If you are looking for the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief scheme, you are looking for something that has closed. New claims ended on 1 April 2026 in England. In its place, qualifying retail, hospitality and leisure properties now use two permanently lower business rates multipliers, set 5p below the national equivalents. There is no application, and there is no cash cap.
That single change is the reason most of what you will read elsewhere about this scheme is now out of date. Pages that still quote a discount percentage and a per business cash cap are describing a relief that no longer accepts claims. What follows sets out what the scheme was, what replaced it, which properties get the lower multipliers and which do not, and what is still worth claiming.
Everything below is England only. Business rates are devolved, and the position is covered in full further down this page.
What the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief scheme was
Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief (usually shortened to RHL relief) was a discount applied to the business rates bill of properties used for retail, hospitality or leisure purposes in England. It was introduced as a support measure and then renewed year by year, each renewal set centrally and administered by local councils.
Two features of it matter for understanding why it has gone. First, it ran in successive annual versions at varying percentages, each set for that year only, with a cash cap per business. It was never a permanent part of the rating system. Second, because it was a relief rather than a structural feature of the bill, it had to be granted, which meant councils applying it to accounts and businesses watching a cap.
Deliberately, this page attaches no percentage and no cap to any particular year. The scheme's history is not what the operator reading this needs, and a half remembered percentage from an earlier year is exactly the thing that leads people to expect a discount that is not coming. If you need the position for a specific past year, that is a question for your council's records for your own account, not for a general guide.
The live government position is short and unambiguous. GOV.UK states that you cannot make a new claim for retail, hospitality and leisure relief, and that from 1 April 2026 you use rate multipliers to calculate your business rates bill. The source is gov.uk/business-rates-relief/retail-discount.
What replaced it: the 2026/27 England multipliers
From 1 April 2026, qualifying retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England use two lower business rates multipliers instead of claiming a relief. For 2026/27 they are 38.2p where the rateable value is below £51,000 and 43p where the rateable value is £51,000 to £499,999. These sit 5p below the national equivalents of 43.2p and 48p. Properties with a rateable value of £500,000 or more pay 50.8p and receive no RHL multiplier.
Source: gov.uk/calculate-your-business-rates for the pence figures, and gov.uk guidance on business rates multipliers for qualifying retail, hospitality or leisure properties for the design of the two lower multipliers and the £500,000 threshold.
How a multiplier actually works
A multiplier is the number of pence in the pound applied to your rateable value to produce the gross annual bill before any relief. Your rateable value is set by the Valuation Office Agency and is an estimate of the annual rent the property could command on the open market. It is not your rent, and it is not your turnover.
So the arithmetic is: rateable value multiplied by the multiplier equals the gross bill. A property with a rateable value of £40,000 using the 38.2p RHL multiplier has a gross bill of £15,280. The same property using the 43.2p national multiplier would have a gross bill of £17,280. Nothing has been claimed, nothing has been applied for, and no cap has been consumed. The saving is built into the calculation.
This is why the replacement is structurally different from the scheme it replaced, and not merely a renamed version of it. A relief sits on top of a calculated bill and can be capped, withdrawn or renewed. A multiplier is the calculation. There is no form, no annual renewal, and no ceiling on the benefit.
| Rateable value (England, 2026/27) | RHL property multiplier | Non-RHL property multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Below £51,000 | 38.2p | 43.2p |
| £51,000 to £499,999 | 43p | 48p |
| £500,000 and above | No RHL multiplier: 50.8p | 50.8p |
Where the RHL multiplier applies, and where it does not
Two things decide the answer for any given property: what the property is used for, and which rateable value band it falls in. The table below sets both sides of the line against each other.
| Qualifies for an RHL multiplier (England, 2026/27) | Pays the national multiplier |
|---|---|
| A high street cafe with a rateable value of £28,000, paying 38.2p | An office above the same cafe, not in retail, hospitality or leisure use, paying 43.2p at the same rateable value band |
| A 40 cover restaurant with a rateable value of £64,000, paying 43p | A food production unit at £64,000 that is not an RHL property, paying 48p |
| A town centre pub at £45,000, paying 38.2p | A distribution depot at £45,000, paying 43.2p |
| A 30 room hotel at £180,000, paying 43p | A large city centre hotel at £520,000: above the £500,000 rateable value threshold, so 50.8p and no RHL multiplier |
| A leisure operator's bowling site at £95,000, paying 43p | The same operator's £600,000 flagship venue, paying 50.8p |
The last two rows carry the part of the new regime that is missed most often. The £500,000 threshold is absolute. A hotel is a hotel whether its rateable value is £180,000 or £520,000, but only one of those two gets a lower multiplier. Multi site operators in particular should expect their portfolio to sit on both sides of this line, and should not assume a single answer covers every property they occupy.
Note also that the two sides of the table are not about the trading name over the door. A business that operates both a customer facing venue and a separate production or storage unit holds two separately assessed properties, and each is assessed on its own use.
Why the property use test is not always obvious
For a single unit trading as a cafe, a pub or a hotel, the use test is not a difficult question. It becomes harder in three situations that are common in hospitality.
The first is mixed use within one building. A ground floor bar with offices or flats above is not one property for rating purposes if the upper floors are separately assessed, and the assessment that carries the bar's use is the one that gets the RHL treatment. The rating list, not the lease or the trading structure, decides what is assessed as what.
The second is support space held separately. A central kitchen, a dark kitchen unit, a bakery production space or an off site store is assessed on its own, and its own use governs. An operator whose customer facing sites all sit on the lower multiplier can still hold a support property that does not, which is why a single assumption applied across a portfolio tends to be wrong somewhere.
The third is a property whose use has changed since it was last assessed. If a unit has moved from retail into hospitality use, or has been reconfigured, the rating list may not yet reflect what actually happens there. The practical response is to check what the list says about your property rather than to assume it matches how you trade.
In all three cases the check is the same and it is cheap: look up the property on the rating list, read what it says the property is, and compare the multiplier on the bill against the band it falls into.
What is still claimable
The end of RHL relief does not mean there is nothing left to claim. Two things are worth checking.
Small Business Rate Relief. Still live, still a claim, and unaffected by the RHL change. It gives 100% relief where the rateable value is £12,000 or less in England, tapers to zero at £15,000, and carries a single property condition. It is not applied automatically, so a qualifying operator who has never submitted a claim is paying a bill they do not owe. The detail, including the taper points and the limited multiple property exception, is in our guide to Small Business Rates Relief for cafes and small operators. The government page is gov.uk/apply-for-business-rate-relief/small-business-rate-relief.
Supporting small business relief. Businesses that lost retail, hospitality and leisure relief at the 1 April 2026 revaluation may instead be eligible for supporting small business relief. This is a signpost, not a scheme we set out in detail here: whether it applies to a particular property is a question for your council, and the current position is published on gov.uk/business-rates-relief/retail-discount.
Which one applies to me: the RHL multiplier or Small Business Rate Relief?
This is the question most operators actually have, and the two schemes are answered by different tests, so it is worth setting them side by side.
| RHL multiplier | Small Business Rate Relief | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Live from 1 April 2026, permanent | Live, ongoing |
| Is it a claim? | No. Applied automatically in the bill calculation | Yes. You must apply to your local council |
| What decides it | Property use (retail, hospitality, leisure) and rateable value band | Rateable value, plus a single property condition |
| Where it bites | Below £51,000 and £51,000 to £499,999. Nothing at £500,000 and above | Full relief to £12,000, tapering to zero at £15,000 |
| Cap | None. A multiplier is not a capped relief | Not a cash cap, but the relief itself ends at £15,000 rateable value |
In practice the split is fairly clean. A small single site cafe or takeaway with a rateable value under £12,000 is looking primarily at Small Business Rate Relief, because full relief takes the bill to nothing and the multiplier question becomes academic. A larger cafe, a restaurant, a pub or a hotel with a rateable value above £15,000 is in RHL multiplier territory, because SBRR has already tapered away and the multiplier is what determines the bill.
Between £12,000 and £15,000 both matter: the tapered SBRR reduces the bill, and the 38.2p multiplier is what the taper is applied against. The two are not alternatives you choose between in that band; they stack, with the multiplier producing the gross bill and the relief reducing it. Do not treat a lower multiplier as a reason to skip an SBRR claim.
Worked examples
These are gross annual bills before any further relief. The rateable value comes from the property's own valuation, which you can look up yourself, and not from a rule of thumb based on floor area, rent or covers.
A high street cafe, rateable value £28,000
The property is in RHL use and the rateable value is below £51,000, so the 38.2p multiplier applies. £28,000 × 0.382 = £10,696. Had the property not been in retail, hospitality or leisure use, the national multiplier at that band would be 43.2p: £28,000 × 0.432 = £12,096. The difference is £1,400 a year, which is the 5p gap applied to £28,000 of rateable value.
A 40 cover restaurant, rateable value £64,000
The rateable value sits in the £51,000 to £499,999 band, so the 43p RHL multiplier applies. £64,000 × 0.43 = £27,520. The national equivalent of 48p would give £64,000 × 0.48 = £30,720. The difference is £3,200 a year. Again, that is 5p applied to the rateable value, which is why the benefit rises with the size of the property right up to the threshold.
A hotel, rateable value £520,000
This is the case that catches people out. The property is unarguably in hospitality use, but its rateable value is above £500,000, so no RHL multiplier is available and the 50.8p multiplier applies: £520,000 × 0.508 = £264,160. There is no tapering into the threshold and no partial entitlement. A property either sits below £500,000 and gets an RHL multiplier, or it sits at or above it and does not.
You can run your own property's figures with the government's own tool at gov.uk/calculate-your-business-rates, which carries the current multipliers and will reflect any change at the next annual setting.
What the change means for how you budget
The old arrangement made rates a moving figure. A relief set annually, at a percentage that could change and against a cap that could bind, meant an operator could not reliably carry a rates line forward more than a year. Sites that hit the cap saw the benefit fall away part way through a portfolio, and the announcement that mattered arrived with each year's settlement rather than with the property itself.
A multiplier behaves differently. It is part of the calculation, it applies to every qualifying property regardless of how many the business holds, and the benefit scales with rateable value rather than stopping at a ceiling. For budgeting purposes that makes the rates line for a qualifying property a function of two numbers you can look up: the rateable value and the band it falls into.
Two cautions go with that. Multipliers are still set annually, so "permanent" describes the structure and not the pence figures, which are the 2026/27 England figures and will be reset for later years. And a lower multiplier does not mean a lower bill in isolation, because a revaluation can move the rateable value at the same time. The honest planning position is that the mechanism is now stable and predictable, while the inputs still move.
The practical consequence for a multi site operator is that the portfolio should be modelled property by property rather than as a single blended rate. Two sites on either side of the £51,000 boundary carry different multipliers, and a site at or above £500,000 carries no RHL benefit at all. Blending them hides exactly the properties where the rates line is heaviest.
Business rates are devolved: this is England only
Every figure on this page applies in England. Business rates are a devolved matter, and the other three UK administrations run their own regimes:
- Scotland operates non-domestic rates, set by the Scottish Government, with its own poundages and its own relief schemes.
- Wales operates its own non-domestic rates regime, set by the Welsh Government, again with separate multipliers and reliefs.
- Northern Ireland operates regional and district rates administered by Land and Property Services, a different structure entirely.
We assert nothing about the poundages or reliefs in those three. If your property is outside England, go to your own administration or your local council for the figures rather than reading an England multiplier across. The English position of "the relief ended and multipliers replaced it" should not be assumed to hold elsewhere.
Operators running sites in more than one UK nation should treat each property's rates position as a separate exercise. A group wide assumption drawn from the English regime will be wrong somewhere in the portfolio.
What people get wrong
- "RHL relief gives you 40% off your business rates." It ended for new claims on 1 April 2026. The replacement is a permanently lower multiplier, not a percentage discount you claim. Any page still quoting a live discount percentage is describing a closed scheme.
- "There is a cash cap I need to watch." There is no 2026/27 cash cap. Caps belonged to the old annual relief schemes. A multiplier has no cap, because it is part of how the bill is calculated rather than a grant made against it.
- "I need to apply for the RHL multiplier." You do not. It is applied through the multiplier used to calculate the bill, not through a claim form. If you find yourself hunting for an application, you are looking for a scheme that no longer takes them.
- "Every hospitality property gets the lower multiplier." Not above £500,000 rateable value. At or above that, the property pays 50.8p and gets no RHL multiplier at all.
- "RHL and Small Business Rate Relief are the same thing." Two different schemes with two different tests. SBRR is still live, still a claim, and decided by rateable value plus the single property condition.
- "These figures apply across the UK." They do not. Business rates are devolved and everything here is England.
- "My bill did not fall, so the multiplier is not being applied." A lower multiplier does not guarantee a lower bill. A revaluation can raise the rateable value at the same time, and the bill is the product of the two. Check the rateable value on the bill before concluding the multiplier is wrong.
What to do now
- Find the rateable value for each property you occupy and check which band it falls in: below £51,000, £51,000 to £499,999, or £500,000 and above.
- Check the multiplier actually shown on your bill against the figure your band and use should produce. If it does not match, raise it with your council.
- If any property has a rateable value below £15,000, check whether Small Business Rate Relief has ever been claimed for it. It is not automatic, and unclaimed relief is the most common money left on the table.
- If you lost RHL relief at the 1 April 2026 revaluation, ask your council about supporting small business relief.
- If your property is outside England, get the position from your own administration rather than from an England figure.
Related reading
- Small Business Rates Relief for cafes and small operators: the still live claim, its thresholds, the taper and the single property condition.
- Business rates relief service: a structured review of rateable values, bands and unclaimed relief across your properties.
- Cafes and coffee shops hub
- Restaurants hub
- Pubs and bars hub
- Hotels and guesthouses hub
- Estimate your business rates (GOV.UK): run your own rateable value against the current multipliers.