Your rates

What are rates?

In Northern Ireland, rates are a property tax based on the capital, or market value of homes.

Rates of non-domestic properties, such as businesses and offices, are based on the rental value of your property.

The income from this tax contributes towards the cost of providing local government services, such as leisure services and bin collections, and central government services, such as education and health.

Find out about rates in 2013-2014
Calculate your rates bill

Your rates bill

Your rates bill is made up of two parts:

District rate
The district rate is fixed annually by individual councils and is used to pay for services such as bin collections, recycling and waste disposal, leisure services, street cleaning and parks.

Regional rate
The regional rate is set by central government and is used to pay for services such as roads, education and health.