Business Property Relief (BPR): UK Inheritance Tax Relief for Family Businesses
Business Property Relief (BPR) is the UK's most powerful inheritance tax relief, granting 100% relief on shares in unlisted trading companies and sole-trader businesses, or 50% on certain controlling interests in quoted companies and business assets. Combined with the nil-rate band, qualifying family businesses can pass to the next generation with no inheritance tax. This guide covers the two-year ownership rule, the 'wholly or mainly trading' test, the excepted assets rule, AIM-listed shares, the April 2026 £1 million cap reform, and the most expensive mistakes seen in HMRC enquiries.
# Business Property Relief (BPR): UK Inheritance Tax Relief for Family Businesses If you own a UK trading business and you do not have BPR squarely in your succession plan, you are likely on track to leave a seven-figure inheritance tax bill your executors will spend twelve months arguing about with HMRC. That is the practical reality for most family business owners in this country, and the April 2026 reform makes it more urgent, not less. Without planning, the estate of a deceased UK business owner faces inheritance tax at 40% on the value above the nil-rate bands. On a £4 million trading com…