London's 90-night rule for short lets.

What the law says

Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 treats using a home in Greater London as temporary sleeping accommodation as a material change of use. A material change of use needs planning permission.

Temporary sleeping accommodation means sleeping accommodation that the same person occupies for fewer than 90 consecutive nights, provided in return for payment. Holiday and business stays booked through platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com usually fall inside it.

Since 26 May 2015, section 44 of the Deregulation Act 2015 has added an exception. You don't need planning permission for that use if both of these are true:

• The home is used as temporary sleeping accommodation on no more than 90 nights in total in the same calendar year.
• For each of those nights, the person providing the accommodation is liable to pay council tax on the home. Someone who receives a council tax discount still counts as liable.

Go past 90 nights in a calendar year, or miss the council tax condition, and the exception no longer applies. The short-let use then needs planning permission.

How the nights are counted

The limit belongs to the home, not to the owner or to a platform. Every night of short-let use counts, whichever site the guest booked through, and whether or not they booked direct. The count runs from 1 January to 31 December and starts again each year.

Airbnb says it has automatically limited entire-home listings in Greater London to 90 nights a calendar year since early 2017. When a listing reaches 90 booked nights, it can't be booked for the rest of that year, unless the host claims an exemption because they have permission to host for longer.

A platform can only count its own bookings. If a home is listed on more than one site, or takes direct bookings, only a combined count across every channel shows where it stands.

The council tax condition

The exception covers only nights when the person providing the accommodation is liable for council tax on the home.

Homes let as holiday accommodation can move from council tax to business rates. In England, a property is rated as self-catering accommodation when, among other tests, it was available to let for at least 140 nights and actually let for at least 70 nights in the last 12 months. If a London home is rated that way, a solicitor can confirm how the council tax condition applies to it.

When the exception is switched off

The local planning authority, usually the borough, can direct that the exception doesn't apply to particular homes, or to every home in a particular area, where that's needed to protect the amenity of the locality. It needs the Secretary of State's consent, and the Secretary of State can also give a direction. Where a direction applies, even a few nights of short letting need planning permission.

The planning rule isn't the only permission involved. Westminster City Council says freeholders, leaseholders and tenants can let their homes for up to 90 nights a calendar year without planning permission, tenants only with their landlord's permission, and not in homes leased from the council. The lease and the mortgage terms are separate questions again.

Letting for more than 90 nights

To use a London home for short lets on more than 90 nights in a calendar year, you need planning permission for the change of use from the local planning authority: usually the borough, or the City of London Corporation in the Square Mile.

The City of London suggests speaking to a planning officer before applying, and accepts applications through the Planning Portal. It assesses them against the London Plan 2021 and its own Local Plan. It says it resists the loss of permanent housing to short-term lets, and development that harms the amenity of neighbouring residents. Each borough decides against the London Plan and its own local plan, and permission is never automatic.

For an application that isn't major development, such as the change of use of a single home, the statutory time limit for a decision is 8 weeks, according to national planning guidance checked on 5 October 2026.

If the limit is broken

Boroughs can investigate reported breaches. Westminster, for example, has a short-term let team that looks into homes reported for going over the 90-night limit or for causing excessive disruption.

Where a council finds a breach, it can serve an enforcement notice requiring the use to stop. Not complying with an enforcement notice is a criminal offence under section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, punishable by a fine.

Outside London

The 90-night rule applies only in Greater London. Elsewhere in England there's no fixed night limit. Whether short letting a home needs planning permission is judged case by case, as a matter of fact and degree, as the government's April 2023 consultation on short-let planning put it.

England's planned national register of short lets is a separate scheme. Read what we know about the register.

What it means for the numbers

A whole home limited to 90 nights of short lets can take short-let bookings on just under a quarter of the year. Here's the effect on a year's room revenue alone, using example figures.

Illustration at £160 a night	Room revenue in a calendar year, before costs
70% occupancy, 255.5 nights	£40,880
Limited to 90 nights	£14,400

These are illustrations, not estimates of what any home will earn. Cleaning, platform fees, management and bills come out of both figures. Costs such as the mortgage, insurance and service charge don't fall when the home is let for fewer nights.

The investor calculator doesn't apply the London limit for you. To test a 90-night year, set occupancy to 24%, which is about 88 nights, and compare it with a long let. Our comparison of long and short lets sets out the trade-offs.

If you're weighing up a London purchase, we run the numbers on every property we source before you see it.

Rules can change

This is the position on 5 October 2026. Check the current rules with the local planning authority, and with a planning consultant or solicitor, before you buy.