No, not in the sense of a single certificate you apply for before listing a flat on Airbnb. London does not run a licensing scheme for short lets as such. What actually governs a short let is a mix of planning rules, which control whether the use is permitted at all, and licensing schemes that exist for other reasons and can catch a short let depending on how it is run. Confusing the two is where most of the trouble starts.
Planning and licensing are not the same system
Planning controls what a property is allowed to be used for. Licensing controls the standard and management of a property that is already being used lawfully. They are run by different teams, sometimes in different parts of the same council, and passing one tells you nothing about the other.
The clearest example on this site is the 90-night rule. Letting a whole London property short-term beyond 90 nights a calendar year is a change of use in planning terms, and needs planning permission if you want to do it. That is not a licence. Nobody issues you anything for staying within 90 nights, because within the limit no change of use has happened and there is nothing to apply for. Going over it is what creates the planning problem, not the letting itself.
Why there is no blanket short-let licence in London
Scotland introduced a national licensing scheme requiring hosts to hold a short-term let licence from their local authority. England has looked at similar ideas, including a national registration scheme for short-term lets, but nothing of that kind is in force in London at the time of writing. Do not take that as settled. This is exactly the sort of rule that gets introduced with a lead-in period and then applies to everyone overnight, so check GOV.UK or your local council's website for the current position before you list, rather than relying on this paragraph in a year's time.
Where HMO licensing can catch a short let
A House in Multiple Occupation licence exists for a different reason: it regulates properties where unrelated people share facilities like a kitchen or bathroom, because that arrangement carries its own fire and safety risks. It is not aimed at short lets, but the definition does not exclude them either.
A property being run as separate lettable rooms, with different unrelated guests staying at the same time and sharing common areas, can meet the test for an HMO regardless of how short each individual stay is. Whether mandatory licensing applies depends on the number of occupants, the number of households, and the property's layout, and councils apply nationally set thresholds to work that out. The exact thresholds are set nationally and are worth confirming directly with the council's HMO or private housing team rather than assumed, because a property that looks like a straightforward short let on paper can still meet the definition once you look at how it is actually occupied.
This mostly affects houses and flats let by the room, or shared houses run as short-stay accommodation for multiple separate bookings at once. A single self-contained flat let as a whole to one booking at a time is very unlikely to be caught, whatever the length of stay.
Selective licensing and additional licensing schemes
Separately from HMO rules, some London boroughs run their own selective licensing or additional licensing schemes, requiring landlords of privately rented property in designated streets or wards to hold a licence regardless of the type of tenancy. These schemes exist to raise standards in the private rented sector generally, and were not written with short lets specifically in mind.
Whether a short let falls inside a given scheme depends entirely on how that scheme defines the property it covers, and this varies by borough and by scheme. Some are written broadly enough to catch any letting of the property for reward. Others are clearly aimed at standard tenancies and would not naturally be read to include nightly guests. This is genuinely inconsistent across London, and the only reliable answer is to check the specific scheme's wording, or ask the borough directly, for the postcode in question.
What to actually do
Treat this as three separate questions, because they have three separate answers and one council department checking one of them will not necessarily flag the others.
Ask the planning department whether the property's intended pattern of letting sits inside or outside the 90-night limit, and if it will go over, what a change of use application would involve. Ask the private housing or HMO team whether the way you intend to run the property, particularly if it involves separate rooms let to different guests at once, meets the definition of an HMO locally. Ask whether the borough runs a selective or additional licensing scheme covering the property's street, and if so, whether short lets are within its scope.
None of this replaces checking the lease, the mortgage and the insurance, all of which have their own view on short-letting entirely separate from council licensing. A property can be entirely clear on planning and licensing and still be in breach of its lease, which is a private matter between you and the freeholder rather than anything a council enforces.
If you want a straight answer on what a specific London property is actually subject to before you list it, send us the postcode and we will tell you what to check and who to ask.
This is general information about how planning and licensing rules typically interact in London, not legal advice. Schemes and thresholds are set and changed by individual boroughs and by national government. Confirm the current position with the local council's planning and private housing teams, and with a solicitor where a lease or HMO question is involved, before listing a property short-term.