sets every property's Rateable Value. From April 2026 the VOA is part of HMRC (see below), but 'VOA' is still the common name for the valuation side of the work. measures the net internal area — the usable space inside, excluding lifts, stairs, plant rooms and structural walls — and applies a rate per square metre for that building and that location. Car parking, stores and any air conditioning are added or adjusted on top.
This is the opposite of how a shop is valued. A shop's worth hangs off the first 6.1 metres behind the window and halves as you go back, so two identical floor areas can differ by a fifth on shape alone. An office of a given size is worth what the rate says it is worth, which makes the rate itself the thing to check.
Top office locations in Bath & North East Somerset
A pitch here is a street within one postcode district, because that is closer to how the rate is actually set than a street name is. Bath & North East Somerset has 28 pitches carrying ten or more offices, covering 490 of its 1,104 office assessments.
| Pitch | Offices | Median RV | £/m² NIA | Range | Below £12,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gay Street (BA1) | 51 | £8,200 | £281 | £180–£312 | 78% |
| Walcot Street (BA1) | 32 | £16,250 | £225 | £165–£300 | 31% |
| Queen Square (BA1) | 32 | £11,875 | £265 | £255–£318 | 50% |
| Lower Bristol Road (BA2) | 28 | £42,125 | £205 | £134–£258 | 11% |
| South Quays (BA2) | 27 | £33,000 | £315 | £215–£340 | 7% |
| Charles Street (BA1) | 25 | £7,000 | £195 | £180–£216 | 92% |
| Riverside Road (BA2) | 25 | £42,750 | £231 | £160–£315 | 12% |
| Milsom Street (BA1) | 20 | £9,600 | £189 | £180–£260 | 60% |
| Ashton Hill (BA2) | 19 | £12,500 | £145 | £140–£170 | 42% |
| Green Park Road (BA1) | 18 | £1,125 | £198 | £198–£198 | 100% |
| Upper Bristol Road (BA1) | 18 | £19,375 | £195 | £155–£215 | 33% |
| Manvers Street (BA1) | 16 | £119,000 | £224 | £180–£270 | 25% |
| James Street West (BA1) | 16 | £16,125 | £215 | £154–£232 | 25% |
| Northumberland Buildings (BA1) | 13 | £6,900 | £195 | £173–£216 | 54% |
| Eastcourt Road (BS39) | 13 | £1,200 | £135 | £73–£135 | 100% |
| Charlotte Street (BA1) | 12 | £35,625 | £215 | £165–£260 | 8% |
| High Street (BA1) | 11 | £23,250 | £250 | £151–£300 | 36% |
| Brock Street (BA1) | 11 | £6,000 | £178 | £165–£215 | 82% |
| Old Bond Street (BA1) | 11 | £8,700 | £195 | £180–£260 | 91% |
| Monmouth Street (BA1) | 11 | £4,950 | £276 | £180–£276 | 82% |
For more pitch and market data, please get in touch directly via the feedback form, or check your property rates with our finder.
The same street, different rate
A rate per square metre reflects the building as much as the street: age, floorplate, lift provision, whether it has been refurbished. Riverside Road in BA2 carries 25 offices assessed between £160 and £315 per square metre — a 2.0-fold range on one pitch. A tired floor in an older building sitting near the top of that range is worth questioning.
Each bar spans the lowest and highest Zone A rate recorded on that pitch. Shared scale, running to £340 per m².
Why an office assessment goes wrong
The area is measured wrong
Net internal area excludes lifts, stairs, plant and structural walls. Where those have been counted in, or where a floor has been sub-divided since the survey, the area on the valuation is larger than the space you actually occupy.
Check the recorded area against a current measured survey.
The rate belongs to a better building
Gay Street carries 51 offices on a single median rate. A rate set by refurbished space applied to an unimproved floor above a shop is the commonest error in this sector.
Compare your rate with the rest of your pitch before anything else.
Quality adjustments are missing
No lift above two floors, no air conditioning, poor natural light, awkward floorplates — all of these attract an allowance, and all of them are easy for a mass valuation to miss.
List what the building lacks, not only what it has.
Space is empty or unusable
Offices left empty attract empty property relief for a period, and space that cannot be occupied at all may come out of the assessment entirely. Neither happens automatically.
Tell the council about empty space; tell the VOA about unusable space.
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General information, not financial or legal advice. Independent service — not endorsed by the VOA or HMRC. Official rateable values and formal decisions come only from the VOA/HMRC. England only.