Information

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Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2024

This statistical publication presents information on the number of valid short term lets licence applications received, granted and pending determination as at 31 December 2024, by type of let, type of property and other accommodation details, based on data collected from local authorities from 1 October 2022.


Licences in operation: premise type, type of let, and accommodation information

As Table 4 shows most licences in operation relate to secondary lettings (79%; type of let) and houses (62%; premises type), with the most common premises being a detached house. This is a very similar profile to applications validated.

Table 4: Licences in operation as of 31 December 2024, by type of premises and type of let

 

Licences in operation as at end December 2024

% Licences in operation as at end December 2024

Total Licences

27,406

 

Type of short term let

   

Home Sharing

2,827

10%

Home Letting

1,551

6%

Home Sharing and letting

1,300

5%

Secondary Letting

21,728

79%

Type of premises

   

Detached House

10,811

39%

Semi-detached house

3,791

14%

Terraced House

2,512

9%

Self-contained flat

8,246

30%

Unconventional Dwelling

2,046

7%

Tables 14 and 15 in the supporting Excel document show the number of licences in operation by each local authority, by type of premises and type of let. Like applications received and validated, the local authority breakdowns show some variations in the proportions of types of premises across different local authority areas, some of which may reflect different underlying profiles of total dwellings in each area.

Overall, at least, 72,139 bedrooms and a total maximum occupancy of 141,277 people were reported in the licences or exemptions in operation.

Fife reported the highest average number of bedrooms per licence (3.8) with the lowest reported as Edinburgh (2.0).

West Lothian reported the highest average maximum occupancy per licence (8.0) with the lowest reported as Edinburgh (3.9)

Accommodation units are the number of independently rentable spaces covered by a licences (for example different rooms in Bed and Breakfast). Information has been provided for 96% (26,385) of the 27,405 licences or exemptions in operation, equating to a total of 30,440 accommodation units. Excluding authorities with fewer than 10 total records with accommodation information, authorities with the highest average number of accommodation units per licence in operation was reported in East Renfrewshire (2.5 units per licence).

Table 16 in the supporting excel file has accommodation information for each local authority.

18,133 (58%) of licences have Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data associated with them. 39% of these have an EPC rating in the A-C range. Further EPC rating data can be found in the table 19 presented in the supporting tables.

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