London’s 90 night rule: what counts and what to do

Where the rule comes from

The rule starts with section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973. It says that using a home in Greater London as temporary sleeping accommodation is a material change of use, and a material change of use needs planning permission. The Act defines temporary sleeping accommodation as accommodation occupied by the same person for less than 90 consecutive nights, provided for money or money’s worth, or because of the occupant’s employment. Read strictly, even one paid weekend in a London flat could need permission.

Section 44 of the Deregulation Act 2015 relaxed it from 26 May 2015 by adding a new section 25A. Under section 25A, short letting a London home does not involve a material change of use if two conditions are met:

• The nights condition. The nights of that letting, added to the nights of every earlier short let of the home in the same calendar year, do not exceed 90.
• The council tax condition. For each of those nights, the person providing the accommodation, or at least one of them if there are several, was liable to pay council tax on the home.

The same 2015 Act added a section 25B. It lets a borough, with the government’s consent, or the government itself, switch the exception off for a particular home or a whole area, but only where that is necessary to protect the amenity of the locality. Where a direction like that applies, any short letting needs permission from the first night. If you are buying or taking on a home for short lets, ask the borough planning team whether a direction covers it.

From 1 May 2026, the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 also changed the definition: a home occupied under a private assured tenancy is not temporary sleeping accommodation, so a tenant who leaves within 90 nights does not turn the home into a short let.

You may have read that the rule was about to change. In 2023 the then government consulted on a short let use class for England, and in February 2024 it said the class would come in “from this summer”. It was never made: the Use Classes Order has no short let class for England, so in London sections 25 and 25A still apply. The national register, expected from March 2027, does not change the 90 nights either; our guide to England’s short let register explains it.

What counts towards the 90 nights

The law counts nights, not bookings, and it counts them for the home, not for a listing or a website. Three 30 night stays use up the whole allowance, and so do 45 two night weekends. It does not matter which site the guest booked through, or whether they booked direct.

From section 25 and 25A of the 1973 Act, as amended, and the Mayor of London’s guidance on short lets. Your borough decides how the rule applies to your home.

Three details catch owners out. The count runs for the calendar year, not a rolling 12 months or the tax year. The test is the same person staying 90 nights or more in a row, so a company booking where staff rotate through the home every few weeks is a series of short stays, and each one counts. And the law counts earlier use of the home that year, whoever provided it: buy a home in June that was short let from January, and the seller’s nights count towards your 90.

The nights condition is tested stay by stay. Stays that keep the running total at 90 or below are within the exception. The stay that takes the total past 90, and every short stay after it that year, is not.

The council tax condition

The second condition gets less attention, but it decides whether you have a 90 night allowance at all. For every night counted, the person providing the stay must be liable to pay council tax on the home under Part 1 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. When the government made the change in 2015, it said this condition keeps business premises out of the exception.

For most owners it is straightforward. Under the 1992 Act, a resident is liable first. If nobody lives in the home as their only or main home, the usual position for a short let, the owner is liable, so the condition is met.

If someone else provides the stays, such as a company that rents the home from you, check who is liable for council tax: the law asks about the provider, not simply the owner.

Going past 90 nights

Once a whole home is short let for more than 90 nights in a calendar year, or at all without the council tax condition, the use is a material change of use and needs planning permission from your borough. You apply through the Planning Portal, like any other application, and the borough judges it against its planning policies.

Be realistic about the answer. Many London boroughs protect permanent housing. The City of London says its Local Plan resists the loss of permanent housing to short lets, and Camden warns that turning a whole home over to short lets is likely to be refused under its Local Plan. The City of London suggests speaking to a planning officer first, who can say whether a proposal is likely to be recommended for approval. Our guide to planning permission and short lets covers how councils assess applications across England, and our overview of short let rules across the UK covers Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Enforcement often starts with neighbours. The Mayor of London’s guidance tells them to contact the council, which may ask them to keep a log of activity at the home. If the borough finds a breach, it can serve an enforcement notice requiring the short letting to stop. Not complying with an enforcement notice is a criminal offence under section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The fine has no fixed limit, and the court must take into account any money made from the breach. Short letting past 90 nights is not a crime in itself; the offence is ignoring an enforcement notice. A borough has 10 years from a breach of this kind to take action, so only a use that has carried on for a decade is out of its reach.

How Airbnb applies the limit

Airbnb enforces the rule on its own platform. Its Help Centre says: “Airbnb’s systems are automatically limiting entire home listings in Greater London to 90 nights per calendar year.” Once a listing has 90 nights of bookings for the year, guests can only book dates in the next one. A host who has permission to host beyond the annual limit can ask for the limit not to be applied, by certifying in the listing’s Regulations tab that they have the relevant permissions.

That is useful, but it is not the law. Here is what the automatic limit does not do:

• It does not see other bookings. Nights booked on Booking.com, Vrbo or direct count towards the legal 90 but not Airbnb’s counter.
• It does not check council tax. If the home is on business rates, the legal allowance is zero, whatever the counter shows.
• It does not cover rooms. The Help Centre describes the limit for entire home listings only.
• It does not grant permission. The exemption in the Regulations tab removes Airbnb’s limit, not the legal one.
• It may not match the law on long stays. The Help Centre does not say whether stays of 90 nights or more are left out of Airbnb’s count.

The legal count belongs to the home, not the listing: a second listing for the same flat does not create a second 90 nights.

Letting a room in the home you live in

The law itself is not limited to whole homes: the government’s notes on the 2015 Act say section 25 applies even if only part of a home is used as temporary sleeping accommodation. In practice boroughs treat a room in a home you still live in differently. Camden Council, for example, says you do not need planning permission if you let a room within your property while you are still living there permanently. Airbnb’s Help Centre describes its automatic limit for entire home listings only. Your borough has the final word, and your lease, mortgage and insurance can still restrict letting a room.

Letting the whole home while you are away is different. A fortnight’s holiday with the flat on Airbnb is 14 nights of whole home short letting, and they count towards the 90. One spare room rarely justifies a full service manager, and we would usually say so.

What owners do instead

Ninety nights is about three months, which is rarely enough on its own. London owners usually take one of four routes.

• Mix short lets with longer stays. Use the 90 short nights for the strongest dates, and fill the rest with stays of 90 nights or more by one guest, such as contractors on long projects, people relocating for work and families placed by insurers while their home is repaired.
• Let only for longer stays. Stays of 90 nights or more by one person do not count at all. The agreement matters more the longer the stay, because a long stay can become a tenancy, and since 1 May 2026 every assured tenancy in England runs on a rolling basis with no end date. A guest who makes the home their main home on a tenancy cannot simply be asked to leave when the stay was meant to end. Our guide to short let or long let explains licences and tenancies.
• Apply for planning permission. Worth trying for some homes in some boroughs, after talking to the planning team.
• Choose a long let. If the home cannot earn more from 90 short nights plus longer stays than from a tenant, a long let is the honest answer, and we will tell you if we think so.

Most of the work is in planning the year:

1. Start the count on 1 JanuaryInclude any short nights a previous owner used since 1 January.
2. Choose where the 90 nights goPut them on the dates that earn the most, and plan longer stays around them.
3. Count every site and every direct bookingKeep one total for the home, not one per website.
4. Keep long stays cleanA stay of 90 nights or more only falls outside the count if the same guest stays throughout. Put the terms in writing so you can show it.
5. Close short stays before the limitStop taking short bookings on every site so the total never goes past 90, not just on Airbnb.
6. Keep the recordsHold booking confirmations and agreements in case the council asks.

We run homes in London, including in Ealing, Enfield and Wimbledon, through our short let management. See where we manage homes in London.

Questions owners ask