The tax net is closing in on property owners who use short-let platforms to earn rental income from their portfolios but not pay tax on it, Airbnb has warned.

The £70-billion company has issued a statement urging its hosts to get tax advice highlighting that it and other classified platforms will, from January 2025, be sharing its users’ income details with HMRC as required under section 349 of the Finance (No.2) Act 2023 on an annual basis.

As LandlordZONE reported last year, Airbnb has already been sharing some details of its hosts’ earnings going as far back as the 2017-18 financial year.

In July last year it said this information would be used to help HMRC identify those making money from letting their properties without declaring it, who would then face criminal prosecution and tough penalties of up to 30% of the tax owed.

Airbnb’s General Manager for Northern Europe, Amanda Cupples (pictured), says her company has shared host earnings information in the past to ‘support the correct payment of tax’, and ‘we will continue to do so in line with these new rules’.

These new rules, which came into force on 1 January 2024, formalise the way information will be shared by platforms like Airbnb on an annual basis with HMRC, beginning in January 2025.

Its own figures suggest that this information applies largely to professional landlords who use Airbnb to rent out their properties to short-stay tenants, a trend that has been on the increase as extra taxes and red tape have engulfed the traditional private rental market.

Airbnb says the typical host on Airbnb in the UK earns approximately £6,200 a year, well under the £7,500 limit under the Government’s Rent-a-Room allowance.

Main pic credit: Shutterstock/Chonlachai