In short: You need a mandatory HMO licence if five or more tenants from two or more separate households share facilities like a kitchen or bathroom, regardless of how many storeys the building has. But many councils run “additional licensing” that lowers this to three or four occupants, and separate “selective licensing” schemes can require a licence for any rented property, even a single-let with one tenant, in a designated area. You must check your specific local council’s website or licensing register, because national rules are only the floor; local schemes vary street by street.
The three types of licence, explained
1. Mandatory HMO licensing applies nationally and is set in law, not by individual councils. You need a licence if:
- The property is let to five or more tenants who are not all from one household (i.e., two or more separate households), and
- They share amenities such as a kitchen, bathroom, or toilet.
This applies regardless of the number of storeys, an earlier three-storey rule was removed some years ago, so a five-tenant HMO in a two-storey semi still needs mandatory licensing. It captures classic shared houses, but also things like converted properties let room-by-room to unrelated sharers.
2. Additional licensing is a scheme individual councils can choose to introduce, extending licensing to smaller HMOs that wouldn’t otherwise need a mandatory licence, commonly HMOs with three or four occupants forming two or more households. Well over 70 councils across England now run some form of additional licensing, and the trend has been growing steadily as councils use it to raise standards and generate enforcement data in areas with a lot of shared housing (university towns and inner-city boroughs especially).
3. Selective licensing is the broadest and catches many landlords who don’t think of themselves as running an HMO at all. A council can designate an area (sometimes a whole borough, sometimes specific wards) where every privately rented property needs a licence, regardless of the number of occupants or households, including a single professional couple renting an ordinary two-bed flat. Selective licensing is typically introduced to tackle poor property conditions, anti-social behaviour, or high deprivation in a particular area. As of 2026, well over 60 local authorities operate some form of selective licensing, and areas covered include parts of Newham, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Norwich, among many others, the list changes regularly as schemes are introduced, renewed, or expire.
How to actually check
Because additional and selective licensing are set locally, there is no single national lookup, you must check with the specific council where the property sits:
- Search “[council name] + landlord licensing” or “[council name] + selective licensing map”, most councils publish an interactive map or a postcode checker.
- Check whether your council has an additional licensing scheme covering smaller HMOs, and confirm your exact occupant/household count against their definition (this can differ subtly from the mandatory HMO test).
- If you own properties across several council areas, check each one separately, a scheme in one borough tells you nothing about the next one over.
- Renew on time. Licences are typically valid for five years but can be shorter, and operating with an expired licence is treated the same as never having had one.
Penalties for getting it wrong
The consequences of letting an HMO or a designated-area property without the required licence are genuinely severe, and have got harsher rather than softer:
- Civil penalties of up to £40,000 per offence (this ceiling was raised from £30,000 by the Renters’ Rights Act, effective from 1 May 2026), issued directly by the local council without needing to go to court.
- Criminal prosecution is also possible for serious or repeat non-compliance, with unlimited fines available on conviction.
- Rent Repayment Orders (RROs): tenants (or the council on their behalf) can apply to the First-tier Tribunal to reclaim rent paid during the period the property was unlicensed, up to 12 months’ rent for offences before 1 May 2026, rising to up to 24 months’ rent for qualifying offences committed from that date onward.
- Restrictions on possession proceedings: an unlicensed HMO can also make it harder or impossible to use certain grounds for possession while the licensing breach persists, effectively trapping you with a tenant you can’t easily remove until you sort out the licence.
Common mistakes landlords make
- Assuming “HMO” only means big, obviously shared student houses, a family home split into two self-contained flats sharing, say, a single boiler room or bin store can sometimes still trigger scrutiny depending on facilities shared.
- Not re-checking after a council introduces a new additional or selective licensing scheme, these are often introduced with only a few months’ notice and apply to existing tenancies, not just new ones.
- Forgetting that licences are property- and often landlord-specific, buying an HMO with an existing licence doesn’t automatically transfer it to you; you typically need to apply in your own name.
- Overlooking that letting agents managing the property don’t absolve the landlord of licensing responsibility, enforcement action targets the person who is the “person having control” of the property, which is usually the owner.
If you’re at all unsure whether your property needs a licence, the safest and cheapest step is a direct email or phone call to your local council’s private sector housing or licensing team before you let (or re-let) the property, it costs nothing and can save you tens of thousands of pounds in penalties.
Related reading
- 50 Questions From Landlords, Answered (all 50 questions)
- our licensing overview for landlords
- our HMO licensing (3 tenants) guide
Sources
- Private renting: Houses in multiple occupation, GOV.UK
- Selective licensing of private landlords (England and Wales), House of Commons Library
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules referenced are accurate to the best of available information as of July 2026 for England unless stated otherwise, this area of law is changing fast, so always check current government guidance (gov.uk) or consult a solicitor before acting, especially on evictions.
Last Updated on September 21, 2026