3 March 2026

The Treasury has now updated its guidance to English billing authorities when interpreting the Non-Domestic Rating (Definition of Qualifying Retail, Hospitality or Leisure Hereditament) Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/1093) for the purposes of administering the business rates retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) multipliers.

This follows British Marine’s successful campaign late last year to persuade the Treasury to amend its legislation before 1 April 20026 and its call to make the guidance clear that leisure marinas and other marine businesses running recreational riverboat trips will be eligible for the new permanent lower RHL multipliers. 

We are therefore reassured to see that “marinas, wharfs, piers and jetties when used wholly or mainly for recreational purposes” are now listed as examples of qualifying hereditaments for the lower RHL multipliers in the latest guidance to billing authorities.  Having eligibility to these lower multipliers is hugely important for leisure marinas, especially given businesses face significant rises in their rates from April due to the three yearly revaluation of properties coming into effect this year.  British Marine’s Chief Executive also received assurance from the Exchequer Secretary earlier this year that properties which are wholly or mainly used by riverboat companies providing recreational / leisure services will also be eligible for the lower RHL multipliers.

Hailed as a permanent tax cut worth nearly £900 million per year, the Government claims these lower multipliers will benefit over 750,000 RHL properties and, being permanent, will provide retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with more certainty and stability.  For small RHL properties their tax rate will fall by nearly 12p next year and  for all other RHL properties below £500k, it will fall by 12.5p next year.

For those businesses set to lose Small Business Rates Relief, Rural Rate Relief and RHL relief, the Government is offering some help through its ‘Transitional Relief’ scheme, which caps the amount that bills increase by for businesses that would otherwise see big increases.  For further information on the different types of business rates relief see here.

For further information about the changes to Business Rates please see our Budget 2025 brief on our Public Affairs webpage.