Business Asset Rollover Relief

You may be able to delay paying Capital Gains Tax if you:

  • sell (or ‘dispose of’) some business assets
  • use all or part of the proceeds to buy new assets, or improve assets you already own

Business Asset Rollover Relief means you will not pay any tax until you sell the new asset. You may then need to pay tax on the gain from the original asset.

If you’re planning to buy new assets with your proceeds but have not bought them yet, you can get provisional relief. This gives you time to buy the new assets without paying tax on the disposal.

Eligibility

To qualify for Business Asset Rollover Relief:

  • you must buy the new assets within 3 years of selling or disposing of the old ones (or up to one year before)
  • your business must be trading when you sell the old assets and buy the new ones
  • you must only use the old and new assets for trading

You can claim relief on assets including:

  • land and buildings
  • fixed plant or machinery, for example a printing press

For ‘depreciating assets’ (fixed plant or machinery, or assets expected to last for less than 60 years), you can get relief for up to 10 years.

Partial relief

You might be able to get relief on part of the gain if:

  • you only reinvest part of the proceeds from selling the old assets
  • the old assets were only partly used for trading

How to claim relief

You can use the HS290 form to claim relief. Fill it in and attach it to your Self Assessment tax return.

If you cannot attach the form to your tax return, send it by post to the Capital Gains Tax Queries address.

Capital Gains Tax Queries
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1AS
United Kingdom

You must claim relief within 4 years of the end of the tax year when you bought the new asset (or sold the old one, if that happened after).

Example

If you sell or dispose of the old asset in May 2025 and buy the new asset in August 2027, you need to claim relief by 5 April 2032.

Get provisional relief

You can use the HS290 form to get provisional relief. Fill in the first part of the form giving details of the disposal and how much you plan to reinvest. Attach it to your Self Assessment tax return.

You can get provisional relief for up to 3 years from the 31 January after the tax year when you disposed of the asset.

Example

If you sell or dispose of the old asset in May 2025, you can get provisional relief until 31 January 2030.

When you buy the new asset, you’ll need to fill in the form again to claim relief.

Related content