London is the only city in the UK with its own statutory cap on short-letting. The 90-day rule has been in place since 2017, and Airbnb enforces it automatically. You can't switch it off.

If you let a property on Airbnb in London, this rule affects you. Here's the plain-English version of what it says, what it actually means in practice, and how to keep your property earning all year without breaking it.

What the 90-day rule actually says

The rule comes from amendments to Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973, introduced via the Deregulation Act 2015. In short: an entire residential property in Greater London can be let on short-term stays (under 90 nights per booking) for a maximum of 90 nights per calendar year.

Beyond 90 nights of short-stay use, you need planning permission for a change of use. Without it, the property must revert to ordinary residential use for the rest of the year.

The cap resets every 1 January.

Who it applies to

The rule applies to entire-home listings within the Greater London boundary. All 32 boroughs plus the City of London. If you let a self-contained residential property on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia or any other short-let platform, you're subject to it.

It doesn't apply to:

  • Properties with explicit planning permission for short-let or serviced apartment use
  • Hotels, B&Bs and aparthotels operating under hospitality use classes
  • Properties outside the Greater London boundary
  • Bookings of 90 consecutive nights or more (these are mid-term lets, see below)
  • Hosted stays where you remain in the property as the owner

How Airbnb and Booking.com enforce it

Airbnb introduced auto-capping in 2017. Once your listing reaches 90 nights of short-stay bookings in a calendar year, the platform automatically blocks the calendar for the remainder of the year. Booking.com applies the same logic.

You cannot disable the cap from inside the platform. Hosts who attempt to dodge it by spreading bookings across multiple platforms risk detection. The platforms share data, and HMRC has data-sharing agreements with all the major ones.

Penalties for breaching the rule

Local councils can issue enforcement notices, civil penalties of up to £20,000 per breach, and require the property to revert to residential use. Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea both have dedicated short-let enforcement teams who actively monitor listings.

Beyond the council, you also risk invalidating your insurance, breaching your mortgage terms, and triggering HMRC reclassification of the property for tax purposes. See our Airbnb tax guide for what that means.

How mid-term lets keep your calendar legal beyond 90 days

The cleanest way to operate a London short-let property all year is to combine short-stays (under 90 nights, up to the 90-night cap) with mid-term lets (single bookings of 90 nights or more).

A 90+ night stay isn't a short-let by legal definition. It's a residential occupancy. It doesn't count against the cap. Mid-term lets work especially well for corporate guests on project assignments, expats settling in, and visiting medical professionals using Harley Street or the private hospital network.

Done well, the calendar looks like this:

  • Q1: Short-stay tourist and corporate bookings (~30 nights of cap used)
  • Q2: Short-stays around major London events. Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon, Royal Ascot (~30 more nights of cap)
  • Q3-Q4: Cap nearly used; switch to 3-month mid-term lets to fill the rest of the year

We operate this model across our Central London portfolio — mixing short stays with longer corporate lets to keep the calendar full inside the 90-day cap. The same approach works in any prime postcode with strong year-round demand, including Kensington W8.

When planning permission is worth pursuing

Some properties. Typically in less residential areas like Soho or parts of Westminster. Can secure planning permission for short-let use beyond 90 days. The process is borough-specific, expensive, and far from guaranteed.

If you own a Mayfair or Marylebone flat in a residential block, applying for change-of-use is usually a long, costly battle that the borough will resist. Mid-term lets are almost always the better strategy.

What good operators do (and what they don't)

Stay away from any operator who suggests dodging the cap. Spreading bookings across multiple platforms doesn't work. They share data. And the financial consequences of an enforcement notice are real.

Our approach is straightforward: operate to the cap, switch seamlessly to mid-term, document everything for HMRC and the council, and stay clean. Done right, full-year compliance produces materially better returns than corner-cutting.

Have a question about your property? Speak to the Taj Cribs team. We manage properties across the whole of Central London and offer free valuations with no obligation.

This article is general guidance only. Planning law is borough-specific and complex; landlords should consult a qualified planning solicitor before acting.