Short Lets in London: The 90 Night Rule
The 90 night limit on short lets in London, the second condition almost nobody reads, what your lease probably says, and why a changeover clean is a different job.
Published by Jerimiah, owner of J&BROS Cleaning Last updated 4 September 2026 7 min read
In short
Using a home in Greater London as temporary sleeping accommodation for more than 90 nights in a calendar year is a material change of use that needs planning permission. The exception in section 25A of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 has a second condition too: at least one person providing the accommodation must be liable for council tax there. Your lease can ban short lets whatever the planning position is.
Letting a flat in Canary Wharf or Royal Docks by the night is legal in London up to a point, and that point is tighter than most listings suggest. Two conditions have to hold. Miss either and you have made a material change of use needing planning permission you almost certainly do not have.
90 nights a calendar year
The 90 nights condition
One of two conditions, and a yearly total rather than a maximum stay length.
The rule is two conditions, not one
The Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 treats using residential premises in Greater London as temporary sleeping accommodation as a material change of use. Section 44 of the Deregulation Act 2015 inserted section 25A, which carves out an exception carrying two conditions.
The first is the nights. Every night the premises are used this way is added to every earlier night of the same use there in that calendar year, and the sum must not go past ninety.
The condition people skip
The second is council tax. Whoever provided the stay on a given night has to have been liable for council tax on the premises for that night, and where several people provided it, one of them has to have been. The liability in question is the one under Part 1 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. There are two ways to fail it. A flat let commercially enough to be valued for business rates is no longer taxed as a dwelling, so nobody is liable for council tax there at all. Or the stay is provided by someone who is not the person billed. Owning through a company is not itself the problem: where nobody lives in the flat as their main home, the owner is the one billed.
When the exception can be switched off
Section 25B lets the borough or the Secretary of State switch the exception off for particular premises or areas, to protect local amenity.
What to check, in order
- Count the nights: every night of every let at the premises in the same calendar year, added together.
- Check that one of the people providing the stay is liable for council tax at the address. A flat billed for business rates rather than council tax is where this fails.
- Check whether a section 25B direction covers your premises or area, which switches the exception off whatever the nights say.
- Read the lease, the buildings insurance and the mortgage conditions: planning settles none of them.
Ninety nights is a total, not a run
The count is a sum across the calendar year, not a per booking figure. Thirty weekends of two nights each is sixty nights before any week long booking. It resets on 1 January, not on the anniversary of your first guest, and a platform dashboard showing the last twelve months is not a calendar year total.
Your lease is a separate problem, and usually a bigger one
A lease can prohibit short letting outright, through a clause requiring the flat to be occupied as a private residence, or one setting a minimum letting term. Buildings insurance and mortgage conditions can restrict it as well, because paying guests change the risk the insurer priced.
Read your own documents, not a summary
The lease can forbid what the planning system allows, and the freeholder does not need the council to act first. The same document that sets your service charge and the communal cleaning it pays for is the one that decides whether you can let at all. These terms are specific to your building, so read your actual lease and policy. A clause you cannot interpret is a question for a solicitor, not for a cleaner.
What enforcement looks like locally
Tower Hamlets publishes both conditions on its short-term lets page in the same terms as the statute: no more than 90 nights in a calendar year, and at least one of the people providing the accommodation liable for Council Tax at the property.
Who an Enforcement Notice reaches
It also says the cap on fines for letting without planning permission has gone: what used to stop at £20,000 is now unlimited. Where it considers the use unlawful it will seek to regularise it, which can include serving an Enforcement Notice on freeholders, leaseholders, insurance providers, mortgage providers and anyone else with a legal interest in the property. Not complying with that notice is what the council treats as criminal. On the council’s account it is a criminal offence, tried in the Magistrates’ or Crown Court, with no ceiling on the fine. The borough is not inventing that: section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 makes an owner of land who breaches an enforcement notice guilty of an offence and liable to a fine, whether convicted summarily or on indictment.
What is changing nationally
Nothing here has changed the London rule yet. The nearest thing to a change is a compulsory register. The current gov.uk guidance describes a national scheme that short-term lets in England will have to be registered on, and says it is expected to begin in 2026. At the time of writing there is nothing to register with, and a host in Tower Hamlets still has to meet the planning test whatever the register later asks for.
The use class that was announced but not brought in
A separate planning use class for short-term lets came from the 2022 to 2024 administration, in a press release of February 2024. The proposed planning changes were to create a new use class for short-term lets that are not anyone’s sole or main home, from that summer. The current gov.uk guidance on letting a holiday home in England does not mention a use class at all. Treat it as announced rather than law, and check gov.uk before planning around either.
A changeover clean is a different job
This is the practical part, and where hosts lose money quietly. Four things separate it from a weekly clean.
| What | A regular clean | A changeover |
|---|---|---|
| Linen | Left as it is | Stripped and remade to photograph well, towels swapped, and somebody owns the used laundry |
| Consumables | Not part of the job | Loo roll, bin bags, hand soap, whatever the listing promises, and it runs out on a Sunday |
| The window | Can run twenty minutes over with nobody harmed | Checkout at ten, check-in at three, and a guest downstairs with a suitcase |
| The standard | Judged by whoever lives in it | Judged against the listing photographs by a stranger who will write about it in public: cushions square, no cables trailing, nothing in a drawer |
Linen is the row that becomes an argument by the third booking if it was not agreed before the first. The standard is the row that costs time, and the discipline is closer to an end of tenancy cleaning checklist worked in order than to a weekly tidy.
Why a standard domestic slot is the wrong booking
The time is priced for a lived in home, the laundry is not in it, and the room to overrun does not exist. A gap between bookings is the moment for a one off or spring clean of the whole flat instead, which is scoped by the job rather than by the clock.
Where we would talk you out of hiring us
If you let one flat for a few weekends a year and live in the same postcode, you are probably quicker than a cleaner who has to travel, and the laundry is the real cost either way. Paying for a short turnaround you could do in the same window is not obviously good value. It starts to earn its money when the turnarounds stack up, or land while you are somewhere else.
If you are running back to back summer weekends and need a guaranteed slot every Friday whatever else happens, a dedicated short-let operator suits you better than a small local team. We would rather say so now than let you down on a changeover day, which is the one day in cleaning where being late is the same as not turning up.
The numbers, and where they come from
- The 90 nights condition
- Section 25A allows short let use only where the nights of use, added to any previous such use of the premises in the same calendar year, do not exceed ninety.
- Source
- The council tax condition
- For each night counted, the person who provided the accommodation, or at least one of them where more than one did, must have been liable to pay council tax under Part 1 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 for the premises.
- Source
- The exception can be switched off
- Section 25B lets a local planning authority or the Secretary of State direct that the exception does not apply to particular residential premises, or to premises in a particular area, to protect local amenity.
- Source
- Tower Hamlets states both tests
- The borough says short letting must not exceed 90 nights in a calendar year, and that at least one of the persons providing the accommodation must be liable to pay Council Tax at the property.
- Source
- Fines are no longer capped
- Tower Hamlets states that fines for letting without the required planning permission have recently been increased from £20,000 to an unlimited amount.
- Source
- Who an enforcement notice reaches
- An Enforcement Notice can be served on freeholders, leaseholders, insurance providers, mortgage providers and any other person having a legal interest in the property.
- Source
- Breaching a notice is an offence
- Under section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, an owner of land who is in breach of an enforcement notice is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine on summary conviction or on conviction on indictment.
- Source
- Tower Hamlets on non-compliance
- The borough states that non-compliance with an Enforcement Notice is a criminal offence and anyone found guilty could face an unlimited fine in the Magistrates' or Crown Court.
- Source
- A 2024 announcement on use class
- A government press release of 19 February 2024, published under the 2022 to 2024 administration, said proposed planning changes would see a new use class created for short-term lets not used as a sole or main home.
- Source
- A national register is announced
- Government guidance updated on 15 May 2026 says a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets in England is being introduced and is expected to begin in 2026. It is not yet in force.
- Source
Common advice that is wrong
- false
“The limit is 90 consecutive nights, so weekend bookings do not count.”
Every night of every let in the same calendar year is added together, and the running total is what has to stay at or below ninety.
The statute counts a sum, not a run. Section 25A adds the nights of the current use to the nights of every previous use of the same premises in the same calendar year, and the total is what has to stay at or below ninety. Thirty weekends of two nights each is sixty nights before you have taken a single week long booking. The count resets on 1 January, not on the anniversary of your first guest.
Source: legislation.gov.uk
- partly true
“If I stay under 90 nights I am in the clear.”
Council tax is the other half of the test. For every night counted, at least one of the people providing the stay must be liable for it at that address.
You have cleared one of two planning conditions. The other is council tax: for every night counted, at least one of the people who provided the stay has to have been liable for council tax at that address. Worth checking if the flat is billed for business rates rather than council tax, because then nobody is. A borough or the Secretary of State can also direct that the exception does not apply to particular premises or areas. And planning says nothing about your lease, mortgage or buildings insurance.
Source: legislation.gov.uk
- false
“Worst case it is a fine, and a fine is just a cost of doing business.”
Enforcement comes first. An Enforcement Notice can be served on your freeholder, lender and insurer too, and breaching it is where the offence and the uncapped fine start.
There is no fine sitting there waiting to be paid, because enforcement comes first. Tower Hamlets says fines are no longer capped at £20,000, and that an Enforcement Notice can be served on freeholders, leaseholders, insurance providers and mortgage providers. Breaching that notice is where the offence starts: under section 179 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 an owner in breach is guilty of one, and the court has to take account of any financial benefit the use brought you.
Source: legislation.gov.uk
- partly true
“Every changeover should be handed to a cleaning company.”
The 90 night ceiling caps how many changeovers a compliant London flat can ever generate, so the volume that makes a standing contract worth it often is not there.
Section 25A holds a compliant flat at ninety nights a year, and that is the number the decision turns on. Ninety nights spread over weekends is roughly thirty changeovers, and thirty is a low base to build a standing cleaning contract on, particularly for one flat in your own postcode. The calculation flips where the nights run in long consecutive blocks near the ceiling, where you let more than one property, or where the turnaround falls in a fixed window while you are elsewhere. Buying the linen service is a separate decision from buying the clean.
Source: legislation.gov.uk
What we see on the job
We are a six person family team rather than an agency, and we work Canary Wharf and East London, in flats, houses and small offices. Two things about how we run matter for a flat that changes hands often. The first is that you get the same people every visit. The second is that there is no contract and no notice period, which suits work that comes in bursts rather than every Tuesday. Six of us means we can cover illness and holiday, and we can often take short-notice work. If we miss something, we come back.
Common questions
Does the 90 nights reset on a rolling basis or on 1 January?
On 1 January. The statute counts nights of use in the same calendar year, so the year runs from 1 January to 31 December and the count starts again after that. Because the statute counts nights rather than bookings, the plain reading is that a stay running over New Year has each of its nights counted in the year that night falls in.
What is the council tax condition and why does it catch people?
The planning exception only applies if at least one person providing the accommodation is liable to pay council tax at that property. It catches flats owned through a company, and arrangements where an operator provides the stay but somebody else is billed for council tax. If nobody providing the accommodation is the council tax payer, the exception does not apply and the 90 nights never come into it.
My lease bans short lets. Does the 90 night allowance override it?
No. Planning permission and your lease are separate permissions and you need both. A lease can require the flat to be used as a private residence, or prohibit any letting below a set minimum term, and buildings insurance and mortgage conditions can restrict it as well. Only your own documents decide, so read the lease itself rather than a summary of what leases usually say.
How would the council even know?
Usually because a neighbour or the building manager reports it, and the listing itself is public. The point worth focusing on is not detection but consequence: an Enforcement Notice can be served on your freeholder, lender and insurer as well as you, and failing to comply with one is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine.
Is there a national register I need to sign up to?
Not yet. A compulsory register for short-term lets in England is on its way, and gov.uk currently expects it to start during 2026, but at the time of writing there is nothing to sign up to. It is separate from London planning, so it will not replace the 90 nights rule. Check the gov.uk guidance for the current position before you plan around a date.
How is a changeover clean different from a regular clean?
Four ways. Linen is stripped, replaced and laundered rather than left. Consumables have to be restocked. The job sits in a fixed window between checkout and check-in with no room to overrun. And the standard is the listing photographs rather than a lived in home, so cushions, cables and an empty fridge all matter more than they would in a weekly clean.
If you would rather we did it
We are a small cleaning team working across Canary Wharf and East London.
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Who is behind this
J&BROS Cleaning is run by Jerimiah, who owns the business. We are a small cleaning team working across Canary Wharf and East London, and these guides are published under his name. More about us .
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