Accountants for holiday let and serviced accommodation operators
You let a cottage, an apartment or a block of units on short stays through Airbnb, Booking.com or your own site, and the tax treatment stopped being simple when the furnished holiday lettings rules ended in April 2025. What you are asking is what you lost, what you kept and what you now have to file. A specialist starts with how each property is run and what services you provide, what sat in your capital allowances pool at abolition, and your gross takings across every channel last year. Those answers decide whether Section 24 restricts your interest, whether your pooled allowances still write down, and whether VAT registration is close. The output is a written read of your 2026/27 position and the reliefs that survived.
What lands on your desk
What you are dealing with
What ended on 6 April 2025, and what carried over
Finance Act 2025 Schedule 5 removed the furnished holiday lettings regime, so your properties are now an ordinary UK property business: no capital allowances on new spending inside a dwelling, no Business Asset Disposal Relief on holiday let status alone, and profits that are no longer relevant earnings for pensions. Three transitional points survived. Pooled plant and machinery brought forward keeps writing down, unused losses are ring-fenced against future property profits, and transitional rules preserve capital gains relief where the trading period predates abolition. Fuller walkthrough in the FHL abolition guide.
Mortgage interest is now a restricted credit, not a deduction
Finance costs on a qualifying holiday let once came off profit in full. They now fall under the Section 24 restriction like any other residential let: a credit against the tax bill, not a deduction. In 2026/27 that credit is 20%, leaving a higher-rate operator a 20 percentage point gap and an additional-rate operator a 25 point gap between the rate paid and the relief given. Check your figures with the Section 24 calculator.
Capital allowances against replacement of domestic items
New plant and machinery spending in a dwelling is blocked by the dwelling-house restriction in the Capital Allowances Act 2001, so a replacement oven is not a claim. Available instead is replacement domestic items relief under section 311A ITTOIA 2005, covering furniture, furnishings, appliances and kitchenware replaced with a broadly equivalent item where the old one leaves. Replacements only, and fixtures are excluded. The pre-abolition pool still writes down, and a disposal out of it can trigger a balancing charge. The capital allowances calculator sizes the spend.
Short stays are standard-rated once you cross the VAT threshold
Holiday and serviced accommodation is a carve-out from the exempt land treatment, so your takings are standard-rated supplies. Registration is compulsory once taxable turnover over any rolling twelve months exceeds £90,000, or when you expect to exceed it in the next 30 days. Count the gross amount guests pay across every channel, not the net figure a platform transfers. HMRC can direct that units split across different names are one business.
Business rates or council tax, and the premium if you get it wrong
A self-catering property in England moves to business rates only where it was available to let commercially for at least 140 nights in the previous twelve months, actually let for at least 70, and intended to be available for 140 in the coming twelve. Wales sets a higher bar at 252 available and 182 let. Fall short and it returns to council tax, where many billing authorities now charge a second homes premium.
What a specialist reviews
What a specialist reviews
A written read of where abolition left you
A specialist reviews your last filed return against the current rules and sets out, property by property, the Section 24 position, the pooled allowances carried across, the ring-fenced losses, and the transitional capital gains position.
A VAT position tested against your real takings
A rolling twelve-month turnover schedule is built from your channel statements, gross of commission, and it identifies the month you would cross the threshold. Where several units or entities exist, the separation question is examined before it is relied on.
The claims that still exist, evidenced
A specialist separates what falls under replacement domestic items relief from what belongs in the grandfathered pool, and checks whether a balancing charge is waiting on an asset already sold. Where a property has a genuinely commercial element, the wider claim base is tested rather than assumed away.
Returns, records and the rates position kept in step
Filing runs off the same record: the self assessment property pages or the company return, reconciled to what your platforms reported to HMRC, with the occupancy evidence behind your rates position kept current. Check your headline tax with the rental income tax calculator.
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