Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2025

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 2025 include Highland, Edinburgh, Argyll & Bute, and Fife which accounted for 52% (16,912) of all such licences. All temporary exemptions (128) and most temporary licences (54 out of 63) were in Edinburgh. These are primarily for short-term lets for the Edinburgh Festival.

Table 3: Total licences (granted or provisional) in operation as of 31 December 2025 by local authority.

Notes:

1. Data from Table 11, in the supporting Excel tables

2. For Highlands four licences are provisional

3. Data for West Lothian is based on October 2025 data

Local authorities can set out additional conditions to short-term let properties when granting a licence. 19% (6,145) of the 32,325 granted licences were with additional conditions. Argyll & Bute (3,110), Na h-Eileanan Siar (1,066), and Stirling (895) 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 2025

Notes:

1. Data for West Lothian is based on June 2025 data

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.