From 1 April 2026, the way business rates are calculated for hospitality premises in England changes for good. The temporary discount that has propped up cafés, tea rooms and small hospitality sites since the pandemic is being withdrawn, replaced with a permanent, lower rate built into the system itself — and for a business the size of a typical tea room, the difference is worth understanding well before the new bills land.
What’s actually changing
Business rates are recalculated every three years in a revaluation, and the next one takes effect on 1 April 2026, based on property values as they stood in April 2024. Alongside it, the government is scrapping the temporary Retail, Hospitality and Leisure (RHL) discount — worth 40% in 2025–26 — and replacing it with two new, permanently lower multipliers for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties with a rateable value under £500,000.
From April 2026 the key figures are:
- 38.2p in the pound for small RHL properties with a rateable value up to £51,000
- 43p in the pound for standard RHL properties above £51,000 (up to £500,000)
- 50.8p in the pound for high-value properties over £500,000
Most independent tea rooms — a single shopfront on a high street or in a village — will sit well inside the £51,000 band, so the lower 38.2p rate should apply automatically once the new list is live.
Why the bill can still move, even with a lower rate
A lower multiplier doesn’t automatically mean a lower bill. The revaluation itself resets the rateable value your rates are calculated from, and premises in town centres or tourist spots that have done well since 2021 can see that value rise sharply — sometimes enough to outweigh the lower multiplier. Where a revaluation pushes a bill up a lot in one go, a redesigned Transitional Relief scheme phases the increase in gradually rather than applying it all at once, so it’s worth checking whether your premises qualifies rather than assuming the sums will simply work out lower.
What to do before April
Three practical steps, well ahead of the new rating year: check your new rateable value on the GOV.UK business rates relief pages as soon as the new list is published; confirm with your local billing authority whether transitional relief applies if your value has jumped; and build the actual figure — not last year’s discounted one — into any 2026 budgeting, menu pricing or staffing decisions. A five-minute check now avoids a nasty surprise on the first bill of the new rating year.
Rates are only one line on a tea room’s overheads, of course — ingredient costs, insurance and wage changes are all moving too this year. Whatever a business’s own numbers look like, owners in Royston, on the Isle of Mull or the Isle of Muck are all working through the same national change, whatever the size of the premises.
