Not yet. England has no national landlord register today, only council licence registers and the separate registers in Scotland and Wales. The Private Rented Sector Database, the government's Register your rental property service, opens region by region from 15 December 2026 under the Renters' Rights Act 2025. The duty to register is not in force.
Updated 15 October 2026 · Figures checked against legislation.gov.uk and GOV.UK on 15 October 2026 · Statutory penalties are maximums; councils and courts decide the amount.
No national one. As at 15 October 2026 there is no register that lists every private landlord in England. If you searched for "landlord registry" and expected to type in a name or an address, three things exist, and none is that:
What is coming for England is bigger than any of them: a national database of landlords and the homes they let, with a legal duty to be on it.
Part 2 Chapter 3 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (sections 75 to 96) creates the Private Rented Sector Database. GOV.UK calls the service Register your rental property. Once section 82 is in force, a private landlord in England must have an active landlord entry for themselves and an active dwelling entry for every home they let, must not market a home without both, and must quote the database's unique identifiers in every advert.
That duty is not in force. On legislation.gov.uk the key sections are in force "for specified purposes" only, meaning the power to make regulations, and the Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 are still marked "draft" and "not yet made". What has happened is an announcement of dates. Our full guide to the database covers the duties, the documents and the penalties in detail; this page is the short version.
Region by region, starting with the West Midlands on 15 December 2026 and ending with the South West on 15 August 2027. The dates below are regulation 1(3) of the draft regulations and match the GOV.UK Housing Hub. The region is where the property is.
| Region | Registration opens |
|---|---|
| West Midlands | 15 December 2026 |
| East of England | 15 January 2027 |
| East Midlands | 15 February 2027 |
| South East | 15 March 2027 |
| Yorkshire and Humber | 15 April 2027 |
| North West | 15 May 2027 |
| North East | 15 June 2027 |
| London | 15 July 2027 |
| South West | 15 August 2027 |
GOV.UK says each region then has a three-month window to register before councils start enforcing. That window is announced policy, not a date in the Act. The dates page sets out the windows, the renewal dates and what "for all other purposes, 15 September 2027" means.
Who: every residential landlord in England, whether you let one flat or fifty, once the duty is commenced. There is one entry for you and one for each dwelling, and a dwelling entry cannot be made until your own entry is active (draft reg 4(6)). A company, charity or trust gives its legal-entity details and the people behind it instead (draft Schedule 2, paragraphs 6 to 16).
Cost: no fee is set in law. Draft regulation 14 leaves the amount to the database operator, by reference to its costs. GOV.UK has announced £65 a year per property; treat that as the expected figure, not a statutory one.
How often: entries run for 12 months and lapse the day after the renewal date unless renewed (draft reg 10).
Registration is not licensing. An HMO or selective licence from your council is a separate requirement and carries on. The database asks whether a licence is required and for its number.
The Act leaves this to regulations. Section 86(1) lets the Secretary of State specify which parts of a landlord or dwelling entry the operator must make public, and none of the 14 draft regulations does so yet. The Act already requires a council to record banning orders it obtained, and convictions and financial penalties for banning order offences it prosecuted or imposed, once any appeal is over (section 83). If regulations make those entries public, they cannot be published sooner than 21 days after the entry is made (s.86(1)(c)). Every advert will also have to carry the landlord and dwelling identifiers, so a prospective tenant will at least be able to see that a property is registered.
Councils, the lead enforcement authority, trading standards, mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority get access to information in the database (s.86(2)), as does the Secretary of State (s.86(3)). Our search guide explains what a tenant can check today and what changes from December.
All of this is dormant until the duty commences, and then it bites in three ways:
Nothing on the government service yet; there is nothing to register on. What you can do is hold, as copies, the documents the service will ask for: the gas safety record, the EICR, the EPC and any licence number, plus the rent and furnishing details for each tenancy. Our free Landlord Register Ready? check takes a postcode, gives you your region's opening date and counts down to it. ComplyWithMe never registers anyone; when your region opens you register on the government service yourself.
We re-read the Act, the draft regulations and the GOV.UK rollout before every release. If the regulations are made, or the dates move, this page changes.
Government changes that bear on this duty. Where the status says in force the rule already applies; everything else is not yet law for private landlords. Dates are quoted as the government has published them, checked on 15 October 2026.
| Change | Status today | Published timing | Sensible preparation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mandatory landlord and property registration on the Private Rented Sector Database (the landlord register), with an annual fee | regulations in draft | Regional rollout from 15 December 2026 (West Midlands first) to 15 September 2027 for all other purposes, per the draft Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 | Keep copies, not just dates, of the gas safety record, EICR and EPC for each property, and know whether a licence applies; those are what the draft regulations say the entry needs. Source |
Scotland and Wales have had landlord registration for years. England does not yet: the Private Rented Sector Database under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 opens region by region from 15 December 2026, and the duty to register has not been brought into force as at 15 October 2026.
In England the phrase usually means the Private Rented Sector Database created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, which GOV.UK calls Register your rental property. Councils also keep separate registers of HMO and selective licences under the Housing Act 2004.
Yes, once the duty is in force. Section 82 of the Act applies to every residential landlord in England; there is no small-landlord exemption in the Act or the draft regulations, although s.82(4) lets regulations exempt specified cases. You will have one landlord entry and one dwelling entry.
No. HMO, additional and selective licences are granted by your council under the Housing Act 2004 and continue separately. The database entry records whether a licence is required and its number.
On the government's Register your rental property service, once it opens for your region. It is not open yet. Third-party sites, including ComplyWithMe, cannot register you.
When a compliance question becomes a court or tribunal matter, BundleCreator.co, from the same company, turns the records into a court-ready bundle. From the notice to the order, stage by stage. Start with the possession and arrears journey.
Enter a postcode to see when registration opens for that property, then let the free app check which of the documents the service asks for you already hold. It never registers you; you do that on the government service.
Landlord Register Ready? (free)From the ComplyWithMe news feed: enforcement decisions and legislation changes, each linked to its official source.
Download the free app, then subscribe on the web at complywithme.co/subscribe — launch offer £59.99 for your first year with one property, then £119/year (until 28 February 2027, while 100 launch places last)from £119 a year for one property. Sign in with the same account and the full app unlocks.
