• FactCheckNI was not supplied with any specific details about either the premises in Dublin with an apparent rateable value of €9,000 or any “comparable” locations in Belfast with rates of €36,000.
  • Our analysis does show that business rates in Belfast are generally much higher than they are for similar premises in Dublin.
  • For example, a Centra near Belfast City Hall is set for an annual rates bill of around £40,600 while a Centra of similar size near Dublin Castle will pay around £22,100.
  • This practical example indicates how local rates are generally higher – albeit in this case the local bill is almost double its southern counterpart, rather than four times as much as per the claim.
  • It is not out of the question that a specific business looking at two comparable premises could find rates in Belfast to be multiples of equivalent taxes in Dublin.

In an Assembly debate on the cost of doing business on 2 June, UUP MLA Diana Armstrong said:

“A local business owner recently shared a telling example of our rates system, having opened a premises in one of Dublin’s most prestigious streets, where the rates were just €9,000. The rates for a comparable premises in Belfast are €36,000. That disparity is totally unacceptable.”

FactCheckNI does not know the identity of the business owner mentioned by Ms Armstrong or any specifics about the two premises in question.

On a like-for-like basis, businesses in Northern Ireland pay more in non-domestic rates compared with businesses in the Republic of Ireland. There are differences in how these taxes are calculated in the two jurisdictions, which complicates direct comparisons made either side of the border.

However, based on our analysis of the rating system in Belfast and equivalent taxes in Dublin, these figures are not out of the question. At the same time, we cannot be sure they are correct without access to more details.

We looked at a practical comparison – between a Centra on Donegall Square West in Belfast and another Centra of similar size on Dublin’s Dame Street – and found the Belfast rate to be 84% higher than in Dublin.

Read on for a closer look at rates on both sides of the border.

  • Source

FactCheckNI contacted Ms Armstrong about her contribution to the debate but, at the time of writing, had received no reply.

  • Non-domestic rates in Northern Ireland

Local  business rates are calculated by multiplying a property’s Net Annual Value (NAV) by an applicable rate known as the poundage or multiplier. The NAV of a property is essentially its assessed annual rental value. The poundage is the sum of a regional rate (set by the Northern Ireland Executive) and the district rate (set by the local council).

This is collected by Land and Property Services (LPS), who pass on the district rate to local councils and remit the amount set by the regional rate to the NI Executive.

For an illustration of non-domestic rates calculation in Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council set the following poundages for 2025/26:

  • District rate: 0.327692
  • Regional rate: 0.298900
  • Total rate: 0.626592

A business with an NAV of £50,000 would pay total rates of (50,000 x 0.626592) £31,329.60, of which £16,384.60 would be the district rate received by Belfast City Council and £14,945 would be the regional rate received by the Northern Ireland Executive.

This picture is complicated by NI’s range of reliefs and exemptions that can reduce the effective tax burden on businesses. Notably, a Small Business Rate Relief scheme applies to lower-valued properties, and certain sectors or property types receive reductions in their rates bill, for example industrial derating (a 70% reduction in rates for manufacturing facilities), exemptions for charities, and an 80% relief for sports and recreation facilities.

There is also a partial relief for vacant commercial properties (the non-domestic vacant rating), where an empty property after a three month initial exemption period is charged 50% rates.

  • Commercial rates in Ireland

South of the border, business property tax (called commercial rates) is likewise based on a deemed rental value, but that system uses a Rateable Valuation (RV) determined by the national Valuation Office (now part of Tailte Éireann) and an Annual Rate on Valuation (ARV) set by each local authority.

Dublin City Council’s ARV for 2025 is 0.282 so, as an example, if a shop in Dublin has a rateable valuation of €60,000, its 2025 rates bill would be €16,920 (60,000 × 0.282).

Unlike in Northern Ireland, local councils keep all of the commercial rates collected in their area. No collected funds are passed on to central government in the way that NI’s regional rates are given to the Executive.

There are fewer reliefs available for small businesses in the Republic of Ireland than there are here. Generally speaking, all types of business will pay commercial rates at the same level (there was a cash grant equivalent to a one-off reduction in rates for businesses with a rates bill of less than €30k in 2023). There are certain narrow reliefs available for certain sectors such as charities, but there is no nationwide equivalent to Northern Ireland’s Small Business Rate Relief.

  • Comparing bills north and south

On a straightforward basis, when comparing rates between the two jurisdictions, local bills are significantly higher because Northern Ireland’s poundages are significantly higher. For example, the total poundage in Belfast for a non-domestic property is 0.626592, whilst in Dublin the equivalent rate is 0.282.

However, this can be complicated by both differing rates and reliefs available in the two jurisdictions and differences in calculation of the property value for rates purposes.

  • A practical example

The Centra shop on Donegall Square West in Belfast has a total area 327.65m2, of which 196.3m2 is shop floor space, and 131.35m2 is storeroom space.

From Tailte Éireann data, the Centra shop on Dame Street in Dublin has a total area 313.89m2, of which 212.49m2 is shop floor space, and 101.4m2 is storeroom space.

Whilst a perfect like-for-like comparison isn’t possible, these two shops are of a similar size, are from the same retail chain, and sit in comparable areas of their respective cities. The calculation below shows the commercial rates payable for each property.

Centra Donegall Square West, BelfastCentra Dame Street, Dublin
NAV: £64,800RV: €92,011
Poundage:  0.626592ARV: 0.282
Non-domestic rates bill: £40,603Commercial rates bill: €25,947

At current exchange rates (£1 = €1.1751 as of the 15th of June 2025), the rates bill for the Dame Street Centra is £22,080; therefore the rates bill for the Belfast shop is 84% higher despite them being of a similar size and in similar high footfall areas in their respective city centres.

  • The example in the claim

As mentioned above, FactCheckNI does not know any specifics about the examples cited in the original claim.

Could there be business premises on one of Dublin’s most prestigious streets with an annual rates equivalent of €9,000? Maybe. And could an equivalent premises in Belfast lead to a rates bill of €36,000? Again, maybe – it very much depends on the details.

There may also be a degree of subjectivity to what constitutes “comparable” premises, but this is impossible to know without further information.

For this reason, our rating for this fact check is unsubstantiated – with the proviso that, generally speaking, it is fair to say that rates in Belfast are significantly higher than in Dublin.

  • More context on tax comparisons

Whilst comparing similar properties on either side of the border can be illustrative of the different taxes payable, comparing the overall tax burden in both jurisdictions can show the percentage of overall economic output that is collected via commercial property taxes.

From CSO data, €1.653bn was collected in commercial taxes in the Republic of Ireland in 2023. From data provided by the ONS, £650m was collected in non-domestic rates in Northern Ireland in 2022/23; this includes both district and regional rates and is the most recent data available as at the time of writing.

On a crude per-capita basis, this represents €321 per person in the Republic of Ireland and £338 per person in Northern Ireland. Whilst this shows that per-capita commercial property taxes are higher in Northern Ireland, these figures don’t capture different levels of economic activity either side of the border.

How does this measure up relative to overall economic performance?

For Northern Ireland, the ONS publishes  regional GDP data. In the Republic of Ireland, distortions to GDP due to the presence of multinational firms and practices such as transfer pricing mean that the GDP metric doesn’t accurately reflect domestic economic activity, and for this reason Modified GNI (GNI*) is generally used for this purpose.

For the year ended 2023, GDP in Northern Ireland was £63.265bn, meaning that commercial property taxes captured 1.0% of economic output. In the Republic of Ireland GNI* in 2023 was €290.932bn; therefore commercial property taxes captured 0.57% of domestic economic output.
This suggests that the burden of taxes on commercial property in Northern Ireland as a percentage of economic output is around 80% higher in Northern Ireland compared with the Republic of Ireland.