Money laundering supervision for letting agency businesses
Find out if you’re a letting agency business who needs to register with HMRC under the money laundering regulations.
Who must register
You may have to register with HMRC if your business operates as a letting agency business.
A letting agency business is a company or sole practitioner that does work after receiving instructions from a prospective:
- landlord who wants to find another person to let land to
- tenant who wants to find land to rent
You will need to register if you meet both the following criteria:
- you have individual rents that are 10,000 euros or more
- the rental length is a month or longer
This covers both residential and commercial property lettings.
Letting agency business were included in the money laundering regulations on 10 January 2020.
When you do not need to register
You do not need to register if you’re a lettings agent only carrying out lettings work that is not defined within the regulations, for example, below 10,000 euros rent per month.
What happens if you do not register
You may receive a penalty if you do not register a relevant business. This includes carrying on business as a letting agency business:
- without being registered
- after your registration has been cancelled
The amount of the penalty will depend on each individual case. We will take into consideration:
- whether you told HMRC that you’re not registered or HMRC has discovered it
- your reasons for not registering
- whether you have had any previous warnings or penalties
We may also take other factors into consideration.
When to register
You must register with HMRC before carrying on any activity as an letting agency business and pay the necessary fees.
Find out more about the fees you’ll need to pay for money laundering supervision.
When registering, letting agency businesses will need to select estate agency businesses first, then letting agency business activity as a subsector.
Annual supervision
At the end of each registration period we’ll send you a renewal notice inviting you to update your registration by paying the annual fee on all your listed premises. You should tell HMRC if you do not need your registration to continue.
If you do not pay the correct renewal fee then HMRC may cancel your registration and remove your business from its anti-money laundering register.
Get more information
You can find information about whether you need to join a property redress scheme and the role of the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team, on the National Trading Standards website.
HMRC has published guidance for estate and letting agency businesses on how to comply with their obligations under the money laundering regulations and related legislation.
More information is available about recognising and reducing risk of money laundering if you are an estate agency or letting agency business.
You can also watch recorded webinars to find out more about money laundering supervision.
Updates to this page
Last updated 4 April 2023 + show all updates
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Criteria for acting as a letting agency business that needs to register have been made clearer.
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First published.