Edinburgh Becomes Scotland's First Short-Term Let Control Area (September 2022)

From the record. This is a look back at September 2022. The desk wrote it on 11 October 2026 from sources published at the time; Stay Gazette opened in July 2026 and did not report this as it happened.

On 5 September 2022, the whole of Edinburgh became a short-term let control area, the first in Scotland. From that day, using an entire home that was not the owner's principal home as a short-term let counted as a change of use that needed planning permission from the City of Edinburgh Council. The formal notice, dated 5 August 2022 and signed by the council's chief planning officer, David Givan, set the boundary at the council's whole administrative area.

On 29 September 2022 the council's Regulatory Committee agreed the policy it would apply under Scotland's new licensing scheme for short-term lets, which was due to open on 1 October. The policy treated the letting of a whole flat in a tenement, or in any building with a shared main door, as unsuitable, and set a presumption against granting a license. The trade body for self-catering operators called it a de facto ban.

What the control area changed

The control area was a planning tool. Scottish councils gained the power to designate one in 2021, and Edinburgh was the first to propose it. Scottish Ministers approved the plan on 27 July 2022, the council publicized the designation on 5 August, and it came into force on 5 September.

The rule did not apply to home sharing or home letting, the two kinds of letting in which the owner lived in the property. For homes that had switched to short-term letting before the designation, the Scottish Government said the existing planning rules applied: permission was needed where the switch was a material change of use.

The government said the control area was meant to keep short-term lets out of unsuitable places and kinds of building and to help put homes to their best use. Edinburgh's council had campaigned for the power for years. “For far too long, too many homes have been lost in our city to the holiday market,” council leader Cammy Day said when the approval was announced on 1 August 2022. He said around a third of all short-term lets in Scotland were in the capital, and that the next step should be to look at a cap on numbers.

The licensing policy agreed on 29 September

The control area settled who needed planning permission. The licensing scheme, which the Scottish Parliament had approved earlier in 2022, settled who could operate at all. Across Scotland, a new host needed a license before taking guests from 1 October 2022, and an existing host had until 1 April 2023 to apply. The national conditions covered fire, gas, electrical and water safety, planning permission and maximum occupancy. Each council could add its own.

Edinburgh's committee, convened by Councillor Neil Ross, added more. The main additions concerned what the policy called secondary letting, where the license holder did not live on the premises.

Secondary letting in a tenement or shared main door building was considered unsuitable, with a rebuttable presumption against a license. The council's report said that put the practical onus on the applicant to show why a license should still be granted.
Factors that could support an exception included neighbors' consent or support, the length of time the let had operated and a low level of complaints.
A secondary letting license would be issued for one year only.
In the control area, a secondary let needed planning permission, an application for it, or proof it was not required, such as a certificate of lawfulness, before the host applied for a license.
Temporary exemptions of up to six weeks in any 12 months could be granted to all short-term lets at times of pressure on accommodation, such as the summer festivals.

In Edinburgh, Ross said in the council's announcement, “unless there’s a good reason for an exemption applicants won’t be given a licence in tenements and shared door properties.”

What a license cost

The committee approved fees that the report said were intended to recover the full cost of the scheme. For secondary letting, the one-year fee rose with the property's maximum occupancy:

1 to 3: £653
4 to 5: £1,089
6 to 10: £2,481
11 to 15: £3,872
16 to 20: £5,264
21 and over: £5,869

Home sharing and home letting cost £120 per occupant for a new one-year license and £360 per occupant for a three-year renewal.

The council's case and the consultation

The council's report said the majority of Edinburgh's short-term lets were in tenement properties, clustered in parts of the city where housing was already in high demand. Complaints centered on noise, neighbors disturbed by door buzzers, and no owner or staff on site to deal with concerns. Planning enforcement cases over secondary letting numbered 228 in 2019/20, 107 in 2021/22 and 93 in 2022/23 to the date of the report.

Two rounds of consultation drew 1,902 and 1,039 responses. In the first, 59% of those who answered said short-term lets were unsuitable in tenements and shared main door buildings. In the second, 41% backed the presumption the committee went on to adopt and 29% preferred a version that would have allowed a license with the consent of every owner on the stair. The report said legal advice gave the adopted option the lower risk of a successful challenge.

Officers advised against a cap on the number of nights for home letting, which 76% of respondents supported, citing a significant risk of legal challenge. The report also noted that officers had met Airbnb to discuss the policy.

What operators said

The Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers, which said it represented over 1,400 members, answered the same day. “What has been agreed amounts to nothing less than a de-facto ban on secondary letting and we note the council’s recognition that aspects of their policy carry significant legal risk,” its chief executive, Fiona Campbell, said in remarks reported by STV News on 29 September 2022. She said the plans would hit the capital's tourism industry hard and put at risk the £70m economic boost that self-catering provided to Edinburgh.

The association's consultation response, printed in the committee papers, said it was not averse to regulation but that the policy would devastate the self-catering sector in the capital. It asked why Edinburgh would license secondary lets for one year when most other councils proposed at least three.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

Edinburgh's two September measures were built to shrink whole-flat letting in shared buildings, and the council said as much. An operator needed planning permission for the use, then had to overturn a policy that called the property unsuitable, and had to do it every year, for a fee that started at £653 and reached £5,869. The cost fell on secondary-let operators, in a city where, by the council's own account, the majority of short-term lets were in tenements. Home sharers paid £120 per occupant and kept a route in. The council gained control and a scheme paid for by the people it regulated, though its own report flagged legal risk more than once. A host should have read the convener's sentence, and not the word rebuttable, as the working rule, and priced the license, the planning application and the chance of refusal before taking bookings for 2023.

The other side

The council's case was that tenement lets had been failing its residents for years and that nothing short of a presumption would change it. Its figures showed 228 planning enforcement cases over secondary letting in 2019/20 alone, and the complaints were about shared stairs with nobody on site to answer for a guest. In its first consultation, 59% of those who answered called such buildings unsuitable. The policy still left a way through: an operator with neighbors' support, a long record and few complaints could argue for an exception, and festival-season exemptions stayed open to all. Seen that way, the city was applying a published test to a use that had grown without one.

What it meant for hosts

At the end of September 2022, an Edinburgh host's position depended on which kind of letting they did.

Home sharing and home letting: the control area did not apply. A license was required under the national scheme, at £120 per occupant for a new one-year license.
Secondary letting outside a tenement or shared main door building: planning permission, an application for it, or proof it was not required came first. The license ran for one year, at £653 to £5,869 depending on occupancy.
Secondary letting in a tenement or shared main door building: all of the above, plus the presumption against a license. An applicant had to make the case for an exception, with evidence such as neighbors' support and a low level of complaints.

The dates were national. A new host could not start without a license from 1 October 2022. A host who was already operating had until 1 April 2023 to apply, and could keep taking guests while the application was decided. For a let that had changed use before the designation, the existing planning rules still applied.

Sources

City of Edinburgh Council (Wayback Machine capture), Notice of Designation of a Short-Term Let Control Area (5 August 2022).
City of Edinburgh Council, Regulatory Committee, Short Term Lets Licensing - Update After Consultation (29 September 2022).
City of Edinburgh Council (Wayback Machine capture), Capital agrees new powers to regulate short term lets (29 September 2022).
STV News, Edinburgh agrees new powers to regulate short-term lets (29 September 2022).
Scottish Government, Controlling short-term lets (1 August 2022).
City of Edinburgh Council (Wayback Machine capture), Edinburgh to become first short term let control area in Scotland (1 August 2022).
City of Edinburgh Council, Regulatory Committee, Minutes, Regulatory Committee, 2.00pm, Thursday 29 September 2022 (29 September 2022).

Edinburgh Becomes Scotland's First Short-Term Let Control Area