Appeals against England’s 2023 business rates list stood at 700 at 30 June 2026, up from 640 on 1 April, the Valuation Tribunal Service (VTS) said ahead of its November 2026 release.
The VTS figures show 350 appeals were received in the quarter and 290 were cleared, fewer than the number received. Clearances cover appeals settled between the parties and those decided by a tribunal panel.
Since the 2023 list began on 1 April 2023, the VTS has received 1,820 appeals against it and cleared 1,120. All figures are rounded to the nearest ten.
The quarter coincides with the start of a new rating list. The new rateable values (the property values on which bills are based) and multipliers took effect in England on 1 April 2026, according to a House of Commons Library briefing.
The next revaluation is due in April 2029.
The 2017 list closed on 31 March 2023. The VTS received 30 appeals against it in the quarter, against 8,110 over the life of the list.
It cleared 110 and carried forward 590, down from 670 at the start of April.
Council tax valuation appeals, which are handled separately, were larger in number. The VTS received 1,350, cleared 970 and carried forward 2,700, up from 2,320 at 1 April.
An appeal to the tribunal can be made only after two earlier stages with the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), known as ‘check’ and ‘challenge’, have been completed and the VOA has issued a decision.
Separate VOA statistics to 31 March 2025 show 140,780 checks registered in England against the 2023 list from 1 April 2023, of which 124,740 were resolved and 16,030 remained outstanding.
Some of those checks progressed to challenges. The VOA registered 29,010 challenges over the same period: 6,800 were resolved, 5,320 were marked incomplete and 16,890 remained outstanding.
In January to March 2025, the VOA registered 21,040 checks, up from 19,210 in the previous quarter. It resolved 20,210, up from 18,690.
The VTS has cautioned that its figures cannot be compared with the VOA’s. The VOA counts formal challenges rather than appeals, some challenges are settled before becoming appeals, and the two bodies clear cases on their databases at different times.
The revaluation changes what ratepayers owe. The Commons Library briefing describes a cut in multipliers (the pence in the pound applied to rateable value) from 55.5p and 49.9p to 48.0p and 43.2p.
It also says upward caps will limit annual bill increases during the 2026-29 list. The briefing cites UK Hospitality as saying one business’s bill could rise by more than 70% after the changes to the system are taken into account.
