Perthshire businesses stung by rate rises

Self-catering, tourism and retail hope for Budget relief

Perthshire businesses operating in retail, hospitality, leisure and self-catering sectors will be glued to Tuesday’s Holyrood budget, hoping to see rates reliefs to ease operating pressure and uncertainty.

In the UK budget in November, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a permanent business rate discount for retail, hospitality and leisure of 5p in the pound, equating to almost 10%.

Now, pressure is mounting on Shona Robison to follow suit to avoid making Scotland a ‘materially more expensive place to operate’ than England, according to business leaders.

Huge rate rises

Perthshire self-catering providers will also be looking for transitional rate reliefs as they come to terms with a shockwave of new draft 2026 rates re-evaluations which have seen eye-watering rises of between 120% and 300%.

Tourism bodies have claimed the new rates, unless paused or amended, will threaten the viability of thousands of self-catering operations, with rural communities like in Highland Perthshire particularly affected.

Many rely on the Small Business Bonus Scheme to ameliorate the burden of high rates but fears are growing that the new non-domestic rates evaluation will push them out of this relief because they will be viewed as having too high a rateable value.

The issue has risen up the Holyrood agenda with Perthshire-based MSP Murdo Fraser and Independent Fergus Ewing both calling for the 2026 re-evaluations to be either paused and re-evaluated or for rate cuts to be announced in the Budget.

Cuts or a review

Self-caterers in Perthshire want targeted cuts as they navigate the new values or for the multipliers which are applied to evaluations to restored to pre-2023 levels.

The new non-domestic rates will come into effect on April 1st but business will have until the final valuations are issued on 15th March to make representations to Assessors in a bid to challenge their bills. If this fails, a formal appeals process will run until late July.

The principal issue is the methodology used, with assessors treating self-catering operators the same as businesses such as shops on long-term rental leases.

A small dataset of rental evidence, understood to be around 1%, has also been used to derive a modelled value of all self-catering operations, although some operators, particularly in rural areas, can have highly variable and seasonal rental patterns.

Protect businesses

Guy Hinks, FSB Scotland Chair said: “The prospect of dramatic increases in their business rates couldn’t come at a worse time for small businesses when economic conditions are already extremely challenging.

“That is why it is so important the Scottish Government uses the opportunity presented in the Budget in January to protect hard-pressed small businesses.”