Your business rates bill
- Request a copy of your business rates bill
- Understanding your business rate bill
- Charge details
- Bills covering more than one financial year
Request a copy of your business rates bill
As a business or a professional acting on their behalf, you may need to request a copy of a business rates bill.
This can be because you:
- don’t have access to your bill - for example, you have misplaced it
- never received your bill
- wish to make a payment on your business rates account
- need the rateable value of a business premises
Understanding your business rate bill
If you have not received a business rate bill before, you may need some help understanding it.
Your business rate bill contains:
- The address of the property
- The usage of the property
- The rateable value of the property
- The multipliers for the year
- The charge for the year and how it is made up
- The amount you have to pay
- The dates and amounts of your instalments for the year
This sample business rates bill (PDF, 172KB) explains the information shown in the bill.
Charge details
- Balance brought forward
- Charge for period
- Transitional adjustment
- Crossrail Business Rate Supplement (BRS)
- Reliefs
This section details the different reliefs, exemptions, adjustments or supplements that may be shown on your bill.
Balance brought forward
If you have a credit or debit brought forward from the previous year it will show here. It will be included in the amount you must pay.
Charge for period
This is the rateable value of your property multiplied by the multiplier for the year. If your property has a rateable value above £51,000, has charitable relief or is empty, the multiplier used is 51.2p in the pound. Occupied properties with a rateable value below £51,000 have their rate bills calculated using the small business multiplier of 49.9p in the pound. For more information see our Rateable Value page.
Transitional adjustment
The amount that the bill for your property may increase or decrease by each year is set by the Government. If your bill shows a transitional adjustment, the calculation will appear on the annual bill sent to you in March or on your first bill if you become liable for business rates during the year.
Crossrail Business Rate Supplement (BRS)
A 2% supplement is added to business rate bills for properties with a rateable value over £70,000. For further information about this supplement see the Crossrail BRS (PDF, 80KB).
Reliefs
Empty Property Rate Relief:
Our records show the property is empty but the property has already benefitted from the three-month empty rate relief. If you are now using the premises contact the business rate team.
Further information about this relief and those listed below can be found on our empty business premises page.
- Empty Industrial Rate Relief
- Three month Void Relief
Occupied property reliefs:
If your bill shows any of the reliefs listed below you can find more information about them on our occupied business premises reliefs page.
- Small Business Relief
- Retail Discount
- Charitable Relief
- Discretionary Relief (see Voluntary and community organisations)
- Supporting Small Business Relief
Bills covering more than one financial year
If your first bill for the property includes an amount due for the previous financial year (before 1 April 2022) or there has been a change such as a rateable value amendment that affects a previous year, you will receive a multi sheet bill.
If you receive a bill that covers two financial years, your bill will be made up of three pages - a summary and a separate bill for each financial year.
The first sheet is the summary - this tells you the total amount due for each financial year, the total amount paid and shows the instalments you must pay at the bottom.
The other pages are an individual breakdown of how the amount due for each year is made up. These are for information only and will not show any payments you made during the year or information on what you need to pay.