Airbnb Rules in London

You can treat London as having three layers: the 90-day legal cap, planning enforcement by boroughs, and the tax and revenue maths. The 90-day rule is not a platform policy. It is a planning carve-out in primary legislation that lets you use a normal C3 home as short-term "temporary sleeping accommodation" within tight limits.

The 90-day rule in law

The legal basis is section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973, as amended by section 44 of the Deregulation Act 2015. In plain English, it says you can use a London dwellinghouse as "temporary sleeping accommodation" without planning permission only if:

It is your residential premises and you are liable for council tax at that address.

It is used as temporary sleeping accommodation for no more than 90 nights in a single calendar year.

"Temporary sleeping accommodation" is any occupation for less than 90 consecutive nights. Anything 90 nights or longer is not counted as "temporary" for this rule.

In practice:

The 90 nights are counted per property, per calendar year (1 January to 31 December).

Once you go past 90 short-let nights in the year in a C3 dwelling, you are into material change of use territory and the expectation is that you have planning permission for short-term letting.

What counts as a "night"

Airbnb and the GLA treat a "night" as one booked night where guests are staying, not one calendar day where you happen to have check-in or check-out. A two-night weekend stay is two nights towards the 90.

Mid-term bookings are handled differently:

Airbnb states that reservations of 90 days or more in one booking are not treated as short-term stays for London's 90-day cap and do not count towards the 90-night limit.

Anything under 90 nights in one stay is treated as temporary sleeping accommodation and counts towards the 90.

This is where many hosts get cute with 89-day stays. That might avoid counting towards Airbnb's limit, but from a council's perspective you can still be making a material change of use if you systematically run rolling quasi-tenancies for visitors rather than using the property as a normal home. Planning officers look at actual use, not just platform counters.

How Airbnb enforces the 90-night limit

Airbnb introduced an automatic Greater London cap in 2017 and still runs it. Once your entire-home listing in Greater London hits 90 nights of booked stays in the calendar year, Airbnb's systems automatically block further short-term bookings on that listing for the rest of that year, unless you tell them you have planning permission or fall into an exemption.

Key points:

The automatic cap only applies to entire-home listings in Greater London. Private room / shared room listings are not capped in the same way because the 1973 Act carve-out is about using your own home occasionally, not permanently flipping a dwelling into visitor use.

Airbnb will let you continue taking 90-day-plus stays, because those are not treated as "temporary sleeping accommodation" for the London rules.

Hosts can certify that they have planning permission, in which case Airbnb can remove the cap for that listing. If you lie about this, you are giving the council a neat trail if enforcement starts.

Other platforms and enforcement

Booking.com, Vrbo and smaller OTAs do not run the same hard 90-night technical block.

They will:

Ask you to confirm you comply with local laws.

Take down listings or cooperate with councils if faced with clear breach evidence or court orders.

They will not:

Stop you accepting the 91st night on their platform.

Track your multi-platform total for you.

This is why enforcement in London is increasingly done via council investigations and data-matching, not by relying on Airbnb to police everyone. Boroughs can:

Scrape listings and cross-check addresses.

Use complaints from neighbours and freeholders.

Ask platforms for data if they have evidence of breach.

There is also media evidence of hosts duplicating listings across platforms to try to dodge the cap. A BBC investigation quoted by commentators found over 1,000 duplicated Airbnb listings created to get around short-term limits, illustrating how councils might respond with more aggressive enforcement and registration.

Planning permission beyond 90 nights (C3 to short-let use)

In planning terms, you start with a Use Class C3 dwellinghouse. Running it as a year-round short-term visitor let is generally treated as a material change of use, commonly to a sui generis short-term let use.

Up to 90 short-let nights per year, and if it is your main residence, section 25 as amended makes that change of use "deemed permitted".

Above 90 nights, or if it is not your council-taxed main residence, you normally need planning permission for short-term letting.

High-pressure boroughs have clear guidance saying that using a flat permanently as an Airbnb is almost always a material change of use that needs planning consent.

Boroughs that actually enforce

You will see very different appetites for enforcement across London. The names that crop up in recent enforcement stories and professional guides are:

Westminster: particularly active in policing short-term lets in mansion blocks and prime central streets. Known for issuing enforcement notices and seeking injunctions where necessary.

Camden: runs a dedicated private sector housing and planning enforcement team and has pursued high-profile short-let breaches in blocks around Bloomsbury and Camden Town.

Tower Hamlets: regularly targets large-scale operators in Canary Wharf and Brick Lane areas, with enforcement notices and fines when flats are effectively run as unconsented hotels.

Elsewhere you will see more sporadic action, usually triggered by complaints from neighbours, freeholders or managing agents.

Penalties

Breaching planning control in London is a criminal offence. For unauthorised change of use to short-term letting, boroughs can:

Serve an enforcement notice requiring you to stop the unlawful use.

Prosecute you for non-compliance, with fines up to GBP 20,000 per offence in the magistrates' court, and unlimited in the Crown Court, plus the possibility of a confiscation order of ill-gotten profits under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Recent press examples include:

A landlord in Barnet fined GBP 75,000 for illegally letting two flats on Airbnb and Booking.com in breach of planning regulations and an enforcement notice.

If you are writing for London hosts, do not underplay this. "I'll risk it" can mean tens of thousands of pounds plus a criminal record if the borough chooses to make an example of you.

National registration scheme and how it interacts

The government has confirmed an England-wide short-term let registration scheme is coming in from 2026, with London explicitly in scope. The scheme will:

Require most short-term let operators to register and obtain a unique registration number.

Force platforms to display registration numbers and refuse unregistered properties once the scheme is live.

For London, that probably means:

Councils will get cleaner, platform-fed data on who is operating, where, and how often.

It will become harder to hide from the 90-night rule by hopping between platforms.

Applying for planning permission beyond 90 nights will almost certainly require you to quote your registration details and show compliance with wider safety rules.

The registration scheme does not replace the 90-day rule. It sits on top of it. You will still have:

The section 25 / Deregulation Act 2015 carve-out up to 90 nights where it is your council-taxed home.

Normal planning rules and borough policies once you want to operate beyond that.

Council tax vs business rates in London

The tax split is national:

If the property is available to let for 140 days or more in the previous 12 months, and actually let for at least 70 days, it is usually moved into the business rates list as self-catering accommodation, instead of council tax.

If it falls short of that, it stays in council tax.

In London:

A normal host using their main home under the 90-night cap is almost always still on council tax at that address, and must be liable for council tax to rely on the 90-day carve-out at all.

A full-time dedicated holiday let that is available year-round and actually booked for 70+ nights should qualify to move to business rates, with a chance of Small Business Rate Relief on top, which can bring the bill down significantly and avoid any second-home council tax premiums if the property is not your main home.

Two practical mistakes you see often:

Hosts assume "Airbnb = business rates". It does not. You have to meet the availability and letting thresholds and the VOA has to revalue the property.

Hosts forget that using the 90-day rule requires council tax liability at the property. If it is on business rates or is your second home with no council tax, you cannot rely on the Deregulation Act carve-out as drafted.

Typical ADR, occupancy and annual revenue

Short-let rates in London sit at the top of the UK range, but vary a lot by area and property. The city-level data from AirDNA and similar sources points to:

A Greater London average ADR around USD 230 (roughly GBP 180 at recent FX) and occupancy around 57% in 2025, across all property types and locations.

By area:

Central London (Zones 1-2): well-located one-beds and two-beds commonly run GBP 150-400 per night depending on size, finish and season, with premium stock at the top end and more basic flats nearer the bottom.

Outer boroughs: typical ADRs sit more in the GBP 80-150 per night band. Family houses with driveways near events or airports can be higher on peak weeks.

Occupancy:

City-wide averages around 55-60% occupancy are common in recent data, but high-performing central units can push into the 70%+ range, while weakly managed suburban listings might sit in the 30-50% band.

Worked examples:

Central London flat at GBP 220 ADR, 65% occupancy: Annual gross = GBP 52,195 (220 x 0.65 x 365).

Outer London flat at GBP 110 ADR, 55% occupancy: Annual gross = GBP 22,093 (110 x 0.55 x 365).

If you are constrained by the 90-night cap and never get planning:

Central flat at GBP 220 ADR for 90 nights: max gross = GBP 19,800 before fees and costs.

Outer flat at GBP 110 ADR for 90 nights: max gross = GBP 9,900.

That is the key maths for your readers: without planning permission, your revenue ceiling on a London entire-home Airbnb is 90 nights x ADR. Anything beyond that requires you to play in the planning and business-rates world, not casual hosting.

Impact of the 90-day rule on the London market

The 90-day rule and the way Airbnb enforces it have had several real-world effects:

It has constrained the number of full-year entire-home Airbnbs relative to other global cities, especially in central boroughs where enforcement risk is real.

It has pushed some operators into:

Applying for planning consent and running effectively as small hotels or serviced apartments.

Switching to mid-term lets (90+ day corporate stays) to avoid the short-let definition.

Moving inventory to platforms that do not enforce a cap, while risking planning action.

It supports the political justification for the upcoming registration scheme, with the Mayor and boroughs arguing that registration will help ensure the 90-night carve-out is used as intended (occasional sharing of your home) rather than as a loophole for large-scale ghost hotels.

For your audience, the practical interpretation is: London is still a high-ADR market, but the regulations and enforcement risk are as important as the revenue projections. If they want to run a serious short-let business in London, they need to budget for planning costs and a possible move onto business rates, not just an Airbnb profile and some nice photos.

What London hosts consistently get wrong

Thinking the 90-day rule is a platform policy, not law. It is a legal carve-out in the GLC (General Powers) Act 1973 as amended by the Deregulation Act 2015. Airbnb's block is just how one platform enforces it.

Assuming the 90-day limit is per platform, not per property. Listing your flat on three sites and doing 60 nights on each does not give you 180 legal nights. The law looks at total nights of temporary sleeping accommodation at the dwelling.

Confusing mid-term and short-term use. Rolling 80-day stays to tourists can still smell like a material change of use to a short-term let, even if you are gaming the definition of "temporary sleeping accommodation" on Airbnb. Councils look at the reality on the ground.

Ignoring planning because "everyone does it". Boroughs like Westminster, Camden and Tower Hamlets regularly issue enforcement notices and have secured fines up to GBP 75,000 and higher against non-compliant operators. The theoretical cap is GBP 20,000 per offence plus confiscation of profits.

Thinking business rates are automatic for Airbnbs. You only move to business rates if you meet the 140-available / 70-let criteria and the VOA reclassifies you. Until then, you are still on council tax and must meet the 90-day carve-out conditions.

Relying on Airbnb's 90-night counter as their only record. If you dual-list or do direct bookings, you need your own log of nights available and nights actually let. HMRC, VOA and councils will not accept "the app glitched" as an excuse.

Forgetting lease, mortgage and insurance constraints. Even if you are under 90 nights and within planning rules, you can still be in breach of your mortgage conditions, block lease or landlord insurance. Those are separate risk layers your council does not care about but your lender certainly does.

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