What are the new rules for landlords in 2026?

2026 is turning out to be the most significant year for private landlords since the Housing Act 1988 came into force on 15 January 1989, heralding the abolition of Rent Act regulated tenancies. Not least because part of the Housing Act changes were unpicked, when the new tenancy reforms in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026.

But it’s not just the Renters’ Rights Act in 2026. Making Tax Digital for unincorporated landlords started rolling out from April, new metrics for measuring the energy efficiency of residential properties will be confirmed later in 2026, the long-awaited draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill has now been published, and (hopefully) there will finally be progress on the much needed regulation of letting agents.

This is a guide to five key changes in 2026, giving a practical overview of what’s coming and what landlords in the private rented sector in England need to do.

Last updated: 8 June 2026

1. Implementation of Renters’ Rights Act tenancy reforms on 1 May 2026 (England)

It is not an exaggeration to say that the introduction of the tenancy reforms in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 on 1 May 2026 is profoundly impacting the private rented sector.

Here is an overview of the implementation of the new rules for 2026 in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025:

What happened for landlords on 1 May 2026?

1 May 2026 is the date when all the tenancy reforms in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force for existing and new tenancies alike, at the same time. Here’s a quick overview of what happened on May Day:

• All assured shorthold tenancies turned into assured periodic tenancies (APTs). (See Renters’ Rights Act Guide: The 12 key provisions)
• All existing fixed term ASTs converted into rolling, periodic tenancies without an end date on 1 May.
• All new APTs are rolling, periodic, without a fixed term.
• Tenants can serve a notice to quit with 2 months’ notice at any time, to expire at the end of a rental period.
• Landlords can only increase rent using the s13 process. (See The rules about rent in the Renters’ Rights Act).
• There are new rules on advertising properties for let, a ban on rental bidding, a ban on rental discrimination, and an implied right for tenants to have pets.
• Landlords can no longer use section 21 to evict tenants, and need a valid ground under section 8 instead. (See Renters’ Rights Act: How the new Section 8 Grounds for Possession will work)
• Breaches of these rules on or after 1 May 2026 could lead to the local authority imposing a civil penalty of up to £7,000, and even up to £40k if it’s an offence. (See RRA Civil Penalties Explained).

All of that happened automatically just after midnight when 30 April became 1 May.

For practical guidance on how this impacts landlords at every stage of the tenancy, see my bestselling book, The Good Landlord Handbook.*

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act Guide: The 12 key provisions

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act implementation guide

What landlords needed to do for existing tenancies by 31 May 2026

For tenancies already in place on 1 May 2026, landlords had a few formalities to comply with, and needed to serve certain prescribed information to tenants on or before 31 May 2026:

Serve Information Sheet for existing tenancies on 1 May 2026

All landlords with ASTs needed to issue an official Information Sheet by 31 May to tenants with tenancies entered into before 1 May 2026.

This includes those where the tenancy had started and those where the parties had entered into the agreement, but the tenants weren’t due to move in until later. 

The Information Sheet is available here: The Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026.

If landlords didn’t provide the information sheet to the tenants, they can receive a civil penalty of up to £7,000, with the starting point for this penalty in the Statutory Guidance of £4,000.

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act: Tenant Information Sheet explained

Landlords with oral tenancies on 1 May 2026

If there was no written tenancy agreement with a tenant on 1 May 2026, for instance if the landlord let someone move in, agreed rent on a handshake and never got around to doing a contract, the landlord was required to issue a written statement of terms to the tenants by 31 May. 

It’s not the same as issuing a new tenancy agreement, but it’s confirming the terms.

Landlords can receive a civil penalty of up to £7,000 from the local authority if they don’t do this.

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights: The Written Statement of Terms

HMO landlords with full time students – transitional provisions

Signed up tenants who haven’t moved in

For HMO landlords who had already signed an AST for the 2026-27 academic year, and they wish to be able to use the new Ground 4A to ask the tenants to leave any time between 1 June and 30 September, they needed to have issued a prior notice written statement to advise the prospective tenants of this by 31 May, on top of the Information Sheet.

Again, there’s a civil penalty of up to £7,000 if they serve a Ground 4A notice without having provided this statement. This means if you didn’t serve it by 31 May 2026, you can’t use Ground 4A for that tenancy.

Existing tenants who had moved in

As well as serving the Information Sheet, the landlord had to serve the Ground 4A statement as a first step before 31 May, and will then need to serve the actual section 8 notice using Ground 4A. This needs to be served at least 4 months in advance, although for this year, as part of the transition arrangements, it has been reduced to two months.

Be aware that the tenants can serve a notice to quit, and leave 2 months later. Therefore, even if an old AST says there is a fixed term until, say 30 August, they might end up moving out two months earlier, as the fixed term ended on 1 May under the Renters’ Rights Act.

>> Related Post: The rules for tenants to end a tenancy with a valid notice to quit

>> Related Post: Renters’ Rights Act implementation guide

The Good Landlord Handbook

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2. Start of Making Tax Digital for Landlords rollout on 6 April 2026 (UK-wide)

From 6 April 2026, MTD for Income Tax became mandatory for sole trader landlords if their total gross revenue from rent and self-employment (outside of a limited company) was over £50,000 in the 2024-25 tax year.

What is Making Tax Digital?

Making Tax Digital is the government digitisation programme that will oblige unincorporated landlords whose qualifying income is over the relevant threshold to keep digital records of transactions, and send quarterly updates to HMRC digitally.

This means that instead of using the HMRC website to file self-assessment returns, landlords whose qualifying income exceeds the thresholds will need to submit quarterly digital updates to HMRC within a month of each quarter end date using authorised MTD software.

Income from employment (PAYE) or a pension is not included in the qualifying income threshold. It’s just self-employed income and rental income.

If a landlord owns a property jointly with another, the gross income will be halved (assuming they own the property 50:50). If they own some property through a limited company, this is excluded as well, as it’s corporation tax and not income tax.

Which landlords are in scope for MTD in 2026-27?

Landlords whose individual qualifying income for 2024-25 tax year was more than the threshold of £50,000 will need to have MTD software in place by the 2026-27 tax year so they can make the quarterly update through the software, and later submit the tax return straight from MTD for Income Tax software. The deadline for the first quarterly update is 7 August 2026.

Those in scope should have already received a letter from HMRC about it.

Qualifying income includes gross rental income outside of a limited company and self-employed income outside of a company, but excludes income from PAYE, income from pensions, interest, dividends.

If the gross rental income is, say, £70,000 pa, but the property is owned jointly, unless a landlord has income from self-employment, they will not need to do MTD for the tax year 2026-27, but they will need to do it for 2027-28 when the threshold will be lowered to £30,000.

A relatively small proportion of landlords will be in the first wave on 6 April 2026 as Savills estimated in July 2025 that “less than 5% of private individual landlords report a gross income of over £50,000.”

Which software is recommended for MTD for landlords?

I personally have been on the HMRC pilot for MTD in the 2025-26 tax year. I have been using Hammock (click here for 2 month free trial – affiliate link), and recommend it highly.

I have found that Hammock has been saving me a lot of time and hassle since I set it up. It is connected to the bank account I keep for my rental properties, and when rent comes in, it is allocated to the relevant property. Payments also come through on the feed, and I allocate them to the property and upload the receipt for future reference.

This means no more spreadsheets, as it’s all taken care of.

It’s easy to submit the figures for the quarterly updates, and it will be a lot easier for my accountant to submit my tax return straight from Hammock by 31 January 2027.

How landlords can prepare for MTD in 2026

Here are practical steps for sole trader landlords to prepare for making tax digital if they are in the first waves in 2026 or 2027:

• Speak to your accountant. If you are in the first wave for 2026-27, and you’re not already using MTD software, you need to speak to your accountant as a matter of urgency to find out what MTD-compatible software meets your needs and their needs. As mentioned, I am using Hammock for my own portfolio (click here for a 2 month free trial) as it is specifically designed and customised for landlords. If you only have one or two properties, you might use bridging software, but if you have multiple properties, the full MTD software is more likely to be appropriate.
• Digitise your records. If you’re currently using paper records, transition to digital record-keeping to make MTD easier.
• Letting Agents. If you use letting agents who collect rent and incur expenses on your behalf, ask them how they will support Making Tax Digital, and provide you with digital receipts so that you can report both the income and the expenses separately, and not just the balance.
• Separate bank account. If you don’t already have a separate bank account for your rental business, set one up now and use it exclusively for receiving rent and paying expenses. This will make integrating the bank account with the MTD software a lot easier so you won’t need to exclude personal expenses.

>> Related Post: Making Tax Digital (MTD) for landlords

3. New EPC metrics confirmed by end of 2026 (England and Wales)

In the December 2024 consultation entitled Reforms to the Energy Performance of Buildings regime, the government proposed overhauling the way EPCs are currently assessed, and introducing new EPC metrics “in the second half of 2026“.

The consultation proposed using “multiple metrics on EPCs to provide a more complete representation of building energy performance”, with the following four “headline metrics”:

• Fabric performance: assessing the thermal performance of a building’s envelope and promoting the importance of well-insulated, comfortable, and energy-efficient spaces
• Heating system: providing information on the efficiency and environmental impact of a building’s heating source and encouraging the adoption of cleaner heating technologies (heat pumps)
• Smart readiness: assessing a building’s potential to integrate smart technologies that can optimise energy consumption and the ability of consumers to benefit from cheaper smart tariffs (solar panels)
• Energy cost: helping individuals understand the financial implications of a building’s energy efficiency and make informed decisions about potential improvements

The government also carried out another consultation in February 2025: Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes in England and Wales. This proposed increasing the minimum energy efficiency standard in the private rented sector in England and Wales to EPC C for new tenancies from 2028, and existing tenancies from 2030.

The government confirmed its proposals for the new Home Energy Model in a consultation document published on 21 January 2026, but it won’t become compulsory until 1 October 2029. I explain the new rules in the related post below, and the video.

>> Related Post: The proposed new EPC energy efficiency rules for landlords explained

4. Publication of draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill (England and Wales)

As expected, the government published the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill on 27 January 2026.

This followed the publication of the Commonhold White Paper in March 2025 which set out their “plans for a comprehensive new legal framework for commonhold” and to ban new leasehold flats.

What is commonhold?

Commonhold already exists, as it was introduced by Tony Blair’s government in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. However, it never took off as it was too cumbersome to operate.

Commonhold is similar to “strata” or “condominium” tenures that are used in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and across Europe to enable flats to be owned on a freehold basis.

It’s an alternative way of owning a flat which avoids the shortcomings of leasehold ownership. For a start, there is no lease, and a commonhold association which all the “unit holders” belong to decides how to manage the property. For larger blocks, the unit holders wouldn’t carry out the day-to-day management themselves, but would instead appoint agents to manage it for them.

However, it would be the unit holders (rather than an external freeholder) who would control the appointment and management of those agents.

What other reforms are in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill

As well as “reinvigorating” commonhold, the Bill will end forfeiture, and cap ground rent at £250.

>> Related Post: Commonhold and plans to ban the sale of new leasehold flats

>> Related Post: The latest news on the abolition of ground rent

5. Minimum qualifications for letting agents?

In a year where layer upon layer of complexity will be introduced for landlords, it truly beggars belief there are no minimum qualifications for letting agents, upon whom many landlords rely to comply with their obligations.

The 2025 MHCLG consultation on Home Buying and Selling Reform proposed introducing a “Code of Practice setting out the minimum standards expected of all residential property agents, including estate, letting, and managing agents. We will explore the most effective delivery options for maximising the impact of the Code but expect that National Trading Standards, the redress schemes, professional bodies and the courts would use it to drive up standards”.

This follows the publication of the July 2019 Regulation of Property Agents: working group report, the recommendations of which have not yet been implemented.

Let us hope that 2026 will see the regulation of letting agents, including the requirement to have minimum qualifications.

Final thoughts

2026 is proving to be a year of significant adjustment for landlords. The Renters’ Rights Act alone would have been enough to keep us busy, but with Making Tax Digital, EPC changes and the prospect of agent regulation on top, there’s a lot to get on top of.

The landlords who will come through this well are those who treat it as a reason to tighten up their operations. Get your records in order, understand the new possession grounds, make sure your properties are compliant, and budget for the costs of MTD software if you’re in scope.

For a deeper dive into operating under all these new rules for landlords, including the Renters’ Rights Act, EPCs and Making Tax Digital, there’s my bestselling book, The Good Landlord Handbook.* If you have questions, you can ask me at twice-monthly livestreams in my membership, The Independent Landlord Hub.

*I’m an Amazon Associate, and I earn from qualifying purchases