The Government has provided Councils with guidance to provide a discretionary relief scheme for businesses with effect from 1st April 2025.
The Council has determined that, in accordance with that guidance, businesses may qualify for a discount in the following categories:
- 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
Full details of eligibility can be found by here - where is this?
If you are eligible, you could get 40% off your business rates bill for the 2025-26 tax year and 75% off your business rates bill for the 2024-25 and 2023-24 tax years.
Businesses will not be required to apply for Retail, Hospitality & Leisure relief as it will be applied automatically. However, if having read the guidance in the link above, you think your business is eligible but the relief has not been included on your bill, you can request your property be considered for relief by e-mailing the Business Rates team at business.rates@sefton.gov.uk
The Retail, Hospitality & Leisure Relief Scheme will end on 31 March 2026. It can only be backdated to 1st April 2023.
Cash Caps
There will be a cap on the cash value of relief that a business can receive. Businesses will be eligible to receive relief on more than one property. However, the total cash value of that relief must not exceed £110,000 across all of their properties in England.
Where a business has a qualifying connection with another business, then those businesses will be considered as one business ratepayer for the purposes of the cash caps.
A business shall be treated as having a qualifying connection with another where both ratepayers are companies, and
- one is a subsidiary of the other, or
- both are subsidiaries of the same company; or
- where only business is a company, the other business (the “second ratepayer”) has such an interest in that company as would, if the second ratepayer were a company, result in its being the holding company of the other.
In those cases where it is clear to the Council that the ratepayer is likely to breach the cash caps, then the Council will automatically withhold the discount. In other cases, the Council will include the discount in bills and ask the ratepayers, on a self-assessment basis, to inform the authority if they are in breach of the cash caps.
Opt out
Business will have the option to refuse the relief for 2025/26 anytime up to 30 April 2026. When a business has chosen to opt out of the relief that decision may not be withdrawn at a later date.
| RHL Guidance |  (pdf 149KB) |