Yes — the UK's furnished holiday lettings (FHL) tax regime was abolished from 6 April 2025 for income tax and capital gains tax, and from 1 April 2025 for corporation tax. Income from a holiday let is now taxed like any other property income: mortgage interest is restricted to a 20% basic-rate credit, capital allowances on furniture are gone, the profits no longer count towards pension contributions, and the capital gains reliefs that let a holiday let be sold at 10% have been withdrawn.
The detail
What the regime used to give you was substantial. A property that was available to let for 210 days and actually let for 105 could deduct the whole of its mortgage interest against rental profit, claim capital allowances on furniture, fixtures and equipment, treat profits as relevant earnings for pension purposes, and on sale qualify for business asset disposal relief, rollover relief and gift hold-over relief. None of that survives. From April 2025 the same property sits inside the owner's ordinary UK property business, with finance costs relieved only through the 20% tax credit that ordinary landlords have lived with since 2020, and with replacement-of-domestic-items relief in place of capital allowances.
The cash cost lands hardest on geared higher-rate taxpayers. Take a £300,000 holiday let with a £180,000 mortgage at 5.5%, so £9,900 of interest a year. Under the old rules a 40% taxpayer saved £3,960 in tax on that interest; under the new rules the credit is worth £1,980. That is £1,980 a year, or about 0.7 points of net yield, before counting the loss of capital allowances on a £15,000 furniture pack or the higher rate on eventual sale. Across the markets we track the change is worth between roughly 0.7 and 2 points of net yield depending on gearing and tax band.
Two transitional points matter if you already own one. FHL losses that were carried forward can be set against profits of the wider property business rather than being lost. And business asset disposal relief can still apply to a sale after April 2025 where the FHL business genuinely ceased before 6 April 2025 and the disposal happens within three years of cessation — with anti-forestalling rules that ignore unconditional contracts signed after 6 March 2024 purely to lock in the old treatment.
The numbers that matter
Where this stops holding
This is a UK income and capital gains tax change only; it says nothing about whether a property can be short-let at all, which is a planning and licensing question decided locally. The worked example uses a 40% marginal rate and a 60% loan-to-value mortgage — your numbers move with both, and a limited-company owner never had the FHL treatment to lose in the first place. Tax rates and thresholds are those in force for 2026-27; check the current year before relying on them.
Sources
- GOV.UK — Abolition of the furnished holiday lettings tax regime (policy paper)
- HMRC Property Income Manual PIM4185 — repeal of the FHL rules: capital gains reliefs
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