Business rates appeal: check, challenge and tribunal

How a business rates appeal works

An appeal against your property's rateable value is the last of three steps: you first raise a check case with the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), then a challenge case, and you can appeal to the Valuation Tribunal if you disagree with the outcome of the challenge. ^[1]

Whether a valuation is worth disputing is one part of a wider valuation, relief and billing review, since a bill also depends on reliefs and on how the council works it out.

Your rateable value is not the amount you pay. Rateable values are based on how much it would cost to rent a property for a year on a set valuation date, which for the 2026 revaluation is 1 April 2024. ^[2]

The tribunal also hears appeals against a penalty notice or a transitional certificate issued by the VOA, as well as appeals against a rateable value.

Time limits from check case to tribunal

A check case comes first, and a challenge to the current valuation can then be made within 4 months of the check case decision, or if the Valuation Office has not made a decision on the check case after 12 months. Where the challenge is about a change in the surrounding area, such as roadworks, the limit is 16 months from the check case submission. ^[3]

See also the guide to business rates exemption.

An appeal against the rateable value has to be made to the Valuation Tribunal within 4 months of a challenge decision, or within 18 months of submitting the challenge if the VOA has not replied. An appeal against a VOA penalty notice goes to the tribunal within 28 days from the date on the notice.

Business rates have to be paid until the Valuation Tribunal's decision is received. After a challenge, the rateable value and bill may go up, down or remain the same.

What a challenge has to include

A challenge has to rest on grounds, such as the valuation being wrong, the property not needing to be valued at all, the property needing to be split or merged, or the valuation being wrong due to a legal decision on another property.

A challenge has to include a proposed new rateable value and the date it should start from, plus rent details, including rent-free periods, if the property is a rental. Evidence has to show why the current valuation is wrong, and it can include valuations of similar local properties and legal decisions.

All evidence has to be sent together with the challenge, and further evidence can only be added later in exceptional circumstances, for example if it did not exist until part way through the challenge. At the tribunal, only the evidence submitted during the check and challenge to the VOA can be included.

A property cannot be challenged more than once against the same valuation on the same grounds; a further challenge on grounds used before has to be a new circumstance with a different effective date. Knowingly submitting false information to the Valuation Office may lead to a penalty.

Challenging a valuation from the 2023 list

The Valuation Office gives business properties new valuations every 3 years, and the last revaluation happened on 1 April 2026. You can usually only challenge your current valuation, but some situations allow a challenge to the previous one.

The first is where a legal rating decision on another property could apply to your property; the deadline to raise a check case for that challenge was 30 September 2026, so it has now passed. The challenge then has to give the date of the legal decision, the court or tribunal that made it, how it is relevant to your property and how it shows the valuation is wrong.

The second is where the Valuation Office has changed your property's rateable value or effective date in the 2023 rating list, or added your property to that list. In that case a check case has to have been raised either before 1 April 2026 or within 6 months of the change to the list, and only the rateable value and effective date can be challenged.

Does small business rate relief continue after the 2026 revaluation?

Small business rate relief is still part of the England guidance after the 1 April 2026 revaluation, although the amount a business is eligible for may change. In England, no business rates are paid on a property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less, if that is the only property the business uses. ^[4]

A business that lost some or all of its small business rate relief because of the revaluation on 1 April 2026 may be eligible for supporting small business relief. Small business rate relief and charitable rate relief cannot be received at the same time.

How much small business rate relief a business gets depends on the property's rateable value, so a corrected valuation could change the relief. In England, from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, the small business multiplier is 43.2p and the standard multiplier is 48p. The relief rules differ for property in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

How far back can you be charged for business rates?

The sources behind this guide do not set out a single backdating limit for business rates bills, only qualified examples for particular reliefs. In England, a business that stops being eligible for rural rate relief will usually need to pay its business rates bill starting from the day its circumstances changed. ^[4] Where the amount of charitable rate relief a business is eligible for changes, the new rate is usually payable from the day circumstances changed.

On the valuation side, the rating list is a record of rateable values for a 3-year period, and current rateable values came into effect on 1 April 2026. A check case for a previous valuation can only be raised in some circumstances, such as the Valuation Office having corrected the valuation in the past 6 months.

Local councils send business rates bills and collect payments, so questions about the period a particular bill covers go to the council.