Non-domestic rates - money off your bill

Subsidy control rules under Subsidy Control Act 2022

The following reliefs will be subject to the subsidy rules under the above regulations -

• Rural relief
• Transitional relief for properties in parks
• Transitional relief for small businesses
• Day nursery relief
• District heating relief
• Renewable energy relief
• Retail, hospitality and leisure relief (2022/23 only)

These reliefs may be offered as a Minimum Financial Assistance (MFA) subsidy under the Subsidy Control Act 2022.  MFA is capped at a maximum of £315,000 over a three-period – cumulated over the current and previous two financial years.  

To ensure that we comply with the subsidy regime, we may be required to cap relief at the MFA maximum limit. This may depend on:

• the level of other public sector assistance received by your entity
• whether or not you have an interest in any business with other properties, is in receipt, or eligible, for one of the existing rate relief schemes

You must consider whether you have already received support from any public sector body in the current financial year and the two financial years immediately preceding this.  We will determine this from the completed Subsidy Information Declaration Form that is part of your application.

A written record must be kept for at least three years beginning with the date on which the MFA was given. This will enable you to respond to future requests from public authorities on how much MFA you have received and whether you have reached the cumulative threshold.

Further information on this is available on the Scottish Government website.

The Scottish Government have extended the above relief for 3 months until 30 June 2022 and for these 3 months you are entitled to 50% relief up to a maximum of £27,500 per business. However, you must apply for this relief as it will not be awarded automatically. Please note the following points before applying:

• If the property in question is already in receipt of another 100% non-domestic rates relief, such as small business bonus relief, you should not apply for retail, hospitality and leisure relief
• If your property is currently vacant then you will not qualify for this relief and should not apply for it.
• To qualify the property must be used wholly or mainly for a purpose set out in The Non-Domestic Rates (Coronavirus Reliefs) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. A list of qualifying business types is included as part of the application form and if your business type is not listed then you will not qualify for this relief and should not complete the application
• If your business occupies more than one qualifying property, then you must make a separate application for each property. If any of these properties are outwith South Lanarkshire please apply to the appropriate council. You must ensure that the total amount claimed does not exceed £27,500 across all your properties.
• If you have not already applied for this relief for 2021/22 you should also do this now