Three numbers decide what you pay.

The rateable value

The Valuation Office Agency sets a rateable value for every non-domestic property in Wales. It is an estimate of the annual open market rent at a fixed valuation date. It is not your actual rent and it is not what the property is worth to buy. You can look yours up on the VOA site through gov.uk.

The multiplier

From 1 April 2026 Wales runs three multipliers rather than one. The standard multiplier is 0.502, the first reduction in Wales since 2010. A new retail multiplier of 0.350 applies to qualifying retail property. A higher multiplier of 0.515 applies to the largest properties by value, which funds the retail reduction.

So a property with a rateable value of £1,000 produces a liability of £502 on the standard multiplier, or £350 on the retail multiplier, before any relief.

The reliefs

Reliefs come off after the multiplication. They stack in a set order, and some cannot be combined with others. If your property already benefits from the retail multiplier, for example, it is outside the 2026-27 food and drink hospitality relief.

Check all three numbers on your bill when it arrives. If the rateable value looks wrong for the space you actually occupy, that is a VOA matter and there is a formal challenge route. If the multiplier or the relief looks wrong, that is the council. Ring whichever one owns the error rather than paying and hoping.

Small Business Rates Relief, usually shortened to SBRR, is the biggest relief scheme operating in Wales. It is funded entirely by the Welsh Government and administered by your council.

The thresholds

• Rateable value up to £6,000: 100% relief, so nothing to pay.
• Rateable value between £6,001 and £12,000: relief tapers from 100% down to nothing as the value rises.
• Rateable value above £12,000: no SBRR.

A corner shop in Caerphilly with a rateable value of £5,400 pays nothing. The same shop revalued at £9,000 pays part of the bill, with the relief shrinking as the rateable value climbs.

Higher relief for certain uses

Registered childcare providers in Wales get 100% relief regardless of where they sit in the normal taper. Post offices get 100% relief up to a rateable value of £9,000 and 50% between £9,001 and £12,000. If you run a shop with a post office counter in it, the way the property is assessed matters, so read the bill line by line.

The two property limit

SBRR is capped at two properties per business in each local authority area. A franchise owner with four stores in Cardiff gets relief on two of them from Cardiff Council. If one of those stores is over the border in Newport, that is a separate authority with its own count.

SBRR is normally applied automatically. Normally is doing work in that sentence. If you have moved in recently, changed the trading entity, or split a property, phone the council’s business rates team and confirm SBRR is showing on your account.

A new rating list took effect on 1 April 2026 following revaluation. This is the second revaluation of this Senedd term and the first under the three-year cycle, so the gap between valuation dates is shorter than businesses were used to. Shorter gaps mean smaller jumps, in theory.

Where liabilities still rose sharply, transitional relief applies. The Welsh Government has put £116m over two years behind it.

How the phasing works

If your liability went up by more than £300 at revaluation, you pay 33% of the increase in 2026-27 and 66% in 2027-28, reaching the full amount in 2028-29. Put the other way, the relief covers 67% of the increase this year and 34% next year.

Who qualifies

Transitional relief is not restricted by sector, size or use. To qualify, the property must have been on a local or central rating list on 31 March 2026, must have been occupied on that date, must have the same ratepayer, and must show an increase in liability above £300. Properties subject to an apportionment for partial occupation under section 44A of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 are outside the scheme.

What you have to do

Nothing, in most cases. Councils adjust local list bills automatically, and the Welsh Government handles central list entries. The scheme sits in the Non-Domestic Rating (Chargeable Amounts) (Wales) Regulations 2025.

One thing worth knowing: the notional chargeable amount is not recalculated on 1 April 2027, but it is recalculated if your chargeable amount falls during the transition, for instance after a successful challenge to the rateable value. Compare your 2026-27 bill against your 2025-26 bill and check the transitional line is there if the gap is more than £300.

For 2026-27 only, running from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, there is a separate relief for the food and drink hospitality sector. The Welsh Government funds all 22 local authorities to deliver it.

What it gives

A 15% discount on the rates bill for eligible occupied properties, capped at £110,000 of relief across every property the same business occupies anywhere in Wales.

Who is in

Properties wholly or mainly used for selling food or drink to visiting members of the public. Pubs, restaurants, cafés and bars sit squarely inside it. Live music venues qualify where the property is wholly or mainly used for live performance to entertain an audience.

Who is out

• Nightclubs and theatres.
• Property already subject to the retail multiplier.
• Property used wholly or mainly for selling goods to visiting members of the public.
• Property used wholly or mainly for selling or providing services to visiting members of the public.
• Property used wholly or mainly as living accommodation run as a business.

That last group catches more businesses than owners expect. A takeaway that mostly sells goods over a counter may be assessed differently from a café with seating, and serviced accommodation operators are outside it entirely.

The part people miss

This one is an application, with a declaration confirming you are not breaching the £110,000 cap across Wales. Applications go to your local authority and the deadline is 31 March 2027. Miss it and the 15% is gone for the year. If you run a café or a bar in Cardiff, Swansea or Newport, search your council’s website for the hospitality relief form and get it in now rather than in March.

Several further reliefs sit outside the small business and hospitality schemes.

Charitable relief, and what it means for a CIC

Property occupied by a charity or a charity trustee, and used wholly or mainly for charitable purposes, gets mandatory relief of 80% of the occupied bill. Councils can top that up to 100% at their discretion, though they fund 75% of any top-up out of the rates pool themselves, which is why discretionary top-ups are not handed out freely.

Here is the point that catches community interest companies. A CIC is not a charity. Mandatory 80% relief does not follow automatically from the CIC structure. What a CIC can apply for is discretionary relief for non-profit organisations, which councils assess case by case against their own policy. We work with CICs across Cardiff on exactly this, and the argument you put to the council about community benefit is worth writing properly.

Community Amateur Sports Clubs registered with HMRC do get the 80% mandatory relief.

Charity shops

A charity shop only gets mandatory relief where it is wholly or mainly selling donated goods and the proceeds, after expenses, go to charitable purposes.

Empty and partly occupied property

There are separate rules for empty property relief, for partly occupied property under section 44A, and for hardship relief where a council judges that a business in difficulty should be supported and that this is in the interests of local council tax payers. Hardship relief is wholly discretionary and the council will want figures.

If any of these apply to you, ring the business rates team at your council and ask which form covers your situation and what evidence they want with it.

This is the single biggest thing that costs Welsh businesses money, and it is the reason accountants outside Wales miss it.

Some Welsh reliefs are automatic. Some are not. A council has no duty to chase you for a discount you never asked for, and in practice they do not.

Generally automatic

• Small Business Rates Relief, applied to eligible bills by the council.
• Transitional relief for the 2026 revaluation, adjusted on the bill by the council.
• Mandatory 80% charitable relief, once the council has your charity or CASC status on file.

Application required

• Food and drink hospitality relief for 2026-27, with the £110,000 declaration, by 31 March 2027.
• Discretionary relief for non-profit organisations, including CICs.
• Discretionary top-up above the mandatory 80%.
• Hardship relief.
• Empty and partly occupied property relief in most cases.

The Spar franchise owner we mentioned earlier is the clean example. Retail businesses in Wales were entitled to Covid-era relief, Cardiff Council paid it only to businesses that applied, and he had never applied. It came up in the first meeting and it was worth £10,000 to him.

Take ten minutes with your current bill. Write down the rateable value, the multiplier used, and every relief line showing on it. Then check that list against the two lists above. Anything missing from the second list is a phone call to your council, not a lost cause.