Working from home

A tradition of working at home goes back many years from taking in washing and sewing to selling insurance, repairing cars or offering services such as an osteopath or chiropodist. In more recent years, with the development of e-commerce and communication by computer and the Internet, many more people are working at or from home, using the employer's office as a base only for meetings and downloading/picking up work. With video conferencing even more meetings can be conducted away from the workplace and at home.

If you work at or from home, you should be aware that the accommodation within your home used as an 'office' may be liable to business rates whilst the remainder of the property will continue to be liable to council tax (although an alteration may be made to its banding).

There are many considerations that we must make in deciding whether a room in a house used as an office should be liable to business rates and each case is considered on its own merits. We will consider the effect of the extent and frequency of the non-domestic use of the room and any modifications made to the property to accommodate that use.

View examples of working at or from home. In each example, we explain how council tax or business rate liability may be affected.

Each case is considered on its own merits, and normally a member of our staff will visit the property to check the facts before an assessment is made for non domestic rates. If you require any further guidance on this subject, please contact the Valuation Officer responsible for your area. Details can be found under the Contact the VOA pages. You may also like to view the working from home fact sheet (PDF 180Kb).

This information should not be regarded as a complete guide to the law.