England's national short-term lets registration scheme

Status: NOT YET IN FORCE — Last checked: 2026-07-28 — Primary source: GOV.UK, Letting out a self-catering holiday home in England: rules and regulations

What the guidance actually says

GOV.UK's guidance for holiday-let operators in England (published 25 March 2026, last updated 15 May 2026) carries a section headed "Register your property (not yet in force)". The whole of what it states is this:

"The UK government is introducing a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets in England. It is expected to begin in 2026."

That is the complete published position as at 28 July 2026. There is no registration portal, no published fee, no published list of data fields, no published enforcement mechanism and no published start date more precise than "2026".

The legal basis, and what is missing from it

The enabling power is section 228 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, headed "Registration of short-term rental properties". Section 228(1) states:

"The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring or permitting the registration of specified short-term rental properties in England."

Section 228 itself came into force on 26 December 2023. That matters less than it sounds: it commences the power to make regulations, not a registration duty on anyone. Section 228 also states that "the Secretary of State must consult the public before making the first regulations under this section", and provides that regulations may include "provision for the imposition of civil sanctions and appeals against such sanctions".

A title search of legislation.gov.uk on 28 July 2026 returned no statutory instrument implementing a short-term rental registration scheme in England. Until such regulations are made and commenced, no operator in England has a legal duty to register.

Timeline of published milestones

Ministers have given further updates in the Commons in February and April 2026, indicating that the scheme entered user testing and that secondary legislation would be brought forward when parliamentary time allows. These Hansard pages could not be retrieved directly on 28 July 2026 and the wording here is therefore paraphrased rather than quoted.

CONSULTATION PROPOSALS — not law

Three claims circulate widely across the short-let trade press. None of them is currently law, and one could not be traced to any government publication at all.

1. "£5,000 civil penalties." NOT VERIFIED — source not found. The 2023 consultation invited views on "fines, which could vary according to the severity and duration of a violation", alongside registration revocation and compliance notices. It does not specify a £5,000 figure. No government publication located on 28 July 2026 states a £5,000 penalty for this scheme. Treat the number as unsourced.

2. "Platforms will be banned from listing unregistered properties." CONSULTATION PROPOSAL. Question 4 of the 2023 consultation asked: "Should the platforms require a valid registration number in order to list a short-term let?" It was a question put to respondents, not a requirement. No enacted provision imposes this.

3. "Registration will require fire, gas and insurance evidence." CONSULTATION PROPOSAL. Question 12 of the consultation listed possible safety requirements including gas, fire and electrical safety, and set out two candidate approaches — "an entirely self-certification process" or "one entailing physical checks". Nothing has been settled or laid.

The C5 use class

The planning limb is also unfinished. The 2023 consultation proposed a new use class defined as "Use of a dwellinghouse that is not a sole or main residence for temporary sleeping accommodation for the purpose of holiday, leisure, recreation, business or other travel", plus permitted development rights both ways between C3 and C5. No government response or outcome to that consultation had been published as at 28 July 2026, and no statutory instrument creating class C5 was found.

That consultation did confirm the London position remains untouched: "The existing primary legislation would mean that homes in London where council tax is paid could continue to be let out for up to 90 nights in a calendar year."

What the rules require today

Registration imposes no obligation yet. The obligations that already apply are the ordinary ones: planning permission where a material change of use has occurred, fire safety duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, gas and electrical safety standards, and (in Greater London) the 90-night limit. The GOV.UK guidance states that "your local planning authority will decide whether you need planning permission", based on how the property is used and its impact on neighbours and the local area.

Software that helps

Judged against what the scheme is expected to involve rather than what is confirmed, four directory categories are relevant:

• Compliance and licensing tools — the two fields that matter are whether a product stores a registration or licence number per property, and whether it can push that number onto platform listings. If the "no number, no listing" proposal is adopted, that second capability becomes the whole job.
• Property management systems with per-property custom fields, which can hold a registration number before any dedicated tool supports the scheme.
• Compliance tools with certificate-expiry reminders covering gas safety, EICR, fire risk assessment and insurance — the documents the consultation floated as registration evidence.
• Holiday let insurance, where the consultation raised evidence of cover as a possible condition.

Note that no product can be verified as compliant with a scheme whose requirements have not been published. Any vendor advertising "registration scheme ready" software is describing an expectation, not a specification.

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This is a general guide based on published government sources, last checked 2026-07-28. It is not legal or tax advice.