England landlord register brings £65 fee and £7,000 fines

Registration for England's landlord register opens on 15 December 2026, and the landlords first in line are those letting in the West Midlands (NRLA). Every region then gets its own three-month window, with the final deadline falling on 14 November 2027 (The Independent Landlord). The service is called Register your rental property, and it sits under Part 2 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

When does the landlord register open in your region?

The rollout runs region by region, one region a month, across England. It starts in the West Midlands on 15 December 2026. Landlords there have until 14 March 2027 to get every actively let property onto the database. It is created by The Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026, according to the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA).

London landlords come late in the sequence. Registration opens there on 15 July 2027, with a deadline of 14 October 2027. The South West closes the rollout on 14 November 2027, per The Independent Landlord's guide to the database. If you hold property in several regions, your deadlines will not line up, so a tracked list per region is worth building into your portfolio systems and record keeping.

Who has to register, and what does it cost?

The register applies to private landlords in England letting on assured tenancies (the standard private rental agreement) or on Rent Act 1977 regulated tenancies, the NRLA says. Social housing, lodgers and tenancies that sit outside the Housing Act rules on very high or very low rents fall outside it. This is an England-only register, and these regulations do not cover Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The fee is £65 per property per year, renewed annually. Properties already let have to be registered, and so does any property that becomes let during your region's window. The NRLA also confirms that a letting agent cannot register on a landlord's behalf.

The NRLA lists the information required for each property.

• the address, ownership type (freehold, leasehold or commonhold) and property type

• licensing status, occupancy numbers and whether it is an HMO (house in multiple occupation, a property shared by tenants from more than one household)

• the rent, whether bills are included, and how often rent is paid

• safety certificates: gas, EPC (Energy Performance Certificate, the energy efficiency rating) and EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report)

Occupancy and licensing data also drives a commercial HMO valuation, so our free HMO valuation calculator runs on inputs you will already be pulling together.

What is the penalty for not registering?

A single breach carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000, according to the NRLA. Repeated or continuing breaches, and supplying false information, can be penalised by up to £40,000.

Both the fee and the penalty apply per property, so the cost of getting this wrong grows with your portfolio. That is worth factoring into how you plan your portfolio strategy.

In practice this means two jobs before December. You may wish to list your properties by region, then check that every certificate is current and to hand. Our free property resources hub has checklists to work from.

One caveat on sourcing. The report that first carried this story was not retrievable at the time of writing, so every figure above comes from the guidance named below.

Key takeaways

• Registration opens 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands, then one region a month across England (NRLA).

• Each region gets roughly three months; the last deadline is 14 November 2027 (The Independent Landlord).

• The fee is £65 per property per year, renewed annually.

• A single breach can cost up to £7,000, and up to £40,000 for repeated breaches or false information.

• Letting agents cannot register for you (NRLA).