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 nobody paying attention can give you a firm go live date. The delay is frustrating, but operators can still prepare the records and checks the scheme is likely to require.
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, watch this part closely. The proposed planning changes could decide whether the property can continue operating as a full time short let.
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
Registration and certificate work is ordinary administration, but a missed step can stop a listing or create an avoidable penalty. A managed operation should keep the record, the person responsible and the next deadline together. Bookings across our group already run through our booking platform, and TUA Stays is being prepared as the group’s dedicated short stay brand.
You can prepare these records yourself or ask a manager to maintain them. Doing the work before the register opens should make registration and later compliance far less disruptive.
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.