Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2023

This publication reports a snapshot of data from when the Short Term Lets Licensing Scheme opened to receive applications on 1 October 2022 until 31 December 2023.  Local authorities are only required to provide data on all applications they have validated. An application is validated once local authorities confirm that all the required information and documentation has been provided, and the host has made an application fee payment.

Due to the large volume of applications received by 1st October 2023 deadline for existing hosts to apply for licences, some local authorities had not validated all applications received up to the end of December 2023, by the time data was submitted for this publication. Additionally, there will be applications where authorities do not have the information required to validate an application and are working with applying hosts/operators to obtain this information. Some, but not all local authorities provided data on the number of applications that they received but not yet been validated. This means the statistics in the publication are provisional and subject to upward revision in future releases.    

Table 1: Summary of total applications validated, granted and in operation, as at end December 2023

As Table 1 shows, 14,539 applications were received and validated by local authorities from 1 October 2022 to 31 December 2023. As of end December 2023, there were at least 9,037 additional applications received but not yet validated or invalid. This brings the total number of applications received to at least 23,576.  As local authorities work to validate applications received before December 2023 the data presented in future editions of this publication will become more complete.

Chart 1: Total applications validated, granted by date received, as of end December 2023

As Chart 1 illustrates, there was a substantial increase in applications in July to September 2023 compared with previous quarters. Over half (55% or 7,989) of all validated applications so far were received in July to September 2023. This period was just before the 1 October cut off for existing hosts and operators to apply and obtain a provisional licence to continue operating. After this period the number of applications fell, but it is important to remember this data is not yet complete.

As of 31st December, nearly half (49%) of the validated applications were granted a licence, and half (50%) of the applications were pending determination. A minority (1%) of applications were withdrawn, refused or suspended.

Application status varied by local authority (Table E in the supporting documents), from 9% (4 out of 46) of applications pending determination in East Dunbartonshire to 89% in Dundee (186 out of 209 applications), Inverclyde (51 out of 57 applications), and Glasgow (329 out of 369). Variations will be caused by various factors, such as the number of applications received, particularly those received before the October 2023 cut off for existing hosts and operators, as well as staff capacity within local authorities to process applications.

12,435 licences or exemptions were in operation as of 31 December 2023. Full licences accounted for over half of this number and provisional licences pending a final decision accounted for 43%. There were 27 temporary licences or exemptions.  It is important to note that there may be some existing operators who are able to operate but not reported in this publication if the local authority had not validated their application and provided a provisional licence by 31 December 2023.

Local authorities have 9 months (for new hosts) and 12 months (for hosts operating before and applied for a licence before 1 October 2022) to process an application from the date it is received. The majority (96%) of the 1,458 applications received between October and December 2022 had a licence granted within 12 months. A minority of the applications received in this period were withdrawn by the applicant or pending determination as of end December 2023.