Letting your caravan out

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At a glance

• Check the agreement before you buy: you can only let if it allows it, and a park can’t later force you to let.
• Letting makes you a landlord for gas safety — a yearly gas safety check by a Gas Safe engineer becomes a legal requirement.
• The furnished holiday lettings tax regime ended in April 2025; letting income is taxed under the normal property rules.
• NCC member parks mustn’t sell letting as an investment or make misleading claims about income.

Is letting allowed?

It depends entirely on your licence agreement, and many parks don’t allow private sub-letting — so check before you buy. The NCC’s guidance says the park must tell you before the sale whether letting is allowed (through the park’s own scheme and/or privately) and give you separate written terms. It mustn’t present letting as an investment or make misleading claims about income. And a park can’t bring in a requirement to let your caravan if that wasn’t in your original agreement.

Rules you are likely to meet:

• lets must be to genuine holidaymakers — not to people working locally or between homes;
• the park may ask for details of private lets and cap the length of each one (the NCC gives 28 days as an example);
• you are responsible for how your guests use the caravan.

The NCC says letting your own holiday caravan, where it’s allowed, isn’t regarded as running a business — but owning several caravans purely to let them would be a commercial operation.

Park letting schemes

Many operators run their own letting schemes. Two examples from operators’ own pages (2026):

• Park Holidays UK offers letting for caravans less than 5 years old on participating parks — either a “guaranteed letting scheme” (a fixed sum paid in advance, for a minimum of 6 weeks’ letting) or flexible sub-letting with no guarantee. Its quoted top-end earnings are examples for particular parks.
• Parkdean Resorts pays letting earnings once a year, in November, after taking off the next year’s pitch fee.

Tax on letting income

• The furnished holiday lettings (FHL) tax regime was abolished from April 2025 (6 April 2025 for income tax). Holiday letting income is now taxed under the normal rules for property income.
• The property allowance makes the first £1,000 of property income each year tax-free, and each joint owner gets their own allowance. You can use it or deduct your actual expenses — not both.
• You need to send a Self Assessment tax return if your rental income is more than £10,000 before expenses, or more than £2,500 after them. Contact HMRC if it is between £1,000 and £2,500.
• Allowable expenses include agent fees, insurance, maintenance and repairs, utilities and cleaning. Improvements (capital spending) can’t be deducted from income.

The NCC’s advice is that rental income is likely to be taxable, and to take expert advice. If your letting business is VAT-registered, holiday lettings on parks held out for holiday use are standard-rated.

Gas safety: you become a landlord

Once you let the caravan you are a landlord for gas safety. The Health and Safety Executive includes caravans in rented holiday accommodation (let on a licence or lease of under 7 years). You must:

• have a gas safety check every year on every appliance and flue, carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer;
• for lets of under 28 days, display a copy of the gas safety record prominently in the caravan;
• keep the records for at least 2 years.

See safety for carbon monoxide alarms and electrical checks.

Fire safety

In England, paying-guest accommodation — and the government’s guidance names holiday caravans — comes under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The “responsible person”, usually the owner or the letting agent, must carry out a written fire risk assessment. The government’s guidance (updated 20 January 2025) suggests a simpler five-step checklist for caravans, and covers smoke alarms in escape routes, living areas and bedrooms, heat alarms in kitchens, and CO alarms where there are gas or solid-fuel appliances.

The Fire Safety Order also applies in Wales, but the guidance we used is England-only, and we haven’t checked the equivalent guidance for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Insurance

Make sure your policy allows letting. GOV.UK’s guidance on self-catering holiday lets recommends dedicated holiday-let insurance that includes public liability cover.

What we couldn’t confirm

• GOV.UK says a national registration scheme for short-term lets in England is expected to start in March 2027. We couldn’t confirm whether it will cover privately owned caravans on licensed holiday parks.
• Scotland’s short-term let licensing has exclusions, but we couldn’t confirm whether they cover caravans let on licensed caravan sites.
• Visitor levies in Wales and Scotland — we didn’t check how they apply to privately owned caravans.

Ask your park, and check the latest guidance from GOV.UK, the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government.

Questions people ask

Can I rent out my static caravan?

Only if your agreement allows it — many parks don’t allow private letting, so check before you buy. Lets must be to genuine holidaymakers. Once you let, you’re a landlord for gas safety (a yearly gas safety check is a legal requirement), the income is likely to be taxable, and you’ll need insurance that allows letting.

Sources

Checked 6 October 2026. We wrote this guide from these sources, in our own words:

1. UK Parks (HARPA): Buying a holiday caravan FAQs (ukparks.com)
2. NCC: Q&As before buying a holiday caravan or lodge (2025) (thencc.org.uk)
3. NCC Best Practice Guidance for Holiday Parks (February 2025) (thencc.org.uk)
4. NCC: Making the best use of your holiday caravan (2025) (thencc.org.uk)
5. NCC IDRS complaints guidance (October 2024) (thencc.org.uk)
6. Park Holidays UK: letting (parkholidays.com)
7. Parkdean Resorts: pitch fee guide (parkdeanresorts.co.uk)
8. GOV.UK: Furnished holiday lettings tax regime abolition (gov.uk)
9. GOV.UK: Renting out a property — paying tax (gov.uk)
10. GOV.UK: Tax-free allowances on property and trading income (gov.uk)
11. GOV.UK: Letting out a self-catering holiday home in England (gov.uk)
12. HSE: Gas safety — who is a landlord (hse.gov.uk)
13. HSE: Gas safety checks — who (hse.gov.uk)
14. HSE: Gas safety records (hse.gov.uk)
15. GOV.UK: Making your small paying guest accommodation safe from fire (gov.uk)
16. HMRC VAT Notice 701/20: caravans and houseboats (gov.uk)
17. Short-Term Lets Licensing Order (Scotland) 2022, Schedule 1 (legislation.gov.uk)

Travel Trailers is an independent guide. It is not owned by, or connected to, any holiday park operator, caravan manufacturer, dealer or trade body. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.