Cycling through all six. Tap any point to stop.

Measured on six things

Free tool to estimate England business rates for 2026/27 ...

Security

HTTPS is enforced and SPF/DMARC are set, but the probe found no HSTS, no CSP, no frame protection, no X-Content-Type-Options, no Referrer-Policy and no Permissions-Policy — 4/12 checklist points. No security page, no SOC 2 or ISO claim, no bug bounty. Nothing broken, nothing hardened.

Screenshots

1 / 1

Business Rates Calculator 2026/27 (England)

About this app

The Business Rates Calculator 2026/27 is a free online tool from UK Creative Ventures that helps businesses in England estimate their business rates bill for the 2026/27 tax year. It incorporates the new five-tier multiplier system introduced in April 2026, including lower rates for retail, hospitality, and leisure properties. The calculator also checks eligibility for Small Business Rate Relief, calculates transitional relief to cap large increases, and estimates Supporting Small Business relief for those who lost other reliefs. Users can input their rateable value, property use, and details of other properties to get a personalised estimate. It also allows comparison with the previous year's bill to see the impact of the revaluation. The tool is designed for small business owners, accountants, and property managers who need a quick, reliable estimate of their business rates liability. With clear explanations and worked examples, it demystifies the complex 2026/27 rates system, hel...

Key features

1Estimates England 2026/27 business rates using the new five-multiplier system, including lower retail, hospitality and leisure rates (38.2p–50.8p).
2Checks Small Business Rate Relief eligibility and estimates transitional relief and Supporting Small Business relief to cap increases.
3Optional comparison against 2025/26 (rateable value and amount actually paid) to show the revaluation's impact on the bill.

Target customer profile

Drawn from the product itself, not from a survey.

Demographic

Small business owners in England (shops, cafés, offices)

Pain points

Confused by new multipliers and revaluation impact on rates

Primary needs

Quick estimate of 2026/27 business rates bill

Demographic

Accountants and tax advisors

Pain points

Need accurate, up-to-date rates info for clients

Primary needs

Reliable calculator with all reliefs and multipliers

Demographic

Retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses

Pain points

Unsure if they qualify for lower RHL multipliers

Primary needs

Check eligibility and calculate savings

Scout Review

Written by AI from measured evidence, scored out of 100.

Business Rates Calculator 2026/27 is a free, no-signup England-only tool that estimates your April 2026 rates bill using the new five-multiplier system, checks Small Business Rate Relief, and estimates transitional and Supporting Small Business relief. It's genuinely useful and unusually honest about its own limits — the disclaimer names exactly what it excludes and tells you your council's bill is final. The 2026 multiplier change is a real, dated problem and the relief modelling is a legitimate differentiator against GOV.UK's thinner tool. Where it falls short: it's a form on a marketing agency's site rather than a finished product, with no PDF export or share link, a 3.3s mobile LCP, 4/12 security header points, and four fixable accessibility failures including a missing main landmark. Nothing here is broken; plenty here is unfinished.

Measure by measure

Usability

No signup, no email gate, no paywall — you type a rateable value and get a number. The empty state tells you what to do, and the scope disclaimer is unusually honest about what it excludes. Loses points for no PDF export, no save/share link, and no way for an accountant to keep a client's figures.

Design

A plain numbered form bolted into a Bristol marketing agency's template. Functional and legible, but the results panel is a bare text block and the multiplier table is an unstyled HTML table. No bill breakdown visual, no chart, no product shell of its own.

Speed

Lighthouse mobile 75/100 with LCP 3.3s, desktop 76/100. CLS is tight at 0.046 and TBT is a reasonable 220ms, but a 3.3s mobile LCP is past the 2.5s 'good' line — the calculator is riding on a heavier agency site rather than a lean standalone page.

Security

Accessibility

Lighthouse accessibility 90/100, but four real failures: prohibited ARIA attributes, headings out of sequential order, links distinguishable only by color, and no main landmark. No accessibility statement and no WCAG claim anywhere. English-only. Solid automated score undermined by fixable structural issues.

Growth

A real, dated problem — England's April 2026 five-multiplier switch plus revaluation — with a specific wedge: RHL multipliers and three reliefs modelled in one pass for a defined segment. GOV.UK and Simply Business are the alternatives; the relief depth is the differentiator, but the ceiling is a free tool with no retention loop.

Improvement areas

No PDF export or shareable result link — accountants must screenshot each client's estimate manually.
Missing security headers (HSTS, CSP, frame protection, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy) — only 4/12 checklist points.
Four accessibility failures: no main landmark, non-sequential headings, prohibited ARIA attributes, color-only link distinction.

Design & Usability

Design and usability are the same story told twice: this is a competent form, not a product. The numbered flow (property, other properties, optional last-year comparison) is logical and the empty state actually tells you what to do, which is more than most calculators manage. The scope disclaimer is the best thing on the page — it names exactly what it excludes (charity and rural relief, empty property rates, discretionary relief, BID levies) and points you at your council's bill as the final word. That honesty is rare and it earns real credit. What it lacks is finish: the results panel is a text block, the multiplier table is unstyled, there's no bill breakdown visual, no PDF export, and no share link — so an accountant working through twenty clients is screenshotting twenty times. The tool is bolted into a Bristol marketing agency's template rather than given its own shell, which makes it feel like a side page instead of the thing you came for.

Speed & Security

Speed is middling and security is thin, and both trace to the same cause: this is a page on a heavier agency site rather than a lean standalone tool. Lighthouse mobile performance lands at 75/100 with a 3.3s LCP — past the 2.5s 'good' threshold — though CLS is tight at 0.046 and TBT is a reasonable 220ms, so it's not janky, just slow to paint. Desktop is 76/100. On security, the probe found HTTPS enforced with SPF and DMARC in place, but only 4 of 12 header checklist points: no HSTS, no CSP, no frame protection, no X-Content-Type-Options, no Referrer-Policy, no Permissions-Policy. There's no security page, no SOC 2 or ISO claim, and no bug bounty. For a free calculator that takes no login and stores nothing, that's not a crisis — there's no user data at risk — but it's also not a hardened site, and the missing headers are a ten-minute fix.

Accessibility & Growth

Accessibility scores 90/100 on Lighthouse, which sounds better than it is: four audits fail, including prohibited ARIA attributes, headings that don't descend in order, links distinguishable only by color, and — the big one — no main landmark. Those are structural, not cosmetic, and all four are cheap to fix. There's no accessibility statement and no WCAG claim, and the content is English-only. On growth, the idea is genuinely well-timed: England's business rates change on 1 April 2026, five multipliers replace two, and a revaluation lands at the same time. The wedge is specific — RHL multipliers plus Small Business Rate Relief, transitional relief and Supporting Small Business relief modelled in one pass, for a defined audience of small business owners, accountants and property managers. Against GOV.UK's official calculator and Simply Business's, the claimed advantage is relief depth. The honest limit: it's a free tool with no account, no retention loop and no data advantage, so its ceiling is 'the page accountants bookmark for a year or two' rather than a business.

Conclusion

If you run a shop, café or office in England and you want a ballpark 2026/27 figure before your council's bill lands, this does the job in about ninety seconds and asks for nothing in return. That's a real service and it deserves the bookmark. But treat it as a first estimate, not a filing: it explicitly excludes charity and rural relief, empty property rates, discretionary relief and BID levies, and its transitional and Supporting Small Business figures are simplified. The fixes that would move this from 'useful free tool' to 'the one everyone uses' are unglamorous and cheap — export the result as a PDF, add a share link, set the missing security headers, add a main landmark and fix the heading order. None of that is hard. The hard part, the rates logic, is already done.

Suggestions for improvement

Add a PDF export and a shareable result link so accountants can send a client's estimate without screenshotting.
Set the missing security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, frame protection) — a ten-minute fix.
Fix the four accessibility failures: add a main landmark, correct heading order, remove prohibited ARIA, and stop relying on color alone for links.
Publish an accessibility statement and a short methodology page showing how each relief is calculated, with the GOV.UK source cited.

How we score

Alternatives comparison

Named competitors, point by point. Nobody paid to appear here or to be left out.

	Business Rates Calculator 2026/27 (England)	GOV.UK Business Rates Calculator	Simply Business Rates Calculator
Price	Free, no signup or email gate	Free, official government tool	Free, insurance provider tool
2026/27 five-multiplier system (incl. RHL rates)	Yes — all five multipliers modelled, RHL row highlighted	Official source, but less detail on reliefs per the site's claim	England and Wales focus; multiplier detail not verified
Relief modelling (Small Business, transitional, Supporting Small Business)	Checks SBRR and estimates transitional and Supporting Small Business relief	Official tool; relief detail described as less detailed	Relief coverage not verified in collected evidence
Year-on-year comparison with 2025/26 bill	Yes — optional 2023-list RV and amount paid inputs	Not indicated in collected evidence	Not indicated in collected evidence
Export / share result	None — no PDF export or share link	Not verified	Not verified
Coverage	England only; excludes charity/rural relief, empty property rates, BID levies	Official England tool	England and Wales