The Airbnb 90 day rule in London, read from the Act

Most of what gets called "the 90 day rule" lives in a 1973 Act that was written decades before anyone listed a flat online. It is a planning rule rather than a licence, and it counts nights against the property over the calendar year. It also has a second condition, about council tax, that a booking platform cannot check for you.

The Act behind the shorthand

Where the Airbnb 90 day rule in London comes from

Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 treats using a London home as temporary sleeping accommodation as a material change of use, which needs planning permission. The official notes to the Deregulation Act 2015 say the point was to protect housing in the 32 London boroughs and the City, and that the provision applies only to London.

The 2015 Act added section 25A, in force since 26 May 2015. It says that using residential premises in Greater London as temporary sleeping accommodation does not involve a material change of use if two conditions are met. Those two conditions are what the 90 day rule rests on.

What "temporary sleeping accommodation" means

The official notes to the 2015 Act set out the definition: accommodation occupied by the same person for less than ninety consecutive nights, provided for money or because of the occupant's employment. One person staying 90 consecutive nights or more is outside it altogether. A holiday booking of 28 or 60 nights is still inside it.

Since 1 May 2026 there is a second way out. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 amended the definition so it only covers occupation "otherwise than under or by virtue of an assured tenancy". Someone holding an assured tenancy isn't in temporary sleeping accommodation, however long they stay. Our guide to what the Renters' Rights Act changed covers how those tenancies now work.

The same notes say the section 25 restriction, which the 90-night exception relaxes, applies even if only part of the premises, such as a spare room, is used this way.

How the nights add up

The first condition is arithmetic. The second is about who pays council tax. Run through them in this order before you open your calendar to another year.

The second condition: council tax

Who has to be liable

For each night you provide, the person providing the accommodation, or where there is more than one, at least one of them, must be liable to pay council tax on the premises. The official notes add that this includes people who are liable but receive a discount. A company letting a flat it doesn't pay council tax on, or a host whose bill sits in someone else's name, should look hard at this before relying on the exception.

What the three boroughs charge on homes nobody lives in

A flat kept furnished for guests and lived in by nobody can also attract a council tax premium. Each of the three councils publishes its own rule, and each applies only inside its own boundary.

What the rule does not cover, and what is still coming

After night 90

The Greater London Authority says that people letting in breach risk the local council taking planning enforcement action.

Stop, apply, or let for longer

You can stop taking short bookings until 1 January. You can apply to your council for planning permission. Or you can let to longer-term occupiers: the GLA says a home already lawfully in residential use doesn't need planning permission to be let for periods of more than 90 nights at a time.

What changes about the cleaning

While the property is on short stays, every checkout needs a changeover, which is what our Airbnb cleaning service is built around. When it moves to one occupier for months at a time, the work shifts to cleaning the empty property between one occupier and the next, which our landlord cleaning service covers. If that longer let is a tenancy, our guide to what the Renters' Rights Act changed sets out how tenancies now end, which is the date the final clean works back from.

Crystal Clear Cleans works across the London Boroughs of Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow. Send the address, the number of rooms and the pattern of stays or tenancies you expect through the quote form.