Retail, hospitality, and leisure relief
Up until 31 March 2026, if your business premises is used wholly or mainly used by visiting members of the public for any of the following purposes, you may qualify for retail, hospitality and leisure relief:
- Shops, including various types of retail stores like florists, bakers, butchers, grocery stores, and more.
- Services provided to the public, such as hair and beauty salons, travel agents, ticket offices, dry cleaners, and more.
- Food and drink establishments like restaurants, takeaways, coffee shops, pubs, and bars.
- Cinemas that show films.
- Live music venues that primarily host live music performances for entertainment.
- Sports and leisure facilities, museums, theatres, gyms, and other entertainment venues.
- Hotels, guesthouses, boarding houses, and holiday homes.
What you'll get up to 31 March 2026
Under the 2025/26 scheme, eligible businesses received a 40% reduction in their business rates bill for the billing year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. Relief was capped at £110,000 per business per year. Certain types of businesses, like financial services, medical services, and some professional services, are not eligible.Equally if your business is not easily accessible to the public, it may not qualify for the relief.
This relief is delivered through local authority discretionary powers under section 47(3) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. If you choose to opt out of the relief for the 2025 - 2026 billing year, you cannot change your decision later.
If you believe your business meets the criteria and you have not been awarded the relief, please fill in our online form:
What will happen from 1 April 2026
From 1 April 2026, the 40% retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme will end and will be replaced by a new system of permanently lower multipliers for qualifying retail, hospitality and leisure properties.
These lower multipliers will be used in calculating business rates liabilities for qualifying properties with a rateable value below £500,000.
Under the new approach:
- Unlike the previous retail, hospitality and leisure relief, which had a 40% discount and a maximum £110,000 cap, the new multipliers are permanent reductions built into how your bill is calculated and are not limited by a cash cap.
- To qualify, the property must be occupied and used mainly for retail, hospitality or leisure purposes, rather than for storage, offices or other non-customer-facing activities.
- We may need to check that your property qualifies for the retail, hospitality and leisure multiplier. This may involve asking you to confirm how your premises are used.
Business rates multipliers are the numbers used to work out your business rates bill. They are set by the government and will be applied to your property’s rateable value - find out more.
From April 2026, some retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will pay less because a lower multiplier will be applied if their property qualifies - find out more about the 2026 multipliers.
If you previously received Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Relief, you may be eligible for the Supporting Small Business Relief, which may cap your bill increase at the higher of £800 or the relevant transitional relief cap - find out more.
