Business rates in Northern Ireland: how the system actually works

The two-part bill, and the one formula behind it

A Northern Ireland rates bill has exactly one calculation behind it:

Net annual value × (regional rate + district rate) = your annual rates bill.

The regional rate is set by the Northern Ireland Executive and is the same everywhere. The district rate is struck annually by each of the eleven councils. Add the two together and you get the poundage for your area, which is applied to your property's net annual value.

For 2026-27 the non-domestic regional rate is 0.307900, following the Executive's decision to raise the non-domestic regional rate by 3.0%. The district rate is where the areas separate. These are the 2026-27 non-domestic poundages published by the Department of Finance:

• Fermanagh & Omagh — 0.578402
• Lisburn & Castlereagh — 0.586496
• Mid Ulster — 0.600858
• Antrim & Newtownabbey — 0.605291
• Ards & North Down — 0.609456
• Newry, Mourne & Down — 0.618237
• Causeway Coast & Glens — 0.624187
• Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon — 0.627665
• Belfast — 0.650288
• Mid & East Antrim — 0.717075
• Derry City & Strabane — 0.721635

Read the top and the bottom of that list again. The same premises cost 24.8% more in rates in Derry City and Strabane than in Fermanagh and Omagh, purely because of which side of a council boundary they sit. That is not a rounding difference. For a business choosing between two units in different council areas, it is a real input into the decision.

Worked example: the same shop, three council areas

Illustrative premises, real 2026-27 poundages. Take a retail unit assessed at a net annual value of £18,000 — above the Small Business Rate Relief ceiling, so no relief applies.

• Fermanagh & Omagh: £18,000 × 0.578402 = £10,411.24 a year
• Belfast: £18,000 × 0.650288 = £11,705.18 a year
• Mid & East Antrim: £18,000 × 0.717075 = £12,907.35 a year

Same unit, same valuation, £2,496.11 a year between the cheapest and the dearest of those three. Over a five-year lease that is roughly £12,480 of pure location cost, before a penny of rent.

Now take a small Ballymena café assessed at a net annual value of £4,800, which falls in the 25% Small Business Rate Relief band:

• Gross: £4,800 × 0.717075 = £3,441.96
• Less 25% Small Business Rate Relief: −£860.49
• Payable: £2,581.47, or £215.12 a month across twelve months

A mid-sized unit at a net annual value of £9,000 in the same council area sits in the 20% band instead: £9,000 × 0.717075 = £6,453.68, less 20% = £5,162.94 payable. The relief is worth £1,290.74 a year, and it is awarded automatically by Land & Property Services on eligible property. Automatic is not the same as guaranteed, though: it depends on the property being correctly recorded, which is the bit worth confirming on the bill rather than assuming.

Net annual value, not rateable value — and Reval2026 has just rewritten it

Northern Ireland values non-domestic property on a net annual value basis: broadly the annual rental value of the property. Land & Property Services maintains the valuation list, and it is their assessment, not the rent on your lease, that drives the bill.

Every non-domestic valuation in Northern Ireland was rewritten for Reval2026, which took effect on 1 April 2026. The new list values property by reference to rental evidence from April 2024, replacing a list built on October 2021 values — pandemic-era conditions that had long stopped reflecting the market. More than 75,000 properties were revalued. Values rose by around 15% overall, with industrial and warehousing up about 16%, and roughly two thirds of properties came in at or below that 15% average.

The critical thing to understand about a revaluation is that it is revenue-neutral: it does not raise more money in total, it redistributes the same total differently. If your valuation rose by less than the average, your share of the bill falls. If it rose by more, your share rises. That is exactly why a large increase in your net annual value is worth interrogating rather than absorbing.

The four reliefs that actually exist here

Small Business Rate Relief. Awarded automatically by Land & Property Services on eligible properties, banded by net annual value: 50% where the NAV is £2,000 or less, 25% where it is over £2,000 but not more than £5,000, and 20% where it is over £5,000 but not more than £15,000. The scheme has been extended to cover the 2026-27 rating year. It excludes unoccupied and partly unoccupied properties, ATMs, property used to display advertisements, car parks, sewage works, telecommunications masts, and property occupied by public bodies.

Industrial derating. Premises occupied and used for manufacturing get a 70% reduction on the parts used in the industrial process, provided the property is primarily used and occupied as a factory. For a manufacturer this is the largest single number on the page. It is worth confirming that the whole of the qualifying floor area has been treated as industrial, because partial treatment of a building that has grown or changed layout is a common and expensive error.

Empty property. Unoccupied non-domestic property in Northern Ireland is rated at 50% of the full liability, against 100% in England and Wales. Empty property with a net annual value below £2,000 is not rated at all, and vacant factories are not rated.

Back in Business. A ratepayer moving into premises previously used for retail that have stood empty for 12 months or more qualifies for a 50% reduction for up to two years. It applies to occupations from 1 April 2024 onwards. Unlike Small Business Rate Relief this one is not applied for you, and it is routinely missed by precisely the business it was designed for: someone taking on a long-empty shop unit on a high street.

If you think the valuation is wrong

There is a proper route and it costs nothing to start.

1. Apply to Land & Property Services for a revaluation if the property has been altered or you believe the assessment is simply wrong. Physical change is the strongest ground: a reduced footprint, part of the building taken out of use, a change of use, a neighbouring development that has damaged the letting value.
2. Appeal to the Commissioner of Valuation on form CR20 within 28 days if you disagree with the outcome. That window is the one that catches people out. It is short, and it runs whether or not you have got round to opening the decision letter.
3. Appeal to the Lands Tribunal for Northern Ireland if you remain dissatisfied. For non-domestic property that is the onward route; domestic and mixed properties with a net annual value under £12,500 go to the Northern Ireland Valuation Tribunal instead.

Keep paying while the appeal runs. If you win, LPS refunds the overpayment, with interest where it applies. Withholding payment does not strengthen your case and does expose you to recovery action.

Budgeting for rates properly

Rates arrive whether or not you trade well, which makes them a cashflow item as much as a cost item. Two habits are worth building.

Accrue monthly. Divide the annual bill by twelve and carry it as a fixed monthly cost in the forecast, so the bill is never an event. On the £12,907.35 Mid and East Antrim example above, that is £1,075.61 a month sitting in the numbers all year instead of landing as a shock. Our cashflow and budgeting page covers how we set that up, and the cashflow forecasting guide walks through the mechanics.

Get the rating position before you sign, not after. Look up the property's net annual value, multiply it by your council's poundage, and establish whether any relief applies. It takes ten minutes and it occasionally changes the decision — particularly where two candidate units sit either side of a council boundary, or where one qualifies for Back in Business and the other does not.

Your checklist for this week

• Find your current net annual value and compare it with the pre-Reval2026 figure. Up by materially more than 15%? Your share of the burden has risen, and the valuation deserves a proper look.
• Multiply your NAV by your council's 2026-27 poundage from the list above. If that does not reconcile to the bill, something — a relief, an apportionment, a valuation error — is not what you assume it is.
• If your NAV is £15,000 or less, confirm Small Business Rate Relief is actually showing on the bill.
• If you manufacture anything, check industrial derating is applied, and applied to the right floor area.
• If you took on a previously-retail unit that had been empty for a year or more, ask about Back in Business.
• Diarise the 28-day CR20 window the moment any valuation decision arrives.

We run this check as a matter of course for clients with premises across the region. Start at our Northern Ireland page, or the local pages for Ballymena and Belfast. If you are in construction, the NI construction and CIS guide is the companion piece to this one, and employing people in Northern Ireland covers the other cost that behaves differently here.