England’s Short-Let Register: What Landlords Need to Know Before March 2027

What was announced

The Short-Let Register will be a mandatory, primarily online scheme covering short-term and holiday let accommodation across England.

Its central purpose is to give local authorities reliable data on how many short-term lets operate in their area and where they are located. Councils will use that information to assess the effect of short-term lets on local housing and to support enforcement of existing health and safety requirements.

In the parliamentary exchange, Nandy framed the register as a way of returning control to communities, allowing local leaders to strike their own balance between the economic benefits of tourism and the need for homes for local people.

She pointed to her own constituency, where short-term lets had emerged partly as a route around local restrictions on houses in multiple occupation.

How the register is expected to work

The government has confirmed the direction of travel, though several operational details remain open. Based on what has been set out so far, owners can expect the process to include the following:

• Registering the property and providing information about the accommodation and the person responsible for it.
• Paying a registration fee.
• Receiving a unique registration number that must be quoted whenever the property is advertised or let.

Booking platforms are widely expected to verify registration numbers before a listing can appear, with unregistered properties removed. If that model is adopted, the registration number becomes a practical prerequisite for marketing a short-term let at all, not merely an administrative formality.

What has not yet been confirmed

It is worth being clear about the gaps.

At the point of the September 2026 announcement, the government had not finalised exactly what information owners must supply, how often they will need to re-register, or the full detail of how the register will be administered.

Ministers have also signalled a wish to avoid placing disproportionate obligations on people who let out their own home only occasionally, so a threshold or exemption for infrequent letting remains a live possibility. Short term accommodation owners should treat the March 2027 date as fixed while accepting that the finer points may continue to evolve.

How this fits with other short-let rules

The national register is easily confused with several separate measures affecting the sector. Keeping them distinct matters:

• The 90-night limit applies only in Greater London and stems from the Deregulation Act 2015. It is not part of the national register.
• A proposed new planning use class for short-term lets was consulted on but, as things stand, has not been brought into force in England.
• Scotland and Northern Ireland already run comparable schemes, and Wales is introducing its own visitor accommodation register. England’s register brings it broadly into line with the rest of the UK.

What landlords should do now

There is no live register to join yet, so no owner can complete registration today. That said, the confirmed timetable means preparation is sensible rather than premature.

Owners of short-term and holiday lets should keep their property and ownership records in good order, watch for the detailed scheme rules as they are published, and factor a registration fee and ongoing administration into their planning.

If letting is run through a limited company or an SPV, it is worth reviewing how the responsible-person and disclosure requirements will apply once the detail is known.