Colliers has urged Labour to abandon charging larger firms higher business rates in the Autumn Budget, which it argues could stymie economic growth and hamper the high street.
The government plans to impose a new higher multiplier on all businesses with a retable value above £500,000 – adding 10p in the £ to their rates bills.
Colliers, a global estate agency firm that operates in 65 countries, argued that “penalising larger firms with higher taxes will not foster economic growth in the UK”.
John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers, said: “The Chancellor should cancel her proposals for a new complicated system of multipliers when she announces her Autumn Budget next month, and in particular the higher surcharge planned for bigger businesses- if she is truly serious about encouraging growth in the UK and saving the High Street.
“If the Chancellor does not take action to reduce this rates burden, we will see more businesses going into administration, across the board, particularly as the current £1.7 billion retail, leisure and hospitality relief is removed by April 2026.”
The Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools Act) 2025 is designed to compensate the smaller retail, hospitality and leisure properties who are losing all their reliefs next April, by offering them “permanently lower business rates multipliers”.
While Colliers supports this change, it disagrees with transferring the funding from the government to larger private companies.
In the 2026 Revaluation next April values – and therefore rates bills – are expected to rise.
The office sector alone could face an additional £677 million annually in bills, distribution warehouses £266 million, and large industrial and manufacturing units another £84.5 million, by this policy alone. Even public institutions such as NHS hospitals and schools will be affected with higher bills.
Major supermarkets and larger retailers are also due to be hit. Larger retail sites could collectively see £400 million in extra annual business rates costs, from this higher multiplier, likely resulting in job losses, closures and fuelling food inflation.
After pressure from retailers, the government has hinted that supermarkets might be exempted from the higher multiplier, though no decision will be made until the November Budget.
Colliers argued that it’s harmful to exempt one sector, and it would be better to drop the policy altogether.
The firm said no other European country charges businesses half the rental value of their premises in property tax and at such a high rate, meaning business rates are a significant deterrence to new investment in the UK.
Colliers also called for a reform to the appeal system, as the Valuation Office Agency’s is often slow and overloaded.
Meanwhile the firm argued that having an empty property rates relief of three and six months is too short, as it takes some owners up to a year to find an appropriate tenant.
Webber added: “Labour won the General Election in 2024 promising “to abolish the (business rates) tax” and thereby “save the high street”. Yet according to the Office of Budget Responsibility figures last year, it is actually planning to raise almost £40 billion annually from the tax by 2029/30.
“Far from reducing this burdensome tax, this government is therefore expanding it- into a more complex, more expensive and more bureaucratic system, and with “reforms” that only tinker around the edges. These do little to support growth or revitalise the high street or the UK economy.
“The government needs to start listening to businesses, to undertake proper feasibility studies before it introduces half-baked policies and to bring in proper reform. Let’s get the (Multiplier) Road to 35 started!”