Landlords in Scotland statistics: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for an update to the published answer to request FOI/202400423932 (and FOI/202000090239) in particular to the breakdown of how many landlords there are on the register and how many properties they own in the same bandings as before.

The original request had also asked for:

• How many landlords in Scotland are pensioners
• How many landlords in Scotland own more than 2 properties
• How many landlords in Scotland own properties in a limited company which hasn’t been trading for 2 years.
• How many landlords in Scotland are classed as rural (e.g. farmers/estates) A breakdown of landlords by different groupings - pensioners etc...

Response

We are able to provide some of the information you have requested.

The answer to your question on the number of landlords in Scotland by the number of properties is provided below. This is based on information held by the Scottish Government as at 28 August 2025, where there were approximately:

• 158,376 registered landlords with 1 Property (71% of all registrations)
• 30,452 registered landlords with 2 Properties (14% of all registrations)
• 31,223 registered landlords with 3 or more Properties (14% of all registrations)

This is out of a total number of 224,354 registered landlords as at 28 August.

Contained in these numbers will include landlords with multiple registrations, which will tend to be large organisations and housing associations with multiple properties across all of their registrations with different local authorities. These figures will also include individuals who jointly own property. Other landlords contained in the total figure will have no properties, and this could be because they are in the process of buying property or because they are landlord agents, acting on behalf of the property owner.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold some of the information you have requested. Under section 17(1) of FOISA we are required to notify you when information is not held.

As previously stated in the replies to FOI/202000090239 and FOI/202400423932, the Scottish Government does not hold the following information:

• properties owned by limited companies not trading more than 2 years,
• number of rural landlords,
• number of landlords who are pensioners etc.
• a demographic break down of registered landlords

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information requested.

Local authorities are the data controllers for their respective landlord registers. Scottish Ministers have access only to high-level statistical information derived from the national landlord registration system. We do not have access to any personal data held within the registers, including age ranges, specific locations, or other demographic details.

If you are interested in the information we were unable to provide you may wish to contact the data controllers for the information held on the database, contact details for the 32 Local Authorities is available on the landlord registration website at https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk/localauthority-contact.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.