Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2024

Key points

Applications received

Note: [ ] indicate the excel tab where the data is located in the supporting document.

• The focus of this publication is on validated short term let applications. There are applications where authorities do not have the information required to validate an application and are working with applicants to obtain this information. This means the statistics in this publication are provisional and subject to upward revision in future releases. [Revisions are reported in the publication text and in the Revision Table in the supporting excel document]
• There were at least 33,952 applications for a short-term licence received by local authorities as of end December 2024, of which 31,416 were validated applications. The new short term let licensing scheme introduced in Scotland in October 2022 required both existing and new short term lets to apply for licences before October 2023. The majority (76%; 25,827) of these applications were received before the 1 October 2023 cut off for existing hosts and operators to apply for a provisional licence to continue operating whilst waiting for a full licence confirmation. [Table 1, 2 and 17]
• Overall, in Scotland there were 115 short term lets applications per 10,000 dwellings. The highest rate was in Na h-Eileanan Siar (675) and the lowest rate in West Lothian (8.7). [Table 3]
• The majority (24,315 or 77%) of validated applications relate to secondary letting (i.e. where a non-primary residence is let out), with 3,159 (10%) being for home sharing, 2,338 (7%) for home letting, and 1,604 (5%) for a mixture of home sharing and letting. Similar proportions are reported for licences granted. [Table 4]

Applications status

• As of 31 December 2024, over 86% of all validated applications were granted a licence (including lapsed licenses), and 11% of the applications were pending determination. A small minority of applications were withdrawn, refused, or suspended (3%). [Table 8]
• Local authorities have 12 months to process an application from existing hosts and 9 months for new hosts. 88% of the 25,572 valid applications received between October 2022 and December 2023 had a licence granted by December 2024. 2% (639 of the applications received in this period were withdrawn and 9% (2,178) were pending determination by the end of December 2024. [Table 8]

Licences or exemptions in operation

• 27,406 licences or exemptions were in operation as of 31 December 2024. Full licences and renewals accounted for over 94% (25,772) of this number and 6% (1,537) were provisional licences pending a final decision. There were 97 temporary licences and exemptions. [Table 10]
• At least 72,139 bedrooms and a total maximum occupancy of 141,277 people were reported in the licences or exemptions in operation granted. [Table 16]