UK Holiday Lets Have More Than Doubled Since 2010

In 2010 the UK had 2,725 registered holiday let businesses. For the next four years, that number barely moved. By 2014 it was 2,785, just 60 higher.

Then things changed. Homefords analysed 16 years of ONS business counts and found that the number of registered holiday lets has grown every year since. Today there are 6,495, and every region of the UK has more than it did in 2010.

How many holiday let businesses are there in the UK?

There were 6,495 registered holiday let businesses in the UK in March 2026. That’s 3,770 more than in 2010.

These figures count businesses registered for VAT or PAYE. Plenty of people let a single property without registering, so the total number of holiday let properties is much higher. What the figures track is the professional end of the market, and how fast it’s growing.

Holiday lets, year by year

Here’s how the total has changed every year since 2010.

Registered holiday let businesses (SIC 55209), UK, March of each year. * ONS widened its business register in 2015, so part of that year’s rise reflects the change rather than new businesses. Source: ONS UK Business Counts via Nomis.

A slow start, then steady growth

The early 2010s were flat. Numbers dipped in 2011 and 2013 and only edged up in the other years.

The big jump in 2015 needs care. That was the year ONS added around 105,000 PAYE-only businesses to its register. So some of the 455 increase is businesses being counted for the first time. From 2016 to 2019, growth was steadier, at between 145 and 300 a year.

The post-pandemic surge

Growth almost stopped around the pandemic. Just 200 holiday lets were added in the two years to March 2021.

Then came the surge. The UK added 720 holiday lets in the year to March 2022, the biggest annual rise in the data. Another 625 followed in 2023 and 515 in 2024. That’s 1,860 in three years, almost half of all growth since 2010.

A pause, then growth again

In the year to March 2025, growth slowed sharply to just 100. That came after the government announced it would scrap the furnished holiday lettings tax regime from April 2025. The regime had given holiday let owners tax advantages over other landlords. The figures can’t show whether one caused the other.

Growth picked up again in the latest year, with 285 more holiday lets. Bookings look strong too. Sykes Holiday Cottages said January 2026 bookings were up 9% on the year before. It expected a record year, as Legal and General’s Mortgage Club reported.

Every region has more than doubled except one

The growth isn’t limited to the traditional holiday regions. They’ve grown the slowest.

Registered holiday let businesses, March 2010 and March 2026. These comparisons cross the 2015 register change, so treat them as a guide. Source: ONS UK Business Counts via Nomis.

The West Midlands has tripled, from 100 holiday lets to 300. The North East has nearly tripled, from 65 to 190. Both started from small numbers, and ONS rounds every count to the nearest 5, so treat the exact multiples as a guide. We look at why these regions are growing in our post on holiday let growth in the Midlands and the North.

The South West has added more holiday lets than anywhere else, 645, but has only just doubled. Northern Ireland is the one region that hasn’t, growing from 85 to 140.

Guests are booking more nights

A separate ONS release shows demand is growing too. Guests spent 100.9 million nights in short-term lets booked through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia Group in 2025. That was up 11.5% on 2024, according to the ONS.

Most of the extra nights came from people holidaying at home. Domestic guest nights rose 16.7% in a year, while international guest nights rose 2.1%.

Where the holiday let boom goes next

The market is about to become more regulated. Wales is bringing in compulsory registration for visitor accommodation from autumn 2026, with a licensing scheme to follow. England has a national register of short-term lets planned but not yet in place. Once both are running, there should be a far clearer count of holiday lets.

For now, the business counts show a market that has grown in all but two of the last 16 years. Hotels haven’t kept pace. In the South West, hotel numbers have fallen every year since 2018, as we found in our South West post. London is the big exception, as we cover in our post on London’s hotel numbers.

For interactive charts, the full regional table and a lookup for your own region, see our research on the UK holiday let boom.

Source: Office for National Statistics, UK Business Counts (local units by industry), via Nomis, and Office for National Statistics, Short-term lets through online collaborative economy platforms, UK. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Business counts are rounded to the nearest 5 by ONS. Media enquiries: hello@homefords.co.uk