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COVID-19: support for businesses who pay business rates

New business grants announced 21 December 2021

The Chancellor has announced a further Covid-19 business cash grant of up to £6,000 for businesses in the Hospitality (accommodation and food & beverage services) and Leisure sectors who have been impacted by Omicron.

These grants are property-based and will be payable to the business rate payer of properties in the Rating List in these sectors. As with the earlier grant schemes, the amount of grant to be paid will be based on the Rateable Value of the property, with the values as follows:

Rateable Value	Grant award
£0 – £15,000	£2,667
£15,001 to £50,999	£4,000
£51,000 or above	£6,000

Please see our Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant page for more information.

The Government is also making additional funding available to Local Authorities for their ARG (Additional Restrictions Grant) schemes.

Budget 2021

The Chancellor has announced the following measures to support businesses in his Budget on 3 March 2021:

New ‘Restart Grant’ available in April to support businesses reopen in 2021
- Non-essential retail will receive grants of up to £6,000
- Hospitality and leisure, including personal care and gyms will receive grants of up to £18,000
The business rates holiday (100% Expanded Retail Discount) will be extended to the end of June 2021. From July 2021, the discount will be reduced to two thirds of the business rates bill. Closed businesses will have the amount of relief they can receive capped at £2million and there will be a lower cap of £105,000 for those businesses able to remain open.
The business rates holiday (100% Nursery (childcare) discount ) will be extended to the end of June 2021. From July 2021, the discount will be reduced to two thirds of the business rates bill. The amount of relief will be capped at £105,000 per business.

Please see our business rate relief pages for more information on Retail discount and Nursery discount.

Further support

The Chancellor has previously set out a package to support businesses who pay business rates through the period of disruption caused by COVID-19.

Christmas support payment for ‘wet-led’ pubs

This scheme has now closed and we can no longer accept applications.

COVID-19 support for businesses in 2020-21

The government announced support for businesses to help with the impact of the local and national restrictions in place during most of 2020-21.

Businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors

Businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors will pay no business rates for the financial year 2020-21, regardless of their rateable value.

Following guidance published by the government, we sent new business rates bills to all businesses we identified would qualify for the retail discount.

If you think you should receive a retail discount, but your current 2020-21 bill does not show this, please contact the Business Rates Team.

Find out more about the retail discount

Childcare providers

To support nurseries during this time, the Chancellor has decided that providers of childcare will pay no business rates for 2020-21. We have sent new business rates bills to all businesses we have identified that qualify for the nursery discount.

If you have not received a bill that shows a nursery discount and think you should receive it, please contact the Business Rates Team. Please ensure you provide your Ofsted Registration Number when asked for Additional Information.