Reductions for small businesses
If you have a small business, you may be able to get:
- small business rate relief
- support small business (SSB) relief
Small business rate relief
You can apply if:
- your business only uses one property
- your property’s rateable value is less than £15,000
- your business uses more than one property but meets certain criteria
You cannot get small business rate relief and charitable rate relief at the same time. We will decide which kind of relief you are eligible for.
If you use more than one property in England
When you get a second property, you will keep getting the relief you already get on your main property for 12 months.
You can still get small business rate relief on your main property after this, if:
- each of your other properties has a rateable value of less than £2900
- the total rateable value of all your properties is less than £20,000
You can only get relief:
- on one property
- if that property is occupied
What you will get
What small business rate relief you get depends on the rateable value of the property.
You will not have to pay business rates if your property’s rateable value is £12,000 or below.
If your property’s rateable value is between £12,001 and £14,999, the rate of relief will go down gradually from 100% to 0%.
How to apply
Apply for small business rate relief online
2026 Supporting small business relief
You can get supporting small business relief if you are a ratepayer who, at the 2026 revaluation, are seeing large increases in your bills as a result of losing some or all of your:
- small business rate relief or rural rate relief
- 40% retail hospitality and leisure relief, and / or
- 2023 supporting small business relief
Charities and community amateur sports clubs, who are already entitled to mandatory 80% relief, are not eligible.
What you will get
To support eligible ratepayers, the increase in the bills is limited to £800 for 2026 / 2027 to 2028 / 2029 or the relevant caps within transitional relief, whichever is the greater.
2023 supporting small business relief
Ratepayers currently receiving 2023 supporting small business relief (SSBR) will be eligible for the 2026 supporting small business relief for one year, and it will end on 31 March 2027.
All other eligible ratepayers remain in 2026 SSBR for either 3 years or until they reach the bill they would have paid without the scheme.
A change of ratepayers will not affect eligibility for the supporting small business scheme, but eligibility will be lost if the property falls vacant or becomes occupied by a charity or community amateur sports club.
There is no second property test for eligibility for the 2026 SSBR scheme. However, ratepayers who, during 2025 /2026, lost entitlement to small business rate relief because they failed the second property test, but have, under the rules for small business rate relief, been given a 12-month period of grace before their relief ended (or from 27 November 3 years) can continue on the 2026 SSBR scheme for the remainder of their period of grace.
How to apply
You do not need to apply, we will automatically adjust your bill.
Contact us to ask about supporting small business relief
Page last updated: 6 March 2026
