Listing a spare room or a whole property on Airbnb sounds simple, but there are several things worth checking before you do, some legal, some financial, and some that depend entirely on where you live. Here’s what to look into first.
Check Whether You Own or Rent
If you own your home outright with no mortgage, you generally have the most flexibility to list it. If you have a mortgage, most residential mortgage terms require you to notify or get permission from your lender before letting the property, even short-term, letting without doing so can technically breach the mortgage agreement. If you rent rather than own, subletting on Airbnb without your landlord’s permission is very likely to breach your tenancy agreement, regardless of what the lease says about lodgers specifically.
Leasehold Properties Often Have Extra Restrictions
If your property is leasehold, most flats are, it’s essential to check the lease itself before listing. Many leases explicitly prohibit short-term or holiday letting, or require the freeholder’s consent, even in situations where there’s no other legal barrier to listing the property. This is a step that’s easy to overlook, since it doesn’t show up anywhere in Airbnb’s own listing process, but breaching lease terms can have serious consequences, including potential action from the freeholder.
Planning Permission Depends on Location and Frequency
Whether short-term letting itself requires separate planning permission depends heavily on where the property is and how often it’s let. In Greater London specifically, letting an entire home on a short-term basis without planning permission is capped at 90 nights a year. Outside London, there’s no equivalent fixed cap, but letting a property intensively enough, and often enough, can still be judged a material change of use requiring planning permission, a judgement made case by case by the local council rather than a simple fixed rule.
A National Registration Scheme Is on the Way
The government has committed to introducing a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets in England, which will require hosts to register their property and display a registration number on any listing. As of now, the scheme is still in development and hasn’t yet launched, but it’s worth being aware it’s coming, since operating without registering once the scheme is live is expected to carry penalties. Scotland already has its own mandatory licensing scheme in place, and Wales is expected to introduce a similar registration requirement.
Insurance Matters More Than People Expect
Standard home insurance policies generally don’t cover paying guests, and using a property for short-term letting without the right insurance in place can invalidate a policy entirely, leaving an owner uninsured in the event of damage or an incident involving a guest. Specialist short-term let or holiday-home insurance is worth arranging before taking any bookings, rather than assuming an existing policy already provides adequate cover.
Tax on Airbnb Income Isn’t Optional
Income earned from Airbnb hosting is taxable, and Airbnb reports host earnings directly to HMRC, so this isn’t an area where under-reporting is realistic. A property let occasionally as a spare room while the host remains living in the property may be eligible for a tax-free allowance under the Rent a Room scheme, up to a set threshold, but letting a whole property, or letting more frequently, generally falls outside that scheme and is taxed as standard rental income.
Council Tax Can Be Affected Too
Depending on how frequently a property is let and whether it’s ever the owner’s main residence, short-term letting can affect council tax status, and in some cases may shift a property into business rates instead of council tax if it’s let commercially for enough of the year. This is worth checking with the local council directly if hosting becomes a regular, high-frequency activity rather than an occasional booking.
The Bottom Line
Listing a property on Airbnb is more straightforward for an owner-occupier hosting a spare room occasionally than for anyone letting a whole property on a regular basis. Before listing anything, it’s worth checking your mortgage terms or tenancy agreement, your lease if applicable, local planning rules, and your insurance, all before taking a single booking, rather than working through these after guests have already started arriving.