Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2024

Licences in operation: local areas

Table 3 shows that local authorities with the highest numbers of total licences (provisional or granted) and exemptions in operation as of 31 December 2024 include Highland, Edinburgh, and Fife which accounted for 44% (12,087) of all such licences.

However, there may be applications eligible for a provisional licence where the application was not validated by 31 December 2024 and therefore not reported in this publication.

Table 3: Total licences (granted or provisional) in operation as of 31 December 2024 by local authority

Local Authorities can set out additional conditions to short term let properties when granting a licence. 17% (4,353) of the 25,869 granted licences were with additional conditions. Na h-Eileanan Siar (1,002) and Argyll & Bute (1,646) accounted for most of these licences.  The additional conditions for Na h-Eileanan Siar and Argyll & Bute can be found on the local authority website guidance pages. Examples include prevention of nuisance and disturbance conditions. Please refer to Table 9 in the supporting excel file for more information.

Map 2: Licences in operation per 10,000 dwellings, as of December 2024

Map 2 shows the number of active licences and exemptions (including provisional licences). The distribution is roughly similar to the number of applications, with rural locations popular with tourists having the highest rates.

Table 12 in the supporting documents Excel workbook lists the number of licences in operation by individual data zone area. A total of 3,377 data zones have had at least one licence or exemption in operation of 31 December 2024, which equates to 50% of the total 6,796 data zones in Scotland.