Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2023

Table 3 shows that local authorities with the highest numbers of total licences (provisional or granted) and exemptions in operation as of 31 December 2023 include Highland, Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, Aberdeenshire, and Fife which together account for over half (6,792 or 55%) of all licences in operation as of 31 December 2023. However, there will be applications eligible for a provisional licence where the application was not validated by 31 December 2023 and therefore not reported in this publication.

Table 3: Total licences (granted or provisional) in operation as of 31 December 2023 by local authority

16% (1,155) of the 7,085 full licences granted were with additional conditions. Na h-Eileanan Siar (41%; 476) and Argyll & Bute (35%; 403) accounted for most of these licences. Local Authorities can set out additional conditions to short term let properties. 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 E in the supporting excel file for more information.

The rates of total licences in operation per 10,000 dwellings across different local authority areas were previously published. These have been temporarily stopped until more of the applications received for the period before 1 October 2023 have been validated and included in the data to ensure an accurate comparison across local authority areas.

Table G in the supporting documents Excel workbook lists the number of licences in operation by individual data zone area. A total of 2,514 data zones have had at least one licence or exemption in operation of 31 December 2023, which equates to 37% of the total 6,796 data zones in Scotland