BUSINESS RATES: Pubs, cafés and gyms get a 30% cut, but only if they are under the £51,000 line

Pubs, cafés, gyms and cinemas across Wales are in line for a cut of around a third to their business rates bills, but only if their rateable value comes in under £51,000.

The Welsh Government says the 30% cut will apply from 1 April 2027 and will be permanent, replacing the temporary 15% relief that food and drink businesses receive this year.

The list of what qualifies is broad. Pubs, restaurants, cafés, bars, food courts, licensed clubs and live music venues are in, along with hotels, guest houses and hostels, and cinemas, theatres, libraries, museums and gyms.

The £51,000 is the part worth checking. Rateable value is set by the Valuation Office Agency and is broadly what a property would fetch in annual rent, so it is the size and position of the premises that decides this, not turnover or how busy the place is.

Where the 30% actually comes from

Wales runs three rates multipliers this year. Shops with a rateable value under £51,000 pay a lower one of 35p in the pound, while most other properties pay the standard 50.2p.

Moving hospitality and leisure onto that lower multiplier is what produces the 30% figure, because the gap between the two works out at roughly a third.

The rates for 2027 to 2028 have not been set. The Welsh Government says they will be confirmed during budget preparations after the UK Government’s Autumn Budget, so the 30% reflects this year’s gap rather than a figure anyone can bank yet.

Automatic, unlike the relief it replaces

There is a practical difference between this and the current help. The 15% relief for food and drink businesses has to be claimed through the local council and is capped at £110,000 per business across Wales.

The lower multiplier works differently. It is applied according to how a property is described in the rating list, so eligible businesses should not have to apply for it.

When the same lower multiplier was introduced for shops, the Welsh Government said it covered nearly 95% of them, with around 13,000 properties benefiting on top of the 50,000 already getting full small business relief.

Paid for by the most valuable properties

The cut is funded by a small increase to the higher multiplier, which applies to the highest-value properties in Wales. The Welsh Government says the gap between the higher and standard rates will widen by less than a penny, to around two pence in the pound.

First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth said the businesses filling Welsh high streets deserved backing. “This 30% cut to rates for pubs, cafés, gyms, hotels and so many other local favourites is about giving those businesses the confidence to invest, grow and keep serving the communities that rely on them.”

Cabinet Minister for Finance Elin Jones said the approach was a balanced one. “We’ve taken a balanced approach, ensuring this support is affordable while protecting the vital contribution business rates make to our public services.”

What it does not do

Regulations come forward in the autumn and need Senedd approval before any of it takes effect.

It sits alongside the town centres taskforce set up in August, co-chaired by Tamsin Ramasut and Professor Simon Gibson, which the Welsh Government says will look at what individual towns need. It has not said when the taskforce will report.

The permanent cut also answers an older complaint. When ministers brought in the temporary 15% relief earlier this year, CAMRA said it fell short of England, where it put the equivalent relief at 75%.

Westminster is moving on rates as well. A further 20% reduction for the sector in England is due from April 2027, the same month the Welsh change would begin.

What none of it touches is VAT, which is set in Westminster rather than Cardiff Bay and is the tax the trade has campaigned hardest on. Four Swansea Wetherspoon pubs are cutting prices by 7.5% for a day on Thursday to press the case, and the Treasury said in late August that a big cut would cost a lot of money.