This is a practical guide to registering your rental property on England’s new landlord database, the GOV.UK service called Register your rental property. It walks through what you need, the steps in order, and the situations that trip people up.
It is the companion to our main guide. For what the database is, what it costs and your regional deadline and the £65 fee, read that first. This page is about how to actually do it.
The quick version
The law provides for unique identifiers for each entry (Renters’ Rights Act 2025, section 84), and GOV.UK confirms registration numbers will be required on adverts. The exact public names for the landlord and property numbers have not yet been confirmed.
Registration is quick when the answers are in front of you and slow when they are not. Two things are worth doing in advance.
Set up your GOV.UK One Login now. One Login is the single sign-in used across GOV.UK services, and you will need it to register. Creating it before the service opens means you are not setting up an account and verifying your identity under deadline pressure on the day.
Gather your documents. You will be asked for the same details for every property: ownership and property details, tenancy and rent details, and your safety certificates. Rather than repeat the full list here, we keep two free checklists you can work from. Download the preparation and document checklists below.
Know who is registering. Each legal owner of a property registers themselves. If you own through a company, the company registers as the landlord. More on both below.
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Go to the Register your rental property service and sign in with your GOV.UK One Login. If you do not have one, you create it here first, including verifying your identity.
You provide your landlord details: an individual gives their name, date of birth, address and contact details. Once your entry is active, you receive a registration number for it. Every landlord, whether an individual, a company or a trust, must make a landlord entry.
For each rental property you add a dwelling entry: the address, ownership type, property type, number of bedrooms, whether it is currently let, and freeholder or property manager details where relevant.
You confirm occupancy and household numbers, HMO or licensing status, the rent and payment frequency, and your safety documents: the Gas Safety Record where applicable, the electrical report (EICR) with its expiry date, and the current EPC.
The fee is £65 per property, per year. You pay it for each property you register. During the rollout the fee is pro-rated so early registrants are not charged more.
Once a property entry is active, it has its own registration number. This is the number that will need to appear on adverts for that property.
We have deliberately not invented button names or screen wording. When the service opens we will replace the descriptions above with the real steps and screenshots.
You have to start it yourself. GOV.UK is clear that landlords must begin their own registration, and that you remain responsible for providing all the required information.
Your letting agent or property manager can help. GOV.UK says there will be an option for an agent or manager to upload certain information on your behalf once your landlord entry is active. That is support with the detail, not a way to hand the whole thing over. Official guidance for agents is expected before launch.
This is where most questions sit. Where the government has confirmed the position, we say so. Where it has not, we say that too, rather than guess.
| Situation | What applies | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Joint owners | Each owner makes their own landlord entry. A jointly owned property has a single dwelling entry between them. | Based on the rules |
| Company or SPV | The company is the landlord and makes its own entry, so it has its own registration number, separate from any personal one. | Confirmed |
| HMOs | You give HMO and licensing status and the rent details. Exact handling of room by room rents is not spelt out yet. | Partly confirmed |
| Trustees and executors | You register in your capacity and provide evidence of your authority to act. | Confirmed |
| Overseas landlords | You still need a GOV.UK One Login and a correspondence address. The property’s location sets its deadline, not yours. | Based on the rules |
| Portfolio across regions | You can register everything together from 15 December 2026, even though each property keeps its own regional deadline. | Confirmed |
| Vacant property | You cannot market a property to let without active entries. Whether an un-let property must be registered during the initial rollout is not yet confirmed. | Not yet confirmed |
Individuals must each create a landlord entry, and there is only one active dwelling entry per property. So joint owners each register themselves, and the property they share sits under a single dwelling entry.
If you hold property through a company, the company is the landlord. You provide the company name, its Companies House number, the details of the person submitting the registration and a nominated contact. Property held in a company is registered under the company’s own landlord entry, separate from property you own in your own name, so it carries its own registration number.
Living abroad does not change the process: you need a One Login and give a correspondence address, and each property follows the deadline for the region it sits in. If your portfolio spans several regions, you do not have to stagger it. From 15 December 2026 you can register everything in one go.
The Renters’ Rights Act is clear on one point: a property cannot be marketed to let without an active landlord entry and dwelling entry. Whether a property that is currently empty and not being advertised must be registered during the initial rollout has not yet been confirmed, so watch for the final guidance.
Registration is not a one off. Two duties follow.
Keep your entry up to date. Information in your entries must be updated within 28 days of it becoming out of date. A new gas certificate, a rent change or a new managing agent all count.
Renew every year. Entries are active for a year and must be renewed, with a fee, or they become inactive. An inactive entry means you are no longer compliant.
Adverts. GOV.UK has confirmed that registration numbers will need to appear on adverts for a property. The exact date this duty starts has not yet been confirmed.
Failure to register is enforced by local councils. Under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 the penalties are civil fines of up to £7,000 for a first or less serious breach and up to £40,000 for serious or repeated breaches, with criminal prosecution and an unlimited fine in the most serious cases. We mention this once, as a fact, not as a reason to panic. Prepared and registered on time, most landlords will not think about it again until renewal.
You can register from the day the service opens on 15 December 2026, and you may register your whole portfolio together from that date. Each property still has its own regional deadline, but you do not have to wait for your region to act.
You will need one to use the service, so set it up first. GOV.UK One Login is the single sign-in used across many government services. Creating it in advance means you are not doing it under time pressure on the day.
No. The registration fee is the landlord’s cost. In England the Tenant Fees Act 2019 prevents landlords and agents from passing this kind of cost to tenants. GOV.UK has not published database-specific guidance on this point, but the position under the Tenant Fees Act is clear.
This is not yet confirmed specifically by GOV.UK. As a cost of running your lettings business, the fee would usually be an allowable expense set against your rental income, in the same way as other running costs. Check your own position with an accountant.
A lodger who lives with you and shares your home is usually an excluded occupier under a licence, not an assured tenancy, so this arrangement is likely to sit outside the database. This has not yet been confirmed for the service, so check the final guidance if you take in a lodger.
You provide your most recent Energy Performance Certificate when you register. An EPC lasts ten years, and the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards require a valid EPC to let a property. If yours has expired, arrange a new one. How the service treats an expired EPC mid-tenancy is not yet confirmed.
The service runs online through GOV.UK One Login. Government services usually offer assisted-digital support for people who cannot use the online route, but an offline registration route has not yet been confirmed.
Once the service opens, use its own help and guidance first. Enforcement of the database is carried out by local councils, so your local authority is the body responsible for registration in your area.
No. This database is for England only. Scotland has its own landlord registration scheme, and Wales has Rent Smart Wales. If you let property in those nations, their separate rules apply.
To be clear: PROXERA does not register landlords and is not the government service. You register directly with GOV.UK. We cannot do it for you, and we would not claim to.
What PROXERA does is keep the answers ready. Your properties, your documents, your compliance dates and your rent live in one place, so when you sit down to register, the address, the certificate dates, the rent and the rest are in front of you rather than scattered across folders and emails. That is the difference between minutes per property and an afternoon.
Last reviewed: 23 September 2026. The service is not open yet, so parts of this guide describe the process from official guidance and beta tester accounts. We will update it, and add screenshots, when Register your rental property goes live on 15 December 2026. General information for landlords in England, not legal or tax advice. Always check GOV.UK for the current official position.
Everything the service asks for, in two short PDFs, so registration is a quick task rather than a scramble. Free, one email, no card needed.
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