Non-domestic rates - money off your bill
Transitional reliefs
Subsidy control rules under Subsidy Control Act 2022
The following reliefs will be subject to the subsidy rules under the above regulations -
- Rural relief
- Transitional relief for properties in parks
- Transitional relief for small businesses
- Day nursery relief
- District heating relief
- Renewable energy relief
- Retail, hospitality and leisure relief
- Licensed premises and music venues relief
These reliefs may be offered as a Minimum Financial Assistance (MFA) subsidy under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. MFA is capped at a maximum of £315,000 over a three-period – cumulated over the current and previous two financial years.
To ensure that we comply with the subsidy regime, we may be required to cap relief at the MFA maximum limit. This may depend on:
- the level of other public sector assistance received by your entity
- whether or not you have an interest in any business with other properties, is in receipt, or eligible, for one of the existing rate relief schemes
You must consider whether you have already received support from any public sector body in the current financial year and the two financial years immediately preceding this. We will determine this from the completed Subsidy Information Declaration Form that is part of your application.
A written record must be kept for at least three years beginning with the date on which the MFA was given. This will enable you to respond to future requests from public authorities on how much MFA you have received and whether you have reached the cumulative threshold.
Further information on this is available on the Scottish Government website.
For information on the relief type and how to apply or renew, please access using the buttons below.
We aim to process your application within 10 working days. Due to current volumes of customer contact and correspondence, there may be a delay to this timescale.
We are working hard to reduce our response times and will process your application as soon as possible.
2026/27
All Scottish non-domestic properties were revalued with effect from 1 April 2026. Some properties will no longer be eligible for or may have a reduced level of small business bonus relief or rural relief, due to the increase in their rateable value.
Small Business Transitional Relief is available to ratepayers losing eligibility for Small Business Bonus Scheme relief (including shootings and deer forests but excluding those properties that require a short-term let licence but do not have one), rural relief, hospitality relief or Small Business Transitional Relief introduced for the 2023 revaluation cycle.
This relief requires an application form to be completed, and if we award you this relief for 2026/27, we will also automatically award it for 2027/28 and 2028/29.
Small/rural transitional relief caps 2026/27 to 2028/29
| 2026/27 | 2027/28 | 2028/29 |
| 15% | 22% | 38% |
2023/24 – 2025/26
All Scottish non-domestic properties were revalued with effect from 1 April 2023. Some properties were no longer be eligible for or may have a reduced level of small business bonus relief or rural relief, due to the increase in their rateable value.
A small business transitional relief scheme was introduced in 2023/24 to limit the rates bills for these properties 2023/2024 to £600, and to £1,200 for 2024/2025. This relief requires an application form to be completed and if you were awarded this relief for 2023/2024, we will award it automatically for 2024/2025 and 2025/26.
This relief caps the increases in bills for licensed self-catering properties from 1 April 2026, for the next 3 years as below. This is application based and if we award you this relief for 2026/27, we will award it automatically for 2027/28 and 2028/29.
| 2026/27 | 2027/28 | 2028/29 |
| 15% | 15% | 15% |
General Revaluation Transitional Relief
Revaluation Transitional Relief will cap increases in gross rates for the next 3 years as detailed below and this relief will be automatically applied to bills. This relief is not available to self-catering properties.
Revaluation Transitional Relief caps 2026/27 to 2028/29
| 2026/27 | 2027/28 | 2028/29 | |
| Small (rateable value up to £20,000) | 15% | 22% | 38% |
| Medium (rateable value £20,001 to £100,000) | 30% | 44% | 75% |
| Large (ratable value over £100,000) | 50% | 75% | 113% |