Airbnb planning trends
Applications naming Airbnb more than tripled between 2021 and 2025, but their share of applications has fallen by almost a quarter since January 2026.
Airbnb applications since 2016
Airbnb applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredTripled to 2025, then fell back
Councils received 32 applications naming Airbnb in 2021, 76 in 2022 and 103 in 2025. Their share peaked at 2.3 in every 10,000 applications in the year to October 2025, on 104 applications, and stood at 1.7 in the year to September 2026.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 16 Airbnb applications in Q3 2026, too few to compare their share with a year earlier.
Airbnb applications each quarter
16 in Q3 2026, against 27 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 1.6 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 2.5 a year earlier.
Where Airbnb applications concentrate
Councils with the most
Applications since 2016
-
City of Edinburgh
Scotland · 3.4 in every 10,000 17 -
Colchester
East of England · 7.0 in every 10,000 12 -
Wiltshire
South West · 2.1 in every 10,000 12 -
Milton Keynes
South East · 5.6 in every 10,000 11 -
North Yorkshire
Yorkshire and Humber · 1.5 in every 10,000 10 -
Breckland
East of England · 6.3 in every 10,000 9 -
Babergh and Mid Suffolk (shared register)
East of England · 2.9 in every 10,000 8 -
East Suffolk
East of England · 2.5 in every 10,000 7 -
Nottingham
East Midlands · 4.5 in every 10,000 7 -
West Northamptonshire
East Midlands · 2.0 in every 10,000 7
Latest Airbnb applications
- 5 Oakfield Gardens Newport Change of use to create air b and b rental
- 17 West End Geldeston Norfolk Change of use for a caravan sited on our property to be used for AirBnB purposes
- 139 Horseshoe Lane Watford Retrospective - Sub-division of existing dwelling to provide 1 x 2-bedroom dwelling and 1 x short-term holiday accommodation (airbnb) for a temporary period of two years.
- Sheriton, Cross Common Road, Dinas Powys To convert the garage into a potential living space (Granny flat) or an Airbnb
- Flat 3 54 Pemberton Road Hornsey London Full planning permission for Airbnb or similar for short-term stays
- 4 Kingswood Close Enfield Change of use from Use Class C3 (dwelling house) to Use Class C1 (Hotels and halls of residence) to be used for short term visitor accomadation through Airbnb.
Questions
How many planning applications mention Airbnb?
Councils have received 503 since January 2016, 75 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to October 2025.
Which councils receive the most Airbnb applications?
City of Edinburgh, Colchester and Wiltshire have received the most since 2016.
Are Airbnb applications rising or falling?
Both, depending on the window. In the 12 months to September 2026 Airbnb's share of applications was 1% higher than three years earlier, but below its peak of 2.3 in every 10,000 in the year to October 2025.
Why do so few applications name Airbnb?
Most proposals are written up as holiday or short-term lets: councils received 3,680 holiday let applications in the same 12 months. The ONS counted 93,823,780 guest nights in UK short-term lets booked through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia in the year to June 2025.
About Plota
Plota is the UK's most visited planning search, according to Similarweb. It shows every new planning application from every UK council, read daily from 390 planning registers, with past applications back to 2016 from more than 420 registers, including those of councils since merged. It also covers planning committee decisions, HMO licences and premises licences.
How this is measured
What needs an application
Edinburgh's short-term let control area and new Welsh use classes for short-term lets both came in autumn 2022, after the 2022 rise had begun.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names Airbnb or a close variant of the words, by the date each council received them. These are planning applications, not completed schemes; the largest energy and infrastructure projects are consented nationally rather than by councils, so they sit outside these counts.
- How matches are checked: we read the 200 most recent Airbnb applications and 20 from every year since 2016 to confirm each one belongs.
- Topic counts leave out, by design, works to trees and applications that only discharge conditions, amend an earlier permission or approve reserved matters, which follow a scheme already counted. Everything else is counted.
- A share is the number out of every 10,000 applications over the previous 12 months. Each topic is a number in every 10,000 planning applications, so trends compare when overall planning activity changes; the share still moves when either the topic's count or the total does. This topic has no planning index: councils received fewer than 20 in 2016, too few to measure change against.
- Source: the planning registers of every UK council, January 2016 to September 2026, read on 9 November 2026.
- Planning is seasonal, so each quarter is compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Year on year: each topic's and theme's share of all applications in Q3 2026, against Q3 2025, at every council we hold. A share is the number in every 10,000 applications. Shares compare across councils and years; raw counts do not.
- Left out of the topic shares: Birmingham's applications from June to September 2026: a validation backlog at the council since June 2026: of 685 reference numbers it issued in September, its register lists 288. The same months a year earlier are left out too, so every comparison covers the same councils.
- Download the data (CSV): every topic and theme, each quarter since 2016.
Sources
- Edinburgh's city-wide short-term let control area took effect on 5 September 2022, making non-principal-home short-term letting a material change of use needing permission. edinburgh.gov.uk
- Wales introduced use classes C5 (second homes) and C6 (short-term lets) in October 2022. gov.wales
- The ONS counted 93,823,780 guest nights in UK short-term lets booked through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia Group, July 2024 to June 2025. ons.gov.uk