Homelessness in Scotland: 2025-26

A note on interpreting the figures

It is not possible to make direct links within a reporting year for the different stages of the homelessness process as different households will be at a different stage at different times.

That is, not all applications made in 2025-26 will have an assessment or temporary accommodation placement that year. Similarly, some assessments made in 2025-26 will relate to applications received prior to this; and some temporary placements in 2025-26 will relate to household applications and assessments prior to this also. Furthermore, there will be households who entered and exited temporary accommodation within the same reporting year, and therefore will not appear in the end of year snapshot of households in temporary accommodation.

To also note:

• it is possible for households to make an application and/or be assessed more than once in the same year.
• not all households assessed as homeless enter temporary accommodation.

The term ‘homeless households’ is used throughout the publication to denote households who have been assessed as (unintentionally or intentionally) homeless or threatened with homelessness.

Impact of households with leave to remain / refugee (including Ukrainian) eligibility

The data collected cannot specifically identify applications made by people with refugee/leave to remain status. However, eligibility information is captured for those who are not British, EU, EEA or Swiss citizens, but are lawfully present in the UK and eligible for support. This includes, although not exclusively, those with refugee/leave to remain status. There is also a separate category for Ukrainian nationals lawfully present in the UK through an appropriate scheme.

There has been an increase in the number of applications from households within the eligibility categories containing leave to remain / refugee and Ukrainian nationals over the last few years (between 2024-25 and 2025-26, there were increases from 4,670 to 6,585  and from 340 to 405, respectively). Together, these groups accounted for 17% of homelessness applications nationally in 2025-26. Data relating to these households has been made available in a separate workbook available on our supporting documents page.

Impact of changes to local connection legislation

Of the 35,000 households that were assessed as homeless in 2025-26, 30,225 (86%) had a local connection to the local authority where they applied, 1,600 (5%) had a local connection to another (Scottish) local authority only and 3,170 (9%) had no known connection to any local authority in Scotland.  

There were 5% of households with a connection to another (Scottish) local authority only, which is the highest in the series, although still a relatively small proportion overall.

Temporary accommodation data sources

Local authorities provide two sets of temporary accommodation data:

1. aggregate snapshot information as at the end of the quarter, available since 2002
2. placement level information, provided since 2016.

The snapshot data is used to report headline temporary accommodation figures (i.e. households, households with children and number of children as at 31 March). The placement level information is used to provide greater detail and context around the use of temporary accommodation (e.g. number of placements, length of time).

Given the placement level data can provide headline temporary accommodation figures, the snapshot data has been discontinued from 1 April 2026. Therefore, this is the last publication which will use the snapshot collection to provide headline temporary accommodation figures. From 1 April 2026, these will be based on the placement level data.

A comparison of headline temporary accommodation measures has been made available in a separate workbook on our supporting documents page. It should be noted that, headline temporary accommodation figures as at 31 March 2026 show that the placement level returns are higher by 7-10%. Due to the differences in methodology between the two sources, these are not comparable and are unable to be completely aligned. A programme of work is underway to ensure the placement level data is of sufficient quality ahead of publication of headline figures using this data source.

Stock transfer authorities.

For six local authorities – Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway, Eilean Siar, Glasgow, Inverclyde, and Scottish Borders – stock was transferred from local authority control to housing associations between 2003 and 2007. This should be borne in mind when interpreting figures at local authority level, particularly for outcomes by accommodation type.