UK short-term lets recorded 100.9 million guest nights in 2025, up 11.5 percent year on year, according to new Office for National Statistics data, a rise likely to sharpen concerns that more homes are being pulled away from the long-term rental market.
The fresh release puts a hard number on the scale of the shift. Wales posted the fastest growth among the home nations at 17.4 percent, while the North East recorded the biggest regional jump at 22.2 percent. London still accounted for the largest volume overall, but its annual growth rate was the weakest at 6.3 percent.
For landlords, the timing matters because the government is already preparing a mandatory registration scheme for short-term lets in England, expected to begin in 2026, while pressure on mainstream rental supply remains intense in many local markets.
Wales and the North East led the 2025 increase
The ONS bulletin covers bookings made through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia Group, giving one of the clearest official snapshots yet of how large the sector has become. Across the UK, guest nights rose from 90.5 million in 2024 to just over 100.9 million in 2025.
England accounted for 78.4 million guest nights, or 77.7 percent of the UK total. Wales reached 7.37 million, Scotland 12.7 million and Northern Ireland 2.4 million. At local-authority level, almost a quarter of all guest nights were concentrated in just nine council areas, including Westminster, Cornwall, North Yorkshire, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Highland.
That concentration matters for landlords because it points to where the short-let and long-let markets are most likely to collide. In places with tight rental stock, even a modest shift of homes into higher-yielding holiday accommodation can add to affordability pressure for tenants and make re-letting conditions more competitive for remaining private landlords.
Domestic demand was a major driver of the increase. UK-based visitors accounted for 67.2 percent of guest nights in 2025, up from 64.2 percent a year earlier, while international demand grew more slowly. That suggests the growth was not only a tourism-export story driven by overseas visitors, but also a wider domestic staycation market still absorbing housing stock.
Policy pressure is building around short-let supply
The government has already confirmed that a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets in England is expected to begin in 2026. Separately, tax treatment has tightened after the furnished holiday lettings regime was scrapped from 6 April 2025, a change Landlord Knowledge covered when HMRC confirmed holiday-let tax reliefs had gone.
What is newly useful in the ONS release is that it gives ministers, councils and landlords a much firmer evidence base for where short-let activity is growing fastest. That matters if local authorities push for tougher planning controls, stronger enforcement or more targeted use of new registration data once the scheme goes live.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s report on Wales passing a holiday-let licensing law, which showed how fast policymakers are moving when they believe tourism demand is displacing long-term housing. The latest ONS figures suggest those supply arguments are not fading, especially in areas where rental choice is already thin.
The backdrop for that debate is a private rented sector still short of stock. Earlier this month, RICS warned rent pressure was rising as landlord supply fell again. Combined with the new ONS numbers, the picture for landlords is mixed: short lets may still offer stronger returns in some locations, but they are also drawing more political attention and more risk of local restriction.
Landlords operating in coastal, tourist-led or city-centre markets may now face a sharper divide between commercial opportunity and regulatory exposure. The economics of short-term letting can still look attractive, especially where domestic tourism remains strong, but the policy case for intervention becomes easier to make when official data shows activity rising this quickly. Full details are set out in the ONS bulletin and current government guidance on short-term let rules in England.
What this means for landlords
- If you’re in a tourism hotspot: Expect more scrutiny of short-let activity as councils and ministers use new ONS data to argue for tighter oversight.
- Watch for: The launch details of England’s short-term let registration scheme, expected in 2026, and any local planning response in high-pressure areas.
- If you’re weighing short-let returns against a standard tenancy: The income gap may still tempt investors, but regulation and tax treatment are moving against a lightly regulated model.
- Bottom line: Short-term lets are still growing fast, but so is the case for closer control where they squeeze mainstream rental supply.
Editor’s view
Short lets remain commercially attractive in the right market, but this is the sort of dataset that gives policymakers confidence to act. For landlords, the opportunity is still there, but it is looking less like a quiet niche and more like a regulated battleground.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 25 June 2026
Sources: Office for National Statistics, GOV.UK
Related reading: Wales passes holiday-let licensing law as industry warns of regulatory burden
