How Much Can I Sell My Business For

If you are asking this question, you are usually asking two things at once. What will a buyer actually pay me, and how much of it will still be mine at the end. Both are fair questions, and you deserve a straight answer to them.

Here is the honest starting point. No official UK dataset records what small businesses sell for. The closest thing to an official answer sits in HMRC’s tax records, and it points to a figure well below the multiples that circulate online. Once you understand why that gap exists, you will know far more about your own likely price than any multiple can tell you.

None of this means your business is worth little. Good businesses sell well every week of the year. It means the numbers most owners start from come from a part of the market they will never trade in, and that better evidence usually leads to a better sale. If you want the full framework behind valuation, our guide to how to value a business covers it. This page deals with price and proceeds.

The honest answer starts with what the official data does not tell you

We would rather concede a limitation up front than lead you towards a number nobody can stand behind.

There is no public register of what a small UK company sold for. Companies House records that ownership changed, not the price. The only regular official series on acquisitions comes from the Office for National Statistics, and it is deliberately narrow. The ONS bulletin on mergers and acquisitions involving UK companies for January to March 2026, released on 2 June 2026, covers only transactions that result in a change of ultimate control and are valued at £1 million or more. On a provisional basis it counted 352 transactions involving a change in majority share ownership in Quarter 1 2026, down from 495 in Quarter 4 2025.

Now set that against the size of the trading population you belong to. The Department for Business and Trade’s business population estimates for the UK and regions 2025 put 5.7 million private sector businesses in the UK at the start of that year, around 4.3 million of them with no employees other than the owner, with small and medium sized businesses making up 99.9 per cent of the total. A few hundred reported deals a quarter against a population that size is not a sample of your market. It is the top of the market, reported because it clears a threshold almost no owner-managed business reaches.

The rest of the churn does not show up elsewhere either. ONS business demography figures for 2024, released on 20 November 2025, record UK business deaths falling from 310,000 to 280,000 between 2023 and 2024, a death rate of 9.8 per cent and the lowest since 2016. Business deaths count deregistration for any reason, including retirement and voluntary closure, so that series is not a measure of failure. It is not a measure of sales either, because a business that sells and keeps trading never appears in it.

That gap in the record is why sector multiples travel so freely. When you meet one, here or anywhere else, treat it as indicative and drawn from transaction experience rather than from published statistics, because no published statistics support it.

What HMRC’s records suggest owners actually receive

One dataset gets closer than any other, for a simple reason. Sellers have to tell the tax authority.

HMRC’s Capital Gains Tax commentary, updated on 24 July 2025, records that Business Asset Disposal Relief was claimed by 39,000 taxpayers on £10.3 billion of gains in the 2023 to 2024 tax year, producing Capital Gains Tax liabilities of £1 billion. Divide the gains by the claimants and the average qualifying gain is roughly £264,000.

Before you read anything into that figure, there are four things you should know about it.

It records gains, not sale prices. A gain is proceeds less base cost, so if you started your business from nothing your gain sits close to the price you receive, while an owner who bought in a decade ago shows far less on an identical sale. The relief also carries a £1 million lifetime limit on qualifying gains, so gains above that limit are not fully captured in these figures and larger exits are understated. The population is claimants rather than sellers, so anyone who did not meet the qualifying conditions, sold at a loss, or simply did not claim is missing from it. And an average across 39,000 people hides a wide spread, with the average sitting above the middle rather than at it.

The same commentary puts business sales in context. Business Asset Disposal Relief accounted for 8 per cent of total Capital Gains Tax in 2023 to 2024, against a total liability of £12.1 billion arising from 378,000 taxpayers on £65.9 billion of gains. It also shows where the money is concentrated. London and the South East accounted for around half of total gains, 49 per cent, and 52 per cent of Capital Gains Tax liability. If you trade outside those regions, the national average is already flattering your position.

Even with all four caveats, this is the largest official evidence base we have on UK business exits, and its central tendency sits well below what most owners expect when they first ask us the question. If you have been told that businesses like yours fetch seven figures, you are measuring yourself against the slice of the market the ONS threshold reports on, not the slice HMRC’s claimant data describes. That is worth knowing early, while you still have time to do something about it.

Why buyers price the business you leave behind, not the one you run

To explain that gap we have to move from data to mechanism, and the mechanism starts with what price means in law rather than in agency practice.

HMRC’s Shares and Assets Valuation Manual sets out the statutory open market test, which takes market value from section 272(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 as the price which assets might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market. The manual’s information standards guidance adds that unlisted shares are valued on the basis of a hypothetical sale between a hypothetical willing seller and a hypothetical willing buyer, with section 273 of the same Act governing the information a prudent prospective purchaser would obtain.

Two words there matter to you. Willing means neither side is under pressure. Open means the business has been properly exposed to the market and the buyer has seen what they would reasonably expect to see. If you are told to sell within four months, you approach one trade contact, and you have no management accounts to show, you are not running the sale that definition describes. Whatever you achieve, it is not open market value, and you will feel the difference in the price.

From there the logic is short. A buyer is not paying for the profit you made. They are paying for the profit that survives your leaving.

Owner dependency comes first, and it is the one we raise most often. If your customers buy from you, if your pricing sits in your head, if quotes go out on your judgement, a share of the profit walks out of the door with you. Buyers rarely argue the point. They either deduct the cost of replacing you or they move money into deferred consideration, payable only if the profit holds.

Transferable profit comes next. You will hear the term adjusted net profit, which means profit after adding back costs a new owner would not carry, such as an above-market director’s salary or a car, and after deducting costs the business has never carried, such as a manager to do what you currently do for nothing. Most owners run the first half of that sum and stop there. Run both halves and you will see the figure a buyer sees.

Customer concentration is the third. A business where one customer is a third of turnover gets priced as a business that could lose a third of turnover. Revenue under contract is worth more than the same profit won project by project, because a buyer can read next year in your numbers instead of taking it on trust.

Structure decides what the headline figure even means to you. Selling the shares in a limited company transfers the whole entity, its history and its liabilities, and is usually what an owner has in mind. Selling the trade and assets transfers what the buyer wants, leaves the company behind, and puts the money into the company rather than into your hands. Our page on business valuation methods sets out how both routes are modelled.

The three things that move your number more than the multiple does

Most preparation time goes on arguing about the multiple. The multiple is the last thing to settle and the least responsive to anything you can do in your final year. These three move your number further, and you have real influence over two of them.

The quality of your accounts and the length of your record

Filed accounts for a small company are usually abbreviated and tell a buyer almost nothing. What persuades a buyer is a run of management accounts that reconcile to the filed position, three years of them if you can, showing gross margin by activity rather than one line for sales. Length counts as much as quality. One good year reads as luck. Three read as a business.

Weak records are not a presentation problem you can fix in the brochure. Anything a buyer cannot verify, they either ignore or deduct. Unrecorded cash trade carries no value in a sale, because a buyer cannot bank it, borrow against it or defend it in due diligence. Stock that has sat for four years, a director’s loan account nobody has reconciled, work in progress carried at hopeful values: each one turns into a negotiation late in the process, when your position is at its weakest.

What happens to profit when you stop turning up

The test is easy to describe and uncomfortable to run. Take a fortnight away without your phone and watch what happens. If sales stall, if pricing decisions wait for you, if your better customers ring your mobile, then part of that profit is yours rather than the company’s.

Buyers apply the same test more slowly, through questions about who signs off quotes, who holds the supplier terms and who your customers name when asked. Where the answer is you, the response is rarely a lower multiple. It is a longer handover, a bigger share of the price deferred, or both. That is why two businesses with similar profit can carry similar asking prices and pay out very different sums on the day. The good news is that this one is within your control. It takes around eighteen months of handing over decisions, and it is the single best use of your time before a sale.

The cost and availability of buyer finance

The third has nothing to do with your business, and understanding it will save you taking an offer personally. Most acquisitions at this end of the market are part funded by borrowing, either commercial lending secured on the business and its assets or borrowing against the buyer’s own home. Your buyer has to service interest and capital out of the same profit that is meant to pay them a living.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Summary and minutes for July 2026 record Bank Rate maintained at 3.75 per cent at the meeting ending 29 July 2026, on a vote of 6 to 3. Lending to buyers is priced above Bank Rate, so that rate sets the floor for the cost of acquisition debt. The consequence runs one way. For a given level of profit, the more of it goes on servicing a loan, the less your buyer can offer and still be left with a return. Availability moves with cost, and when lenders tighten they ask for more deposit, more security and more personal guarantee, which thins the pool of buyers who can transact at all. Neither of those is yours to control, but both are worth understanding before you read an offer as a verdict on what you have built.

What you will actually keep

The headline price is not the sum that reaches your account, so plan around the figure that does. Before tax, take off repayment of company borrowing, professional fees, and any part of the price that is deferred or held back against warranties.

Then tax. GOV.UK’s guidance on Business Asset Disposal Relief sets the rate on qualifying gains at 18 per cent for disposals from 6 April 2026, 14 per cent for disposals between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026, and 10 per cent for disposals on or before 5 April 2025. The relief was called Entrepreneurs’ Relief before 6 April 2020, requires a two year qualifying period, and is capped at a £1 million lifetime limit on qualifying gains.

That rate has risen twice in two years. On a £1 million qualifying gain, the difference between the rate before April 2025 and the rate applying from April 2026 is £80,000 of tax on the same sale.

Timing therefore matters more than most owners assume. Those rates apply by reference to the date of disposal, and for a sale under contract that date is generally when the contract is made rather than when it completes, so a deal signed either side of 5 April can attract a different rate from the one you had in mind when you agreed the price. Gains that do not qualify, or that go beyond the lifetime limit, fall under the main rates. GOV.UK’s Capital Gains Tax rates and allowances put those at 18 per cent and 24 per cent depending on where the gain falls against the basic rate band, with an annual exempt amount of £3,000 for the 2026 to 2027 tax year.

Tax treatment depends on your own circumstances, so take advice from a qualified tax adviser before you agree terms or dates.

Setting a realistic asking price

Everything above points you towards a range rather than a single figure. The same business can trade across a spread of twenty per cent or more depending on who comes to the table and how they fund the purchase. Presenting one number as the value claims a precision the market does not have, and it puts you in a corner when the first offer lands.

Think of your asking price as a filter rather than a statement of worth. Set it high and the buyers who could actually complete never enquire, while the ones who do are browsing. The cost is not the price you eventually accept. It is the twelve months spent finding that out, during which your accounts age, your reason for selling grows more pressing, and your position under the willing seller test gets weaker. Interest is always heaviest in the first few weeks, and a business that has been visible for a year is read as one the market has already turned down.

Before you go to market, put together the evidence a buyer will ask for:

• Three years of filed accounts, with management accounts that reconcile to them.
• Turnover and gross margin broken down by customer and by activity over the same period.
• Contracts, leases, licences and any agreement a new owner must hold to keep trading.
• A written account of what you do each week and what it would cost to replace you.

The last of those is the one owners skip and buyers price. If you want to see how the rest of the process works once that pack is ready, our page on selling a business sets it out stage by stage.

What to do next

The useful next step is not a figure from an online calculator, which applies a sector multiple to a profit line without asking a single one of the questions on this page. It is a considered view of where your business sits against the things buyers actually pay for, and what evidence would move it.

If you would like that view, our free valuation is the place to start. Bring three years of accounts and an honest account of how much of the business runs through you. The second tells us more than the first, and we will give you our reading of both.

Common questions

How much can I sell my business for?

There is no published UK figure. The nearest official evidence is HMRC’s Capital Gains Tax data for 2023 to 2024, where 39,000 Business Asset Disposal Relief claimants reported £10.3 billion of qualifying gains, an average near £264,000. Your own figure turns on transferable profit rather than on a sector multiple.

Does the ONS publish small business sale prices?

No. Its mergers and acquisitions bulletin covers only transactions that change ultimate control and are valued at £1 million or more, which leaves out almost every owner-managed sale. Companies House records the change of ownership but not the price paid, so smaller sales are published nowhere.

What rate of Capital Gains Tax will I pay when I sell?

Business Asset Disposal Relief charges 18 per cent on qualifying gains disposed of from 6 April 2026, against 14 per cent in the year before, subject to a £1 million lifetime limit and a two year qualifying period. Main rates are 18 and 24 per cent. Take advice on your own position.

Why is my business worth less than a competitor with similar turnover?

Turnover is not the measure. Buyers price the profit that carries on after you leave, so owner dependency, customer concentration and accounts a buyer cannot verify all pull the price down even where the trading looks identical. Two businesses with the same sales can differ sharply on price and terms.

Does the Bank Rate affect what I can sell for?

Indirectly, but it matters. Most buyers borrow part of the price, and the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent at its meeting ending 29 July 2026. The higher the cost of that borrowing, the more of your profit goes on servicing debt, and the less a buyer can offer you.