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There are a number of ways to reduce how much you pay for your business rates
You can get help with reducing the business rates that you pay in a number of ways:
Some small businesses can get relief to help them reduce the number of rates you need to pay.
To qualify, your business must:
Businesses with rateable values below £12,000 may be entitled to 100% relief.
Rateable values between £12,000 and £15,000 will receive a percentage reduction on a sliding scale of between 0% and 100%.
There are two common vacant exemptions for business rates:
Property is only classed as unoccupied when all the items have been removed (except for fixtures and fittings). If a property is being used for storage purposes, then full business rates must be paid.
If you take on a vacant unit, you may not qualify for any exemption if it has already been used up by the previous ratepayer.
From 1 April 2024, a property must be continually occupied for a minimum of 13 weeks to benefit from either a three-month void period or a six-month void period when a property becomes empty.
You may be entitled to a reduction of up to 100% on your business rates if you're a:
If the 80% mandatory relief is awarded, we may award a 20% discretionary relief to grant a full 100% relief from business rates.
We may be able to reduce your business rates bill with hardship relief.
To be eligible, you must satisfy us that both:
The 2025/26 retail, hospitality and leisure business rates relief scheme provides eligible occupied, retail, hospitality and leisure properties with a 40% relief, up to a cash cap limit of £110,000 per business.
You could qualify for retail, hospitality and leisure relief if your business is being used as a:
We have considered how we should use our discretionary powers to give extra rate relief to voluntary and charitable type groups in Hart. The policy sets out the criteria we will use in deciding whether to give extra rate relief:
Further information on business rates relief and exemptions, can be found at: