Checked against the rating list and the rules in force as at 2026-08-23.
Start with the multiplier on your bill, because that is where London restaurants lose the most without noticing. Divide the gross charge by your rateable value. Landing near the standard rate instead of the lower retail and hospitality one is a strong sign the premises is coded wrongly. Allow for the transitional supplement, and for the Crossrail supplement on larger properties, before concluding.
A restaurant is the use most likely to have changed. A unit that was a shop, an office or a bank, converted at some point, with a billing code that never caught up. The lower multiplier depends on that code, and nothing on the bill announces that it is wrong.
It is also the use where two reliefs stack. Qualifying premises get the lower multiplier, and smaller ones can claim small business rate relief on top.
Rateable values are far higher, so a coding error costs proportionally more. On a £50,000 rateable value the gap between the two multipliers is £2,500 every year.
A further supplement applies to larger properties towards Crossrail, so dividing your bill by the rateable value will not land exactly on the published multiplier. That is expected.
Rates per square metre vary enormously street by street. In Westminster the top retail streets run at many times the borough median. A borough average will not help. The comparison has to be your own street.
Look up your premises on this site: rateable value, rate per square metre, and where it sits on your street.
Divide the gross charge on your bill by your rateable value to see which multiplier you are on.
Read the relief lines for small business rate relief if your rateable value is in the band.
If you took the premises over from someone else, check the reliefs were claimed in your own name. They do not transfer.
Ask about Employment Allowance if you have staff. It has nothing to do with rates, it sits in your payroll, and it is the item we most often find unclaimed.
Each borough has its own page with the distribution of rateable values and value per square metre across its retail, hospitality and leisure premises, and a ranking of its most expensive streets by median value per square metre.
Those aggregations are ours. They are not published anywhere else at that granularity.
Every retail and hospitality premises in London has been checked against the official rating list. Enter your address to see yours. No sign-up, no phone number.
Public data only. We do not ask for your rates bill, and there is nothing to upload.
If there's nothing to save, we say so.
Send a photo of your rates bill and we’ll tell you the same day whether there is anything to recover. WhatsApp 07594 933857.
Sources: Multipliers for qualifying retail, hospitality or leisure (GOV.UK) · Apply for business rates relief (GOV.UK)
Each borough page carries the spread of rateable values and the value per square metre, by type of premises. It also ranks the most expensive streets in the borough. Those aggregations are ours.
We checked 109,537 London retail and hospitality premises against the 2026 rating list — seeing your street’s figures is free, no sign-up.