How Much Will the PRS Database Cost Landlords? What Is Confirmed So Far

How Much Will the PRS Database Cost Landlords? What Is Confirmed So Far

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Landlords should seek independent advice for their specific circumstances. It applies to England only.

The short answer

No official figure has been published for what the PRS Database will cost a landlord. The government has confirmed that there will be a fee, that it will be an annual charge rather than a one-off payment, and that it will apply per property. In its Guide to the Renters' Rights Act, the government said it will work to ensure that the fee is proportionate and good value, but it has not yet set the amount. That will be confirmed in secondary legislation and guidance closer to launch.

So the honest position is that the fee exists in principle but not yet in pounds. For a landlord trying to budget, two things are useful: understanding the wider cost picture the database sits within, and getting the underlying records in order so that registration itself is quick and penalty-free. The second of those is where LLCR helps directly.

What the government has said about the fee

The database is created by Part 2 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and the fee is intended to fund its launch and its ongoing operation. Every private landlord letting on an assured or regulated tenancy will need to register themselves and each property, obtaining a Landlord Registration Number and a Property Registration Number, and pay the annual fee for each property. Registration is compulsory regardless of portfolio size, so a landlord with one property is caught in the same way as one with fifty.

Beyond annual, per property, and proportionate and good value, no rate has been confirmed. One think tank, the New Economics Foundation, has estimated a figure of around £46 per property in its own modelling, but that is an external estimate offered to inform the debate, not a government figure, and it should be treated as such. Until the regulations are laid, any specific number is speculation. LLCR keeps each property as a separate record with its own documents and dates, which means that when a per-property fee does arrive, a landlord can see exactly how many properties it applies to and plan accordingly.

The fee is only one layer of cost

It helps to see the database fee in context, because it is rarely the only new charge. The Renters' Rights Act also introduces a mandatory PRS Landlord Ombudsman, which landlords will be required to join, and that scheme is expected to carry its own fee. On top of that, many landlords already pay for selective or additional licensing under local council schemes, which the database does not replace. A landlord in a licensed area could therefore face a database fee, an Ombudsman fee, and a licence fee at the same time.

There is also the indirect cost of being ready to register at all. The database will ask for current safety certificates and property information, so a landlord with an expired EICR or a missing gas record faces the cost of putting that right before they can register cleanly. This is the quieter side of the cost question, and it is the side a compliance system reduces. LLCR tracks every certificate and its renewal date, so a landlord is not hit with a rush of remedial work and last-minute assessor fees in the same window as the registration deadline.

The cost of not registering is far higher

Whatever the fee turns out to be, it will be small next to the cost of failing to register. Under the civil penalties framework for the Renters' Rights Act, a local authority can impose a penalty of up to £7,000 for an initial or less serious breach, such as letting or advertising a property without an active registration, and up to £40,000, or criminal prosecution, for giving false information or for continuing or repeat breaches.

The financial penalty is not even the worst of it. Once the requirement applies, an unregistered landlord is expected to be unable to obtain a possession order under most Section 8 grounds, and cannot lawfully have the property advertised by an agent or portal. In other words, non-registration can freeze a landlord out of both possession and re-letting. LLCR is built to keep landlords ahead of exactly these deadlines, flagging what is due before it becomes a breach, so the fee stays a routine cost rather than the trigger for a penalty.

Will the fee be tax deductible?

Many landlords will want to know whether the fee can be set against rental income. The general expectation, reflected in early commentary, is that an annual registration fee incurred wholly for the letting business is likely to be an allowable revenue expense, in the same way as a professional subscription or a licensing fee. That said, the tax treatment of any new charge should be confirmed with an accountant, and this article is not tax advice. Keeping a clean record of what was paid, and when, for each property is what makes claiming any allowable expense straightforward, and it is something LLCR's per-property record is designed to support.

What registration will actually involve

It is worth knowing what a landlord is paying for, because registration is not a single form filled in once. When the service opens, a landlord will create an account, obtain a Landlord Registration Number for themselves and a Property Registration Number for each property, and provide the required information, expected to include contact details, property information, and core safety records. From then on there is a continuing duty to keep each entry accurate and up to date, and the annual fee keeps the registration active.

That ongoing obligation is the part most likely to catch landlords out, because an entry that falls out of date can itself be a breach. A certificate that expires, a change of managing agent, or a new tenancy can all mean an entry needs updating. LLCR is designed to make that upkeep effortless: because it already tracks every certificate and its renewal date per property, the information needed to keep a database entry current is always to hand, and expiry alerts mean a lapsed certificate is caught before it makes an entry inaccurate.

How to budget and prepare now

Because nothing can be registered until the service opens for a given area, the practical work now is preparation rather than payment. Sensible steps are to assume an annual per-property fee is coming, to hold a little budget for it alongside the Ombudsman and any licensing costs, and to make sure each property's compliance is current so that registration is a short task rather than a scramble.

This is the preparation LLCR is designed to carry. It keeps every certificate, renewal date, and property detail in one organised place, scores each property against its obligations, and uses the Ava AI assistant to answer questions about what the new rules require. When the fee and the launch date are confirmed, a landlord using LLCR will already know how many properties are affected and will have the information each registration needs ready to hand.

This page reflects the position as of July 2026 and will be updated as the government confirms the fee and the launch details through secondary legislation.

LLCR keeps every certificate, renewal date, and property detail a landlord in England will need for PRS Database registration in one organised place, so registration is quick and penalty-free when it opens.