Updated 21 September 2026
The key facts
In this article:
The dates, the fee and the mechanics. On 9 September 2026 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government set all three out for the national landlord register, which the Renters' Rights Act 2025 calls the Private Rented Sector Database. The service landlords will actually use has been named Register your rental property, and it opens on 15 December 2026.
Registration itself is not difficult if your records are in order. Keeping the entry active and correct for as long as you let the property is the part that will take work.
Yes, if you let under an assured tenancy or a regulated tenancy, and you must register yourself as well as each property. Assured periodic tenancies are the standard private let: the explanatory note to the commencement regulations confirms that from 1 May 2026 all tenancies under the Housing Act 1988 are assured periodic tenancies, so the duty captures the great majority of private landlords in England.
Supported exempt accommodation within the meaning of section 12 of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 is carved out by regulation 3 of the draft regulations.
At launch you only have to register properties that are currently let, or that become let during the rollout. Empty properties come later, under future legislation, at the same point as the public-facing side of the service. The duty to put landlord and property identifiers on adverts arrives at that stage too, with further guidance promised beforehand.
Your deadline follows the property, not you. A landlord in Kent with a flat in Wolverhampton works to the West Midlands date. Once your region commences you have three months to register, after which councils in that region can begin enforcement.
| Region | Regulations commence | Deadline to register |
|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | 15 December 2026 | 14 March 2027 |
| East of England | 15 January 2027 | 14 April 2027 |
| East Midlands | 15 February 2027 | 14 May 2027 |
| South East | 15 March 2027 | 14 June 2027 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 15 April 2027 | 14 July 2027 |
| North West | 15 May 2027 | 14 August 2027 |
| North East | 15 June 2027 | 14 September 2027 |
| London | 15 July 2027 | 14 October 2027 |
| South West | 15 August 2027 | 14 November 2027 |
London landlords are eighth of nine, with a window running from 15 July to 14 October 2027. Nothing stops you registering before then. MHCLG has said that landlords who want to register ahead of their deadline, including those with properties across several regions who would rather do the lot in one sitting, will be able to do so from 15 December 2026.
£65 per property per year, paid each year on the same date. During the rollout the fee will be pro-rated so that landlords called forward first are not paying more than those called later.
The fee attaches to the property entry rather than to the landlord entry, and that distinction matters for jointly owned property. Each joint landlord makes a separate landlord entry, but they share a single dwelling entry. One property, one fee, however many owners are named on it.
£65 is an announced figure, not a number written into the statutory instrument. Regulation 14 leaves the amount to be determined by the database operator by reference to the relevant costs of establishing, running and enforcing the service, using the power in section 81 of the Act. MHCLG has said part of the income will also fund council enforcement capacity. The practical consequence is that the figure can move without a fresh statutory instrument.
Your own details, the property, the tenancy, the rent and the health and safety paperwork. Registration runs through GOV.UK One Login, with offline routes available for landlords who need them. The table below is the full list MHCLG has published.
| Category | Information required |
|---|---|
| You, as an individual landlord | Name, date of birth, residential address, telephone number, email address. |
| Organisational landlords | Organisation name and type of legal entity; address, which cannot be a PO Box; telephone and email; the name, date of birth, email and telephone of the individual making the entry; a nominated database contact and their details; Companies House number and charity number where applicable; where no Companies House number is given, the names, dates of birth and addresses of every director, trustee, partner or governing body member; for trusts, the lead trustee's details. |
| Anyone registering on a landlord's behalf | The capacity in which they act, whether attorney, personal representative, court-appointed deputy, guardian, receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, liquidator, administrator, mortgagee or an equivalent under foreign law; their name, address, telephone and email; and a certified or sealed copy of the evidence of authority. |
| The property | Address; dwelling type; ownership type; number of bedrooms; whether it is currently under let; the name of the landlord or intended landlord with a correspondence address in England and Wales, which cannot be a PO Box, and an email address for that property; and the name and email of the freeholder, any superior landlord and the property manager. |
| The tenancy | Number of occupants; number of households; whether the property needs an HMO mandatory, additional or selective licence, and the licence numbers where available; whether the let is furnished, part-furnished or unfurnished. |
| The rent | The rent charged and the frequency of payment; whether it is inclusive of utilities and, if so, which. |
| Health and safety | Where there is a gas supply, a copy of the gas safety record and its issue date; a copy of the EICR or the appropriate EIC with its expiry date; whether a valid EPC had to be given to the current tenant and a copy of the most recent one; where that EPC is no longer valid, the start date of the current tenancy; and where the rating is below the minimum standard, whether a MEES exemption is registered and which type. |
No, not the registration itself. The government's wording is unambiguous: landlords are responsible for starting and ending the registration process, and although an agent may provide certain information on a landlord's behalf, you as a landlord remain responsible for providing all required information.
You can delegate the supply of the tenancy, rent and health and safety detail. Accountability for it stays with you, and so does the job of opening and closing the registration.
Two further points apply if you plan to lean on an agent. The National Residential Landlords Association states that bulk uploads will not be available, so a portfolio has to be entered one property at a time and larger portfolios should start early. And Timothy Douglas, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Propertymark, said on 10 September 2026 that requiring each landlord to make a separate entry could create unnecessary delays and discourage timely action, and asked for clear guidance on what agents can and cannot do. That guidance has not yet been published.
Because an entry is either active or inactive, and only an active entry keeps you compliant. Active status is maintained by keeping every piece of information and every document up to date.
Information and documents in an active entry must be updated within 28 days of becoming out of date. If the rent changes, the tenant changes or a gas safety record is renewed, the new information has to be registered inside 28 days.
Three mechanics in the regulations are easier to learn now than after an entry has gone inactive:
None of this is onerous in isolation. It does need a rigorous approach, particularly across several properties. A landlord with eight properties renews eight gas safety records a year, roughly two electrical reports and about one EPC, and that is before a rent review or a change of tenant. Every one of those starts a 28-day clock, and any one of them can deactivate an entry if it is missed.
A council can impose a civil penalty of up to £7,000 where it is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you have breached the duty to hold active entries and keep them current, or marketed a property without them. Further penalties for the same continuing conduct become possible after 28 days. The separate duty to carry the unique identifiers in written adverts sits in section 82(2) and is not yet commenced, so penalties on that limb start when the public interface does.
Knowingly or recklessly giving the database operator false or misleading information is an offence, as is continuing a breach beyond 28 days of a penalty, or committing a fresh breach within five years of one. Councils can prosecute or, as an alternative, impose a civil penalty of up to £40,000.
The provision with the sharpest commercial edge is section 90, which inserts a new subsection into section 7 of the Housing Act 1988. While a landlord is in breach of the duty to hold active entries, the court may not make a possession order at all. Ground 7A and Ground 14, both concerned with anti-social behaviour, are the only exceptions.
So a landlord whose entry went inactive because a gas safety record was not uploaded in time has no route to possession on rent arrears until the error is fixed. Our reading is that this, and not the penalty figures, is what makes the register a job to run properly rather than a form to file. The rest of the Renters' Rights Act already made possession slower and more evidence-led; an inactive entry removes the route entirely.
Three things, and the first affects landlords who let in their own names. A further statutory instrument will set out which information is published, alongside data sharing with other agencies and the offences the database records. MHCLG has said only that the published set will balance landlord privacy against tenants making better-informed choices, and that the list will follow. For a landlord letting in their own name, without a business address, that list matters.
Second, the marketing and advertising duties under section 82(1) and (2) will be commenced by future legislation once rollout is complete and the public interface exists, not on 15 December.
Third, the guidance on what a letting agent may and may not do has not landed. We will update this page each time one of the three arrives.
Start with the ownership question, because it is the one most likely to cause trouble later. Establish the correct legal landlord for every property: your own name, joint names, a limited company, an LLP. Adverts will eventually need the registration number of each landlord named, so getting the entity right at the outset avoids unpicking it afterwards.
Then assemble the paperwork. Gas safety record, EICR or EIC with expiry dates, current EPC, licence numbers, freeholder and superior landlord contact details. The freeholder email is the item landlords most often find they do not have, and chasing a managing agent for it can take weeks.
Finally, decide how the entry will be kept current. If you manage the property yourself, that means a process that survives a busy month: a diary of every certificate expiry date and a habit of updating the entry the same week anything changes. If you plan to lean on an agent, ask how they will make sure nothing is missed and how they will show you it has been done. Technology can play a role on the letting agents' side; however, the new database does not have any API or upload functionality, so at this point the updates will be manual.
We already keep compliance documents current across a portfolio as a matter of course, so the certificate side of an entry is work we do anyway. We can handle the information side of registration and the updates that follow for landlords who want it off their desk.
What we will not tell you is that we can do the registration for you, because the government has said landlords start and end it themselves. We will do what we are permitted to do, and we will tell you what that is as the guidance lands.
Sources
Legislation
Government
Sector
This is general guidance on the law in force in England at the time of writing, not legal advice. If your position is unusual, take advice on it.
We will keep this page updated each time a further piece of guidance lands. Follow what is changing on our Renters' Rights hub.