Home · Blog · Registration and licensing

Short-term lets in Edinburgh: the licence, the control area and the 5% visitor levy

Sergej Sitki · founder of ReceptionGO and host
Published 30 October 2026 · 5 min read

General information, not legal or tax advice. Check your own case with your local council, HMRC or the relevant revenue authority, or an accountant.

To let in Edinburgh you need a short-term let licence before you take a booking. The whole council area has been a control area since 5 September 2022, so a home that is not your main residence also needs planning permission or a certificate of lawful use. From 24 July 2026 you collect a 5% visitor levy on the first five nights and account for it to the council.

We set up online check-in, payments and door codes with you, free. →

Edinburgh is the strictest short-let city in the UK, and it is now also a tax collector’s city. Three regimes apply at once: a licence you cannot trade without, planning permission for a flat that is not your home, and a 5% levy on the stay. Hosts who treat them as one form get the application refused. They are three different permissions, and the order matters.

The control area, since September 2022

The whole City of Edinburgh Council area is a short-term let control area, in force from 5 September 2022. From that date, using a dwelling that is not someone’s principal home as a short-term let is a material change of use and needs planning permission. Home sharing (you are in the home) and home letting (you let your own main home while you are away) do not normally need that permission. A certificate of lawfulness is how you get a formal answer for a use that was already established.

Planning policy is the filter. Shared stairs are the usual reason a secondary-let application in a tenement is refused. If the flat is a tenement and it is not your home, get a planning view before you buy, not after the furniture is in. Fees from 1 April 2026 are published by floor area: £742, £1,484 and £2,226, with a 25% surcharge if you apply after you have already started.

The order that avoids a refused application

1. Planning or a certificate, if the property is not your main home.
2. The safety file the licence conditions demand: gas, electrics, PAT, fire, Legionella, EPC, public liability. The certificate guide lists the renewal periods. Fire is a condition, not a suggestion — see the fire guide.
3. The licence application, the fee, and a site notice at the property for 21 days. New hosts cannot take bookings or guests until the licence is granted. Operating without one is a criminal offence, with a fine of up to £2,500.
4. The licence number and the EPC rating on every listing.

Edinburgh’s fee for a new secondary let of one to three guests is £653, with a higher fee for larger occupancies and a different figure for a three-year renewal. The full table, and the four licence types, are in the Scotland licence guide. Fees are not refunded if the council refuses you.

The 5% levy, on top of the licence

Since 24 July 2026, paid overnight stays in Edinburgh carry a visitor levy of 5% of the accommodation charge, excluding VAT, on the first five consecutive nights. A £200 night excluding VAT is £10. A week is not £70, because night six and night seven are outside the cap: five nights is £50. A host who is VAT-registered works the percentage on the net figure, not the VAT-inclusive one. The levy guide has the cut-off for bookings made before the scheme and the quarterly return.

You show that 5% in the price before the guest pays. Adding it in a message after they arrive is both a bad review and a drip-pricing problem. The levy is not your income in the ordinary sense — you pass it on, minus the 2% administration share Edinburgh allows — but it has to be in the advert.

If you are buying a flat to let

Ask three questions before you offer. Does the title allow short letting? Is the stair shared with permanent homes? Will the numbers still work after a licence fee, a possible planning refusal, the 5% levy, and Airbnb’s host fee? A flat that cannot get planning permission is not a slightly less profitable holiday let. It is a home you cannot lawfully use that way. The purchase tax on an additional dwelling is a separate bill — the Scotland ADS is 8% of the price on top of LBTT.