ATED: the annual charge on company-owned UK holiday lets

Who ATED catches

The threshold has fallen over time: more than £2 million for returns from 2013 to 2014 onwards, more than £1 million from 2015 to 2016, and more than £500,000 from 2016 to 2017 onwards. Companies that bought below the old thresholds and never revisited the question are precisely the ones now in scope.

What counts as a dwelling

A property is a dwelling if all or part of it is used, or could be used, as a residence — a house or a flat — and that includes any gardens, grounds and buildings within them. The phrase “could be used” does a lot of work: a cottage standing empty out of season is still a dwelling.

Several categories are not dwellings, and the list is worth reading because holiday-let owners sometimes hope to land on it: hotels, guest houses, boarding school accommodation, hospitals, student halls of residence, military accommodation, care homes and prisons. A self-catering cottage is none of these.

The charge is a band, not a percentage

The amount is worked out on a banding system based on value. For 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 the annual charges are £4,600 for more than £500,000 up to £1 million, £9,450 up to £2 million, £32,200 up to £5 million, £75,450 up to £10 million, £151,450 up to £20 million, and £303,450 above £20 million.

The year before, from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, the same bands were £4,450, £9,150, £31,050, £72,700, £145,950 and £292,350. The bands are uprated, so a figure remembered from a previous year will be wrong.

The relief that holiday lets live or die by

Most genuinely commercial lets escape the charge through relief. The relevant one is for property that is let to a third party on a commercial basis and is not, at any time, occupied — or available for occupation — by anyone connected with the owner.

Read that twice. It is not “mostly let commercially”. It is not “the family only came for a week in February”. Occupation at any time by a connected person, or even availability for their occupation, is what the condition addresses. The owner's fortnight in the cottage is the single most common way a company-owned holiday let loses its ATED relief, and the charge that follows is an annual one.

Our advice

If a company holds the property, treat ATED as an annual diary entry alongside the accounts, not as a one-off question answered at purchase. Value the dwelling on the correct date, decide honestly whether any connected person will use it, and file the relief return even when nothing is payable. Owners who want the occasional family stay should price the ATED band into that decision before booking it, not after. We study every request and tell you honestly whether and how we can help.