Rochdale Named England's Worst Council for Business Rates Overcharging

Rochdale is England's worst-performing councilYour local council — the body that actually sends your bill and collects payment, using the Rateable Value the VOA has set. for business ratesThe tax most non-residential properties in England pay to their local council, similar to council tax but for shops, offices, warehouses and other business premises. overcharging, with 15% of its 8,607 registered commercial properties — one in seven — being overcharged, according to research by the UK business rate intelligence platform Businessratechecker.com.

Some 1,308 commercial properties in Rochdale have grounds for a combined claim of £2.9m a year, or an average of £2,217 annually per property. That's about three times the rate of the best-performing councilsYour local council — the body that actually sends your bill and collects payment, using the Rateable Value the VOA has set., such as Cheshire East, Barking & Dagenham and Stevenage, where only 5% of properties are overcharged.

This comes against a backdrop of rising business ratesThe tax most non-residential properties in England pay to their local council, similar to council tax but for shops, offices, warehouses and other business premises. in England and Wales over the last 20 years, culminating in one of the largest increases in April 2026, when the government updated the commercial rental values used to calculate rateable valuesThe 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. and introduced new multipliersThe pence-in-the-pound rate the government sets each year. Your rates bill is roughly Rateable Value × multiplier, before any reliefs are applied. while ending some reliefs. Rateable values rose by about 19% per square metre on average, with pubs and hospitality venues seeing average rates soar by 70%, according to data published by the VOAThe 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..

At Businessratechecker.com, we calculate there is a pot of almost £1bn a year in overpaid business rates across England waiting to be reclaimed — money that would go a long way toward easing the pressure many small businesses are feeling right now.

The next three worst performers

Rochdale isn't alone. Maidstone (13.8%), Kirklees (13.7%) and Mid Suffolk (13.7%) round out the next three worst-performing boroughs, all clustered close behind — evidence this is a nationwide pattern, not one council's problem.

"One in seven small businesses in Rochdale and other boroughs are quietly overpaying thousands of pounds a year without even realising it," said Rupert Spiegelberg, CEO of Businessratechecker.com. "That money is sitting on the table and easily reclaimable — there's no excuse for companies not to reclaim it, especially as the VOA itself says more than half of claims are awarded."

It's worth stressing that overcharging isn't wrongdoing by the council. It usually comes down to out-of-date records — floor plans, commercial rental rates and other inputs, particularly for pubs and some leisure businesses — and it's up to the business owner to check these details are correct, or to question a council's assumptions.

A full ranking by borough can be found on our Overpayment Map.

How the ranking works

The ranking compares each property's rate 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. and zoning rates, published by the Valuation Office AgencyThe 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., against genuine nearby comparablesA similar nearby property used as evidence for what your Rateable Value should be. Good comparables share your property's type, size band and location. of the same use class and valuation scheme. Our decision engine compares properties in the same category and on the same parades, checking their comparable rateable values as well as floor areas and other measures, to surface properties whose rateable values are materially different from their peers. Tolerance bands are built into the calculation so marginal cases aren't included.

You don't need to guess. Enter your postcode and we'll compare your rateable value to genuine local comparables, free, in about two minutes.