Plain-English and sourced to government’s own documents — what English landlords need to know about the new PRS Database, what it costs, and the date your region has to register by.
The PRS Database is a new national register of private landlords and rental properties in England, created by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. The government describes it as bringing together key information for landlords, tenants and councils — informing tenant choices, helping landlords demonstrate compliance, and supporting councils in targeting enforcement.
It is part of Phase 2 of the Act’s rollout, following the Phase 1 tenancy reforms — Section 21 abolition, periodic tenancies, and the new Section 13 rent rules — which took effect on 1 May 2026.
This guide is part of our landlord compliance series — sourced guides to the biggest deadlines and duties facing English landlords right now.
The service is called “Register your rental property”, and it rolls out region by region across England. It opens in the West Midlands on 15 December 2026, then a further region each month until August 2027. Once your region is called forward you have a three-month window in which to register, so the last deadline in the country falls on 14 November 2027.
Your deadline follows the property, not you. If you live in London and let a house in Birmingham, you work to the West Midlands date.
One qualification, and it is why nothing on this page says “in force”. The instrument that sets this schedule — The Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 — is a draft laid before Parliament, awaiting approval by a resolution of each House. It has not yet been made. What follows is the schedule government has published and laid; it is not yet law, and a date can still move.
When each region is called forward, and the date registration must be done by. Source: MHCLG, “Get ready: Register your rental property”. Subject to parliamentary approval of the draft regulations.
At this stage you only have to register properties that are currently let, or that become let during the rollout. Registering unoccupied properties before they are marketed is a separate duty that MHCLG says will come in under future legislation, alongside a requirement to put your landlord and property reference numbers on adverts.
A later stage opens the database to public view and data-sharing, so tenants can check whether a landlord is compliant, and brings in the PRS Landlord Ombudsman. MHCLG has said the detail of that public view will be published at a later stage, so this page does not describe what it will show.
The roadmap states regulations will mandate registration and fee payment and — subject to the will of Parliament — at minimum, for each PRS property: your contact details as landlord (including from all joint landlords); property details — full address, property type, number of bedrooms, number of households or residents, and whether it’s occupied and furnished; and safety information — Gas, Electrical and Energy Performance Certificates.
The fee is £65 per property, per year. It is mandatory, it is charged per property rather than per landlord, and it recurs annually rather than being a one-off registration cost — so a four-property portfolio is £260 a year, every year.
Worth knowing where that figure sits. The draft regulations do not set it: they leave the fee to be determined by the Database operator by reference to its relevant costs, under section 81(4) of the Act. So £65 is the figure MHCLG has published for the service, not a number written into the legislation — which is also why it is the kind of figure that can be revised without the Act changing.
Repeat it, or commit a serious offence such as giving the database fraudulent information, and the ceiling rises to £40,000 — or you can be prosecuted instead.
But the fine is not the part that should worry a landlord most. A landlord in breach of the duty to register cannot obtain a possession order at all, with two narrow exceptions: where possession is sought on ground 7A or ground 14 — the tenant anti-social behaviour grounds. On every other ground, including rent arrears and the landlord-sale and moving-in grounds, an unregistered property is one you cannot recover through the courts. Registration is effectively the precondition for possession, which puts it in a different category from a fine you could treat as a cost of doing business.
And a separate exposure that catches agents as much as landlords: enforcement does not wait for a tenancy. A council can act against anyone who markets a private rented property whose landlord is not registered, so an advert is itself the breach — you cannot advertise now and register once a tenant is found.
One thing still genuinely unpublished, and it matters if you are trying to size the risk: those are statutory ceilings, not expected fines. GOV.UK’s civil-penalties guidance tells councils a starting point to work from before aggravating and mitigating factors, and for database offences it does not yet publish starting points at all. Anyone quoting you a likely fine for failing to register is quoting the ceiling and calling it a forecast. Our registration guide sets out that distinction in full.
PRS Landlord Ombudsman — established in Phase 2; mandatory landlord sign-up expected in 2028. Social rented sector — the tenancy reforms extend to social housing in 2027. Awaab’s Law (private sector) follows in Phase 3, timescale subject to consultation. The new Decent Homes Standard will apply from 2035 in both the social and private rented sectors.
Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards — the Warm Homes Plan confirmed PRS properties must reach EPC C or equivalent by 1 October 2030, unless exempt. New local council investigatory powers took effect on 27 December 2025.
Registration is not open yet, but you now have a date to work back from, and the required records are ones worth holding regardless. Find your region in the table above, count back from its deadline, and get your Gas Safety Certificate, EICR, EPC, deposit protection and licensing details into one place per property. The EICR is the long-lead item — it needs a qualified electrician, remedial work is common, and demand will rise sharply as each region is called forward. Our registration guide works through the record set document by document.
When does the PRS Database launch? Registration opens on 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands, then region by region each month until August 2027. Each region gets a three-month window, and the final deadline is 14 November 2027. The draft regulations setting this out are laid before Parliament and await approval, so it is published and laid rather than in force.
When is my region’s deadline? See the regional schedule above — and note the deadline follows the property’s location, not where you live.
What information will I have to provide to register? Your contact details as landlord, including from all joint landlords; property details — full address, property type, number of bedrooms, number of households or residents, and whether it’s occupied and furnished; and safety information — Gas, Electrical and Energy Performance Certificates.
How much will registration cost? £65 per property, per year. It is an annual fee, not a one-off, and it is charged per property — so five properties cost £325 a year. The draft regulations leave the amount to the Database operator, so £65 is the published service fee rather than a statutory figure.
Is registration mandatory? Yes, for all landlords of assured and regulated tenancies in England. At this stage the duty covers properties currently let or becoming let during the rollout; unoccupied properties come in under future legislation.
What’s the penalty for not registering? A civil penalty of up to £7,000 for letting or advertising an unregistered property, rising to up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution for repeated breaches or for giving the database fraudulent information. GOV.UK has not yet published starting-point figures for database offences, so those are ceilings, not expected fines.
Can I still evict a tenant if I haven’t registered? Generally no. A landlord in breach of the duty to register cannot get a possession order except on ground 7A or ground 14, the tenant anti-social behaviour grounds. This is the most serious consequence of not registering, and it bites regardless of whether a council has fined you.
UK Property Portal is written and published by Dan Woodcock, working independently from UK. It is a one-person operation — there is no newsroom and no research team behind it — and every figure, date and threshold on this page is sourced, attributed and dated to the document it comes from. Read the full editorial standard →
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