From 1 April 2026, the 2025/26 retail, eligible pubs and live music venues will benefit from a 15% business rates relief on top of the support announced at Budget 2025.
Eligibility
Your business could qualify for the award if it is an occupied non domestic rate property that is wholly or mainly used as:
Pubs
Relief will only be awarded to pubs which meet all of the following characteristics:
a. is open to the general public
b. allows free entry other than when occasional entertainment is provided
c. allows drinking without requiring food to be consumed
d. permit drinks to be purchased at a bar
For these purposes, the meaning of pub does not include:
a. restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, snack bars
b. hotels, guesthouses, boarding houses
c. sporting venues
d. festival sites, theatres, cinemas
e. museums, exhibition halls
f. casinos
Live music venues
Live music venues are properties that are:
a. wholly or mainly used for the performance of live music for the purpose of entertaining an audience
b. can be used for other activities but only if those other activities are:
i. ancillary or incidental to the performance of live music (e.g. the sale of food or drink to audience members)
ii. Do not affect the primary use of the premises for the performance of live music (e.g. because the activities are infrequent such as use of the venue as a polling station or fortnightly community event)
Properties are not a live music venue for the purpose of this relief if the property is wholly or mainly used as a nightclub or a theatre, for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (as amended).
View more Business rates: Pubs and live music venues relief - local authority guidance - GOV.UK on the GOV.UK website.