Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on the Rateable Value (RV) of your property:

• If your RV is less than £5,000 then you will receive a 50% reduction in your annual business rates. With effect from 1st April 2010 the RV will change to £6,000.
• If your RV is between £5,000 and £9,999 you will receive a reduction of between 1% and 49% of your annual business rates. (The relief is reduced by 1% for every £100 of rateable value above £5,000). With effect from 1st April 2010, if your RV is between £6,000 and £11,999 you will receive a reduction of between 1% and 49% of your annual business rates. (The relief will be reduced by 1% for every £120 of rateable value).
• If your RV is between £10,000 and 14,999, known as the 'Buffer Zone', you won't get any relief but you can claim exemption from the 'small business rate supplement' mentioned earlier. To qualify for this you need to meet the same conditions described above under 'Will I qualify for Relief?'. From the 1st April 2010, these thresholds change. With effect from the 1st April 2010, if your RV is between £12,000 and £17,999 you can claim exemption from the 'small business rate supplement'.

No. Small Business Rate relief only applies to occupied properties.

To help reduce the financial burden on owners of empty business properties, the Government have introduced new legislation which exempts people from paying business rates on empty property, if the rateable value of their property is below £15,000. This applies to the 2009/10 financial year only. In previous years this exemption only applied where the rateable value of an empty property was below £2,200. The legislation has recently been reviewed and the Government have decided that the new threshold for 2010/11 will be £18,000. Again, this extension will be initially for one year only and will be reviewed again at the end of the 2010/11 financial year.