Insights
Practical writing on the tax, VAT, MTD, rating and compliance questions that come up on short-term let and holiday let portfolios — with the primary sources cited, and dated so you can see when we wrote it.
Can booking commissions and agency fees be deducted before the 5% is applied? Edinburgh's guide and VisitScotland's national guidance answer differently. For providers it changes every return; for the Council it could change receipts by millions.
By STL Accounting and Finance
Read the full analysis →Edinburgh's levy is live; four more councils are approved for 2027; Highland is consulting on a fixed-rate scheme. This piece covers the calculation for each approved scheme, the VAT position, and the records you need to keep for the initial-transaction rule.
The 2026 revaluation is now in force in Scotland, England and Wales. Northern Ireland's revaluation was paused. This piece covers the transitional reliefs, SBBS at portfolio scale, and the 70/140-day cliff-edge risk.
After 6 April 2025 the FHL regime is gone. This piece answers three reader questions: what happens to an existing pool, what qualifies when you replace items, and when a specialist review is worth commissioning.
From April 2025 English councils can charge up to a 100% premium on furnished second homes. Most councils have adopted it, but statutory exceptions apply and business-rates classification is one route out. This piece sets out the check sequence.
The FHL regime ended on 6 April 2025 (1 April 2025 for corporation tax). The 2025/26 online filing deadline is 31 January 2027. This piece works through what changes for individual owners and Ltd companies, and what to check before the return is filed.
From 6 April 2026 a combined £2.5m APR/BPR allowance applies to qualifying property at 100% relief, with 50% relief above. The allowance is transferable between spouses. STL properties themselves rarely qualify — eligibility, not the cap, is the first question for most owners.
Short-term let income concentrates in the summer; the tax bill is due in January and July. This piece works through the payments-on-account arithmetic with a specific example and covers the reduction and exception rules.
The Welsh visitor accommodation register opens 1 October 2026 (deadline 31 March 2027). Cardiff has confirmed a 1 April 2027 start, with advance-booking accounting from bookings made on or after 28 September 2026. Standard rate £1.30 per person per night; a lower £0.75 rate covers specified shared accommodation and tent pitches only, with under-18 exemption limited to that category. VAT applies to any levy passed to guests.
Digital platform operators report seller data to HMRC annually under the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023. This piece explains what is actually reported for STL hosts, and how to reconcile the reported figure to a tax return.
A booking payout is not the same as booking income. Fees, refunds and adjustments change the amount that reaches the bank. This piece walks through the chart-of-accounts categories that let you see how a payout becomes income, and which costs belong to which property.
MTD for Income Tax started for the highest-income taxpayers on 6 April 2026. This is who is in scope, what a quarterly update actually contains, and what HMRC has said about penalties in the first year.
The £90,000 VAT registration threshold catches out more STL operators than any other tax cliff edge. This piece sets out how the threshold applies to STL income specifically, why serviced accommodation makes it worse, and the four options operators have when they see the threshold approaching.
Nudge letters give the deadline shown in the letter itself — always check the letter, do not assume a standard period. The 90-day disclosure-and-payment window under the Let Property Campaign is a separate clock that starts when HMRC issues a Disclosure Reference Number acknowledging the taxpayer's notification, not on the notification itself. This piece works through the sequence — check the letter, check the return, choose the right response route.
Which cloud accounting tool suits an STL operator depends on portfolio size, VAT status, and whether platform-integration workflows are needed. This is a dated snapshot comparison for a single-property and a portfolio operator.
A substantial volume of UK fixed-rate mortgages come off through 2026-27, some of them held by STL landlords. Lender criteria on remortgage are typically tighter than those applied at original drawdown two, three or five years ago — interest rates higher, rental stress tests sharper, more questions asked. This is what the accounts and evidence pack should look like, and where a same-lender product transfer may sit alongside a full remortgage.
The default for a UK holiday let is standard-rated accommodation. Cleaning fees follow the stay. Overseas platform commissions are typically reverse-charged. Long-stay reduced-value rules apply to hotel-type accommodation only. This piece walks through each in scenarios.
Every UK nation has raised the tax on additional-dwelling purchases in the last two years. This is what an operator now pays to acquire in England, Scotland or Wales, and the structural decisions to make before completion.
The 2026 revaluation has moved most Scottish self-catering rateable values, and the reliefs and premiums that sit either side of the bill have changed too. Rating classification is not a choice between two prices — it turns on the facts of the property. This is how to check where you stand on the 2026 list.
Post-FHL, most STL disposals face higher-rate CGT of 24% rather than the old 10% BADR rate that historically applied to FHL disposals. A narrow BADR route survives for operators whose FHL business genuinely ceased before 6 April 2025 (three-year transitional). Pre-sale accounting work is now decisive on both price and tax bill.
The tax gap between personal ownership and Ltd ownership has widened for higher-rate borrowing operators post-FHL. Retention vs extraction of profits, transition costs and future rate changes all matter. This is a model-dependent decision, not a rule of thumb.
The FHL abolition closed the FHL route into Business Asset Disposal Relief on holiday-let sales, subject to a three-year post-cessation transitional window. BADR itself is now at 18%. Standard residential-property CGT is 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above. This piece works through the calculation and the remaining relief options.