Businesses occupying prime office space in Central London could see their business rates payments rise by 9% on average following the 2026 revaluation, according to new data from Colliers.
The company’s analysis of rental values for prime office space of more than 10,000 sq ft in 27 Central London locations found companies will pay an additional £432m in business rates from 1 April 2026 when the new revaluation comes into force, taking the total bill to £5.23bn.
Colliers forecasts that 22 London locations will see a rise in their rates bills next year and only four will see a fall. Rates bills will remain static in only one location, Canary Wharf, where rents have only marginally changed since the last revaluation.
Office occupiers in Farringdon, will see the steepest rises in their rates bills next year with office average rates liability (bills) forecast to increase from £29.38/sq ft in 2025/26 to £40.64/sq ft in 2026/7 – a rise of 38%.
Shoreditch will also see a substantial rise of 16%, due to steep rent rises in locations on the edge of the City.
Alex White, head of the London business rates team at Colliers, said: “Overall office-based businesses in London need to prepare for some hefty rates bills next year. Although of course, we won’t know the actual RV changes nor the new multipliers (and hence the higher multiplier) until the Autumn this year, our assumptions are that nearly half of the London areas we analysed (13 out of 27) will have business rates bills based at over £40/sq ft after the revaluation. On top of rent and service charge increases, this will make the total occupancy costs of property increasingly expensive – and eye-watering so, in Mayfair and St James’s.
“It will be interesting to see the impact this has on businesses choosing where to locate their headquarters and hubs. With business rates in Farringdon potentially more expensive than City, will this area still attract the tech start-ups and creatives as it has done previously? Or will Farringdon be priced out and morph into the City as a whole?”
John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers, added: “The government’s decision to penalise all commercial property with a RV over £500,000 by a higher multiplier to pay for its “save the high street policy” has effectively hit most of the quality office property stock in London.
“Our estimates have been conservative, based on a higher multiplier of +7p to the standard multiplier, but other commentators think this could be even higher – even up to the maximum of 10p in the £. Should this be the case, the business rates rises we will see will be even higher than those we have estimated above. Another case of the government, some would say unwisely, hitting businesses for six – damaging the lifeblood of our economy.”
Colliers has created an interactive map showing the expected outcome of the revaluation. By clicking on the map businesses can see the anticipated % change in business rates liability (£/sq ft) per London area next year.
