From April 2023, new eligibility rules for business rates will apply to self-catering properties in England and Wales. If you don’t meet these rules, your property will become eligible for paying Council Tax. The rules will be used in assessments from 1 April 2023. Information about lettings during the 2022/23 operating year will be used to determine whether a property is eligible.
The new eligibility rules are different depending on whether your property is in England or Wales.
If your property is in England:
To continue to be eligible for business rates, from 1 April 2023 your property must be:
available for letting commercially for short periods that total 140 nights or more in the previous and current year; and
actually let commercially for 70 nights or more in the previous 12 months.
If your property is in Wales:
To continue to be eligible for business rates, from 1 April 2023 your property must be:
available to let commercially for short periods that total 252 nights or more in the previous and current year; and
actually let commercially for 182 nights or more in the previous 12 months.
The VOA looks at whether the property was occupied immediately before midnight to establish whether a property was let on a certain night.
For example, this means that a property let out from Friday evening to Sunday morning would have been let for two nights for the purposes of meeting the self-catering criteria.
Please note: the number of days to qualify as a holiday let for Council Tax are different to (lower than) the number of days for Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax (which is available 210 days and actually let 105 days). Bizarre!