FAQ

All businesses within the BID area pay a set levy. This money is used to pay for the services and improvements that the BID provides.

A BID is also a mechanism for attracting funding from other sources, such as public sector bodies, depending on the projects involved.

The levy payable by businesses to Essential Edinburgh is 1% of the rateable value of the property.

Businesses with a rateable value less than £25,000 do not pay the levy.

Business rates are spent on existing services across the city they are not ring-fenced to the area in which they are raised. In fact the Council only has just over half of the business rates raised in Edinburgh to spend as the rest are redistributed around the country.

A BID is a way of securing sustainable investment for additional services and projects over a 5-year period, without the red tape and bureaucracy that is often associated with public sector investment. Funds raised are controlled and spent in line with business priorities, by an organisation whose board members are drawn from the business community, and the money raised is spent in the BID area alone.