If you run a short let in England, you have probably been told a national register is coming for about two years now. You were told 2024. Then spring 2026. As of July 2026 it still has not opened, and the honest answer from anyone paying attention is that nobody can give you a firm go live date. That is frustrating if you like certainty, but it does not mean there is nothing to do. It means the opposite.
The register that keeps not arriving
The plan itself is not really in doubt. The government has committed to a mandatory registration scheme for short term lets, where every property gets a registration number that has to be displayed on listings, and platforms are barred from listing anything that is not registered. What keeps slipping is the launch, because building a national portal and wiring it into the booking platforms is harder than announcing it.
So we sit in an odd in between. The rules are coming, most of the shape is known, but the button has not been pressed. Plenty of hosts are treating that as permission to ignore it. We think that is the wrong read.
What we already know it will ask for
You do not need the final rulebook to prepare, because the direction is obvious. Expect to register each property and display a number on every listing. Expect to show that the basics are in order, gas safety where it applies, electrical checks, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and appropriate insurance. Expect platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com to enforce it at the listing level, because that is how the government intends to make it stick.
Every one of those is something a responsible host should already have. The register is not inventing new obligations so much as making the existing ones visible and checkable.
The planning change hiding underneath
There is a second moving part that gets less attention than the register but may matter more. A dedicated planning use class for short term lets, known as C5, is expected to come in by statutory instrument. Depending on how your local authority applies it, switching a home into full time short letting could start to need planning permission in a way it did not before.
If you operate in a city with heavy visitor demand, this is the piece to watch, because it affects not just how you run a property but whether you can run it that way at all.
Why waiting is the expensive option
The temptation is to do nothing until the portal actually opens. The problem is that when a delayed scheme finally launches, it tends to launch with a deadline attached, and everyone who waited scrambles at once. The hosts who get caught out are never the ones who were ready early. They are the ones who assumed another delay and guessed wrong.
Getting compliant now costs you almost nothing, because it is work you would have to do anyway. Leaving it risks a listing being pulled at your busiest time of year, which is the one outcome a short let business genuinely cannot absorb.
Get your house in order now
The practical checklist is short. Make sure every safety certificate is current and filed somewhere you can find it in seconds. Tidy your listings so the details are accurate and consistent across platforms. Keep clean records of bookings, guests and income, both for the register and for the taxman, who is also taking more interest in this income than they used to.
Do that and whenever the register opens, you press one button and carry on. Everyone else spends a fraught fortnight digging out paperwork.
Or let someone carry the moving parts
This is the kind of low glamour, high consequence admin that quietly eats a host’s evenings. It is also exactly what a professional operation is built to absorb, so the compliance, the certificates and the guest experience all run without you having to hold them in your head. Bookings across our group already run through a managed system at our booking platform, and the dedicated short stay brand, TUA Stays, is on the way as part of the wider group.
Whether you hand it over or handle it yourself, the message is the same. The register is not here yet, but the hosts who act as though it is will be the ones still trading smoothly when it finally arrives.
This article is general information and not legal advice. Registration and planning rules for short term lets are still developing, and the position described is accurate to the best of our knowledge as of July 2026. Check your own local authority’s current requirements before making decisions.