Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2023

Table 2 shows valid applications received broken down by local authority. Highland, Edinburgh, Fife and Dumfries & Galloway accounted for nearly half (6,771 or 47%) of all validated applications (14,539) received up to 31 December 2023.

However, local authorities are only required to provide data on all applications they have validated, so many local authorities will have received more applications than are summarised in Table 2. 

With the data reported so far, most local authorities saw a peak in applications (July to September 2023) before the October 2023 cut off period for existing operators to obtain a provisional licence. Edinburgh had the greatest number and highest proportion of the July to September 2023 valid applications (20%; 1,565 out of 7,989). Please refer to Table 2 in the supporting excel file published.

Table 2: Total valid applications received and validated between October 2022 and end of December 2023 by local authority

Table A in the supporting documents Excel workbook lists the number of  applications received and validated by individual data zone area. Statistical data zones are the key geography for the dissemination of small area statistics in Scotland, designed to have roughly standard sized populations of 500 to 1,000 household residents.

A total of 2,841 data zones have had at least one application received and validated to 31 December 2023, which equates to 42% of the total 6,796 data zones in Scotland.

In previous publications the rates of applications received and validated per 10,000 dwellings across different local authority areas were also presented. 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 of the rates per dwelling at a local authority level.