Get help paying your business rates
Depending on the property you occupy and / or your business sector you may be eligible for a relief or exemption.
On this page:
Relief will be provided to eligible occupied retail, hospitality and leisure properties in 2022/23. Please follow the link below for full eligibility guidance.
2022/23 Retail, hospitality and leisure relief guidance
In line with the conditions set by the government, a ratepayer may only claim up to £110,000 of support under the 2022/23 Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Relief Scheme for all of their eligible hereditaments. This cash cap applies at a Group company level (so holding companies and subsidiaries cannot claim up to the cash cap for each company) and also to organisations which, although not a company, have such an interest in a company that they would, if they were a company, result in its being the holding company.
The Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Relief Scheme is subject to the subsidies chapter within the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The subsidies chapter within the TCA only applies to subsidies over the value of approximately £343,000 per beneficiary over a 3-year period (consisting of the current financial year and the two previous financial years) (the Small Amounts of Financial Assistance limit). Extended Retail Discounts granted in 2020/21 or 2021/22 do not count towards the limit. Covid business grants received from local government and any other subsidy claimed under the Small Amounts of Financial Assistance limit over the 3 year period should be counted.
Therefore, to claim the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief you must not have exceeded either the £110,000 cash cap for 2022/23 or the Small Amounts of Financial Assistance limit of £343,000 over 3 years (including 2022/23).
Expanded retail rate relief 2021/2022
In the Budget on 3 March 2021, the Chancellor announced that eligible ratepayers will receive a discount of 100% off business rates until 30 June 2021 and 66% off for the remainder of the year.
The discount will be provided to eligible occupied properties, in retail, hospitality and leisure under the Expanded Retail Discount and Nurseries on the Ofsted Early Years Register under the Nurseries Discount 2021/22.
Funding of this discount from 1 July 2021 is subject to certain conditions:
You could qualify for retail discount if your business is a:
- shop
- restaurant, café, bar or pub
- cinema or music venue
- hospitality or leisure business – for example, a gym, a spa, a casino or a hotel
What you’ll get
If you’re eligible, you could get:
- 100% off your business rates bills for the 2020 to 2021 tax year (1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021)
- 100% off your business rates bills for the first 3 months of the 2021 to 2022 tax year (1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021)
- 66% off your business rates bills for the rest of the 2021 to 2022 tax year (1 July 2021 to 31 March 2022) – up to a total value of £2 million
If your business was legally allowed to open during the national lockdown starting 5 January 2021, your discount for 1 July 2021 to 31 March 2022 will be capped at £105,000 rather than £2 million.
Further details of the cash cap can be found at Business rates: expanded retail discount 2021 to 2022 – Business rates: expanded retail discount 2021 to 2022 – local authority guidance.
You can get the retail discount on top of any other business rates relief you’re eligible for.
Please use this form if you wish to opt out of the retail discount for the 2021 to 2022 tax year.
If you opt out of the retail discount for the 2021 to 2022 tax year you cannot change your mind.
Small business rate relief is not applied automatically – you need to apply for it.
You can get small business rate relief if:
- your property’s rateable value is less than £15,000
- your business occupies one property – you may still be able to get relief if you occupy more than one property
Apply
Apply for small business rate relief
If you’ve applied for small business rate relief in the past, you don’t have to apply again.
However, you must contact us if the rateable value of the property has changed.
What you get
You will generally not pay business rates on a property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less.
For properties with a rateable value of £12,001 to £15,000, the rate of relief will go down gradually from 100% to 0%.
If you use more than one property
When you get a second property, you’ll keep getting any existing relief on your main property for 12 months.
You can still get small business rate relief on your main property after this if both the following apply:
- none of your other properties have a rateable value above £2,899
- the total rateable value of all your properties is less than £28,000
Charities and community amateur sports clubs can apply for rate relief of up to 80% where they occupy a property that is wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes.
If you think you’re eligible, please apply:
We can also give charities and not for profit organisations discretionary rate relief of up to 100%, if you are a registered charity in receipt of the 80% mandatory charity relief or a not for profit organisation
The application process can take up to 4 months. Please note that applications are currently impacted by the cyberattack and are taking longer to process.
Check if you can apply: charity and not for profit – discretionary rate relief policy
The relief is awarded at our discretion. There is no right or entitlement to an award.
Applications have to be made every year and must be made online.
You can save your progress and continue whenever you want. For more information, see our charity and not for profit – guidance for applicants.
2021/22 applications
Apply now Continue your application
2022/23 applications
Apply now Continue your application
Once you have applied, you will get an email with a tracking reference. If you haven’t included all the information, the application might take longer.
A panel that meets in March, June, September and December decides who will get discretionary rate relief. Please note this is currently impacted by the cyberattack.
We are currently reviewing the discretionary rate relief process for charity and not-for-profit organisations from 2023/24. Any changes or updates will be posted here. Any questions regarding this can be sent to communitypartnerships@hackney.gov.uk.
To be eligible for hardship relief, you need to satisfy us that both:
- you would be in financial hardship without it
- giving hardship relief to you is in the interests of people of Hackney
If you think you might be eligible, complete the form and explain your situation:
We automatically apply supporting small business rate relief on your bill. This relief helps people who lost some or all of their small business relief on 1 April 2017.
Supporting small business relief means your business rates will go up by no more than the larger of these two:
- a cash value of £600 per year (£50 per month)
- the matching cap on increases for small properties in the transitional relief scheme
From 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019, the small business multiplier is 48p and the standard multiplier is 49.3p.
From 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 the small business multiplier is 49.1p and the standard multiplier 50.4p.
From 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 the small business multiplier is 49.9p and the standard multiplier 51.2p.
From 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 the small business multiplier is 49.9p and the standard multiplier 51.2p.
From 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 the small business multiplier is 49.9p and the standard multiplier 51.2p.
Businesses in London with a rateable value over £70,000 also pay the Business Rate Supplement which is charged by the Greater London Authority in relation to the Crossrail project.
You can find further information on the Mayor of London’s website.
Certain properties are exempt from business rates. You may not have to pay business rates on the following types of property:
- agricultural land and buildings, including fish farms
- buildings used for the training or welfare of disabled people
- buildings registered for public religious worship or church halls
- drainage authority property
- public parks
There are strict legal requirements for these exemptions.
If you think your property should be exempt from business rates, report this to the Valuation Office Agency.
Contact us as soon as a building becomes empty. Empty buildings get 3 months’ business rates relief.
This can sometimes be extended to 6 months (mainly for industrial and warehouse properties).
After this period an empty property is liable for 100% of the basic occupied business rate unless:
- the rateable value of the property is less than £2,600 from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2017 and less than £2,899 in 2017/18
- the unoccupied property rate has been reduced by the Government by order, in which case it will be shown on the front of your bill
In addition some empty properties do not have to pay business rates, which include in most cases those owned by charities and community sports clubs.
There are also a number of other exemptions from the empty property rate such as listed buildings . Please contact us for full details of other exemptions and whether they apply.
Tell us about an empty property
Please submit your form to business.rates@hackney.gov.uk.
You will also need to email a copy of your lease to business.rates@hackney.gov.uk. It doesn’t have to be the whole document but must include:
- the term of the lease showing the parties involved, the property address and the period
- the signature page of the lease which is normally found at the back
Please note that we may check that the buildings are not being used without contacting you.
What happens if I don’t pay?
If you get into payment difficulties and you can’t afford to pay your instalments, and if you’ve received a reminder notice, final notice or a court summons, you can make an arrangement to pay:
We don’t promise to be able to help everyone but the sooner you contact us, the better our chances of being able to help.
For general recovery enquiries, please contact us:
Business rates are due in monthly instalments.
If you miss one payment, we’ll send you a reminder. If you don’t pay this within 7 days, you’ll receive a final reminder and have to pay all the business rates you owe for the year at once.
If you pay the amount you missed but miss payments again we will send you a second and final reminder. You’ll have to pay the full amount that you owe for the year within 7 days.
If you can’t pay the full balance, contact us immediately to see if we can help you.
We don’t promise to be able to help everyone but the sooner you contact us, the better our chances of being able to help.
Or tel 020 8356 3466.
If you don’t pay the full balance, we will start legal proceedings and apply to the magistrate’s court for a liability order against you.
The summons costs are £92.00. If the court grants the liability order, you will have to pay £8.50 on top of the £92.00.
There may also be fees for enforcement agents, which can be substantial.
The liability order allows us to:
- employ enforcement agents to seize goods to pay for your debt
- start insolvency proceedings against you
- make an application for your committal to prison for a maximum of 3 months (if the enforcement agent is unable to recover the debt)
If you pay what you owe, including the enforcement agent’s fees, we will stop all action and costs from the date we receive your payment.