Scope: England and Wales. The assured tenancy regime is English; Wales runs occupation contracts with its own exclusions — see the divergence map. Verified against the legislation on 14 August 2026.
A genuine holiday let is not an assured tenancy. It is excluded, so none of the security of tenure applies: no grounds, no notice regime, no section 8 possession claim.
That exclusion is narrow, and it is decided by what is actually happening — not by what the agreement is called.
What decides it
The exclusion turns on the purpose of the occupation: the property must be occupied for a holiday. A tribunal or court looks at the substance:
- Does the occupier have a home elsewhere? Someone with no other residence is not on holiday, whatever the agreement says.
- How long, and is it renewed? A fortnight in August reads as a holiday. The same person rolling over for eight months does not.
- Is it marketed and run as a holiday property? Cleaning, linen, no council tax registration as a dwelling, seasonal pricing.
- What is the occupier doing there? Working locally, registering with a GP, receiving post and having children at a local school all point one way.
A clause reciting "this is a holiday let" carries almost no weight if the facts say otherwise. Courts have long treated labels designed to avoid statutory protection as exactly that.
What you have created if you are wrong
This is the part worth being frightened of. If the occupation is in truth an assured tenancy, then from day one:
- The tenant has security of tenure. You need a ground and a valid Form 3A notice to recover the property.
- Any deposit you took should have been protected within 30 days. That deadline has passed and cannot be cured, exposing you to one to three times the deposit.
- Every day-one document was due and was not served — the checklist.
- The safety duties applied throughout: gas, electrical, alarms.
- Removing the occupier without a court order would be a criminal offence — see illegal eviction and harassment.
None of that is retrospectively fixable. The deposit deadline in particular is a breach the moment day 31 arrives.
The middle ground people fall into
Two patterns cause most of the trouble.
The winter let. A seaside property let out of season, often at a reduced rent, to someone who plainly lives there. It has the shape of a tenancy and is frequently treated as a holiday let because the property is a holiday property the rest of the year. The property's usual use does not decide the occupier's.
The rolling short let. A serviced apartment occupied by a contractor for a month, then another, then another. Each individual booking looks like a holiday let; the pattern does not.
Licensing and planning do not follow the same line
Even where the tenancy exclusion holds, other regimes may not. Short-term letting is increasingly subject to planning control and, in some areas, to registration schemes. Whether a council's selective licensing designation reaches a property depends on the designation's own terms — check the register and the council's page.
A property can therefore be outside the assured tenancy regime and still inside a licensing or planning requirement.
If you are not certain
Assume it is a tenancy and comply. The cost of complying with a tenancy that turns out to be a holiday let is a few certificates and some paperwork. The cost of the reverse is an unprotected deposit, an unrecoverable property and potentially a criminal offence.
Run the free compliance check to see what applies if it is a tenancy.
Common questions
Does calling it a holiday let make it one?
No. The exclusion turns on whether the property is genuinely occupied for a holiday, and courts look at the substance rather than the label — whether the occupier has a home elsewhere, how long they stay, whether it renews, and what they are actually doing there. A clause reciting "this is a holiday let" carries almost no weight against facts pointing the other way.
What happens if my holiday let is really an assured tenancy?
Everything applied from day one. The occupier has security of tenure, so you need a ground and a valid Form 3A notice to recover the property. Any deposit should have been protected within 30 days, and that deadline cannot be cured — exposing you to one to three times the deposit. Every day-one document was due, the safety duties applied throughout, and removing the occupier without a court order would be a criminal offence.
Is a winter let a holiday let?
Usually not. A seaside property let out of season to someone who plainly lives there has the shape of a tenancy, and the fact that the property is a holiday property for the rest of the year does not decide how this occupier is using it. The occupier's purpose is what matters, not the building's usual one.
Do licensing rules apply to holiday lets?
Possibly, and independently of the tenancy question. Short-term letting is increasingly subject to planning control and registration schemes, and whether a selective licensing designation reaches a property depends on that designation's own terms. A property can be outside the assured tenancy regime and still inside a licensing or planning requirement.