Homelessness in Scotland: update to 30 September 2025

Temporary Accommodation

Key Points

• Households who took up temporary accommodation spent an average of 237 days
• There were 10,710 instances temporary accommodation was not offered
• There were 3,635 breaches of the unsuitable accommodation order

Sources of temporary accommodation data

Since 2002, local authorities have provided aggregate snapshot information relating to households in temporary accommodation. While this allows trends to be explored over time, understanding around individual placements and how these relate to assessed households is not possible from the snapshot data. Therefore, since 1 April 2016 placement level information on households in temporary accommodation has been provided to enable a more rounded picture of the use of temporary accommodation.

The snapshot data shows 18,092 households in temporary accommodation as at 30 September 2025. The placement level returns show that there were 19,158 temporary accommodation placements open at 30 September 2025, 1,066 (6%) higher than the snapshot returns. Differences may be explained by the returns including different types of temporary accommodation and the placement level returns experiencing a lag in cases being closed.

Both of these figures show households in temporary accommodation at a point in time and, as such, will include those who have recently entered temporary accommodation as well as those who have been in temporary accommodation for a longer period of time (including prior to the reporting period).

Please note headline temporary accommodation figures are reported in the Extent of Homelessness section.

Reporting of temporary accommodation

Between April and September 2025, 23,572 temporary accommodation placements were entered and 22,654 were exited. This is a net difference of 918. This is not quite the same as the increase of 852 households in temporary accommodation between 31 March and 30 September 2025 from the HL2 data, however, this is likely due to the differences in the collections outlined above. Total number of placements is a useful measure for showing the overall scale of temporary accommodation usage. However, placement level analysis alone provides limited insight due to the often very transient nature of the use of temporary accommodation. It is not unusual for households to enter and exit multiple placements, with or without gaps in between.

When considering certain aspects of temporary accommodation such as number of placements, average time spent in temporary accommodation etc., the true extent of this can only be fully understood once a household’s homelessness application has been closed.

How many households entered temporary accommodation for the first time? How many exited for the last time?

Between April and September 2025, 12,375 households entered a first (ever) temporary accommodation placement. This may include households who made a homelessness application prior to this. Over the same period, 9,696 households exited their last (ever) temporary accommodation placement. A household is considered to have ‘exited’ temporary accommodation in a reporting period only if their homelessness case has closed and their last associated temporary accommodation placement is within that period.

These figures give a net difference of 2,679 (22%) more households entering temporary accommodation for the first time than exiting for the last time. This relates to the increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation which can be seen in the snapshot figure, although the numbers will not match given the differences outlined above.

Edinburgh and Glasgow had the largest numerical difference with 636 and 622, respectively, more households entering than exiting temporary accommodation.

What types of temporary accommodation are used?

Social housing more commonly used and Hostel and Bed & Breakfast accommodation less commonly used for households with children & pregnant women

Chart 5: Types of temporary accommodation used for all households and households with children & pregnant women, as at 30 September 2025

For all households, the use of local authority furnished temporary accommodation experienced the largest numerical increase from 6,558 in September 2024 to 7,626 in September 2025 (16%). Hostel (other) also experienced a large proportionate increase of 35% (from 437 to 592).

The ‘Other’ category includes ‘newer’ types of temporary accommodation such as rapid access accommodation, community housing and shared tenancies, which can be deemed suitable.

How long do households spend in temporary accommodation?

For cases that closed between April and September 2025, where there was at least one temporary accommodation placement, households spent an average of 237 days in temporary accommodation. This is the same as the same six-month period in 2024 and a little lower than 241 for October 2024 to March 2025.

How often do applicants refuse temporary accommodation?

A household can choose to refuse an offer of temporary accommodation made by the local authority. There were 3,120 refusals of temporary accommodation between April and September 2025. This is 340 (10%) less than the same period for 2024. 

How often do local authorities fail to provide temporary accommodation?

A local authority is required to indicate when they do not offer any temporary accommodation to a household and are therefore acting unlawfully.

Between April and September 2025, there were 10,710 instances of households not being offered temporary accommodation. This is quite a bit higher than the 7,565 in 2024. The majority (6,815 out of 10,710) of these were in Glasgow. The next highest was Edinburgh who reported 3,585 instances over the six month period.

An additional seven local authorities reported at least one instance of not offering accommodation over the six month period in 2025. These were Aberdeen City, Angus, Clackmannanshire, Fife, Midlothian, Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire.

How often do local authorities breach unsuitable accommodation legislation?

Between April and September 2025 there were 3,635 reported breaches of the unsuitable accommodation order (UAO) across eighteen local authorities. This compares to 4,150 in the same six month period in 2024.

Glasgow accounted for 1,785 of the breaches, an increase from 1,650 the previous year. The next highest was Edinburgh with 560, although this was a notable decrease from 985 the previous year.

There were notable decreases for Aberdeen City (from 270 to 155), Fife (from 235 to 50) and Renfrewshire (from 60 to 0) between 2024 and 2025. Relatively large numerical increases were noted in Dundee City (from 125 to 180) and West Lothian (from 180 to 230).