Domestic rates are the property tax charged on homes in Northern Ireland, replacing council tax used elsewhere in the UK. Your bill is made up of two parts — a regional rate set by the NI Executive and a district rate set by your local council — both applied to your property's capital value as assessed by Land & Property Services (LPS).
This calculator estimates your annual, monthly and weekly rates bill for the current rating year from either your BT postcode or your property's capital value, using the published regional and district rate poundages for each council area. It's designed to give homeowners, tenants and buyers a quick, realistic estimate before checking the exact figure with LPS.
There is only one sum behind every domestic rates bill in Northern Ireland, and it is simpler than most people expect:
Capital value × (regional rate + district rate) = your annual bill
The regional rate is set by the Northern Ireland Executive and is identical everywhere. The district rate is set independently by each of the 11 councils to fund local services, and it is the reason two identical houses on either side of a council boundary can carry noticeably different bills. Both figures are expressed as a poundage — pence charged per £1 of capital value.
Take a home with a capital value of £120,000. Add the two poundages together, multiply, and you have the yearly figure before any relief is applied. The calculator above does exactly this, using the current published poundages for whichever council area your postcode falls in.
These are the district rates currently in force, alongside the regional rate that applies across Northern Ireland. They are refreshed automatically from the Department of Finance each year.
Your capital value is not what your home is worth today. Land & Property Services values every domestic property in Northern Ireland at what it would have sold for on 1 January 2005, assuming an average state of internal repair and fittings. That reference date has not moved since the last general revaluation, which is why a house bought recently for £250,000 may carry a capital value well below that.
This catches out buyers in particular. If you are working out the running costs of a property you are about to purchase, use its capital value rather than the asking price, or you will substantially overestimate the rates.
A significant number of households pay the full amount when they are entitled to a reduction. None of the following are applied automatically — each has to be claimed.
If you are aged 70 or over and live alone, you qualify for a 20% reduction. It is not means tested, so your income and savings are irrelevant. Homeowners apply through LPS; renters apply through the Housing Executive.
Where a property has been adapted or has additional features to meet a disabled person's needs — a downstairs bathroom, a ground-floor bedroom, widened doorways, a specialist heating arrangement — a 25% reduction applies. Also not means tested, and it can apply whether the adaptation was made for an adult or a child.
These are income-related schemes for households on a low income or receiving certain benefits, and they can cover part or all of a bill. They are assessed separately from the two allowances above, and it is possible to receive both an allowance and rate relief.
Rates bills are issued annually and by default are spread over 10 monthly instalments from April to January — February and March are payment-free months, which is why the direct debit stopping is not a mistake.
If you can pay the whole bill in one go early in the rating year, there is a 4% discount for settling in full before the published discount date, which normally falls in early May. On a typical bill that is worth more than most current accounts pay in interest over the same period, so it is worth considering if the cash is available.
There are two separate routes, and which one is open to you depends entirely on timing. If your property was valued within the last 28 days, you can lodge a formal appeal to the Commissioner of Valuation. If more than 28 days have passed, that window has closed and you instead request a valuation review from LPS, which can be done at any time.
Grounds worth raising include a factual error about the property, a material change such as a demolished extension, or evidence that comparable neighbouring properties carry lower capital values. A review can move the value up as well as down, so it is worth checking comparable properties on the LPS valuation list first.
Liability rests with whoever is registered as the ratepayer. In many private tenancies the landlord collects rates as part of the rent and pays LPS directly, but this is a matter of what the tenancy agreement says rather than a fixed rule. Check your agreement — if you are the registered ratepayer, reliefs such as Lone Pensioner Allowance are yours to claim, not your landlord's.
Each of the 11 councils sets its own district rate poundage to fund local services, so two similarly valued homes in different council areas can have noticeably different bills even though the regional rate is the same everywhere. The table above shows the current spread.
Generally yes. Northern Ireland does not offer an open-ended exemption for empty homes in the way some other jurisdictions do, though limited exclusions exist in particular circumstances. If a property has been unoccupied for a long period, contact LPS rather than assuming the bill has stopped.
Council tax places properties into lettered bands, with everyone in a band paying the same. Northern Ireland instead charges on the individual capital value of each property, so the bill scales continuously rather than in steps. It also means there is no band to be moved between — only a valuation to be corrected.
It is a close estimate built from the published poundages and the capital value you enter. Reliefs, allowances and any recent revaluation are not applied, so treat it as a planning figure and confirm the final amount on your official LPS bill.
Sources: Land & Property Services and the Department of Finance rate poundage tables, plus nidirect guidance on valuation, allowances and payment. This is general information, not financial advice — confirm anything that matters with LPS directly.