Your rateable valueThe official estimate of a property's annual rental value on a fixed valuation date. Your rates bill is based on this figure, not on what you actually pay in rent. is not your bill. The bill is the rateable value multiplied by the government's rate — 43.2p in the pound below £51,000 for 2026/27 — minus any reliefs. A cut in rateable value does not always cut the bill by the same percentage, because crossing a threshold changes which multiplierThe pence-in-the-pound rate the government sets each year. Your rates bill is roughly Rateable Value × multiplier, before any reliefs are applied. and which reliefs apply.
The most common misunderstanding about business rates is that the rateable value is the bill. It is not. The rateable value is an estimate of annual rental value; the bill is worked out from it.
The arithmetic
Bill = rateable value × the multiplier, minus any reliefs. The multiplier is set by central government each year. For 2026/27 it is 43.2p in the pound below a rateable value of £51,000, 48.0p from £51,000, and 50.8p from £500,000. So a rateable value of £20,000 gives a gross bill of about £8,640, before any relief.
There is more than one multiplier
Which multiplier applies depends on the rateable value, and this is where the arithmetic stops being proportional:
- Below £51,000 rateable value, the lower small-business multiplier applies. This is automatic — it is not a relief you claim.
- At £51,000 and above, the standard multiplier applies.
- At £500,000 and above, a higher multiplier applies.
- Retail, hospitality and leisureA separate discount for qualifying shops, pubs, restaurants, cafés, gyms and similar businesses, on top of or instead of Small Business Rate Relief depending on your circumstances. properties have their own lower multipliers from April 2026, applied by the council based on how the property is used.
Reliefs, and the one that matters most
Small Business Rate ReliefA discount for smaller properties. Below a certain Rateable Value you pay nothing at all; above that there's a sliding-scale ('tapered') discount up to a higher threshold. is the big one. At £12,000 rateable value or less it can take the bill to nothing at all. Between £12,001 and £15,000 it tapers away on a sliding scale. Full relief generally applies where it is your only property; your council will confirm the position if you have more than one.
Other reliefs are worth asking about: charitable relief at 80%, rural relief, empty-property relief, hardship relief, transitional arrangements. All are free to claim and all come from the council, not the VOA.
When there is nothing to reclaim
If Small Business Rate Relief already reduces your bill to zero, a lower rateable value saves you nothing — you cannot go below nothing. It can still be worth confirming the recorded facts are right, because relief tapers, thresholds move at revaluations and circumstances change. But nobody should sell you a challenge on that property today.
Transitional arrangements and why your bill may not match
After a revaluation, large increases and decreases are sometimes phased in over several years rather than applied at once. Your council's bill may therefore differ from a straight rateable value times multiplier calculation. We do not attempt to compute transitional relief or supporting small business relief, because doing so needs figures we do not hold for most councils — and a wrong number is worse than no number.
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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.