UK Coliving Entry Cost Index
Rent data for the UK is everywhere. What it costs to actually open one compliant coliving property — licence, planning permission, and the fees attached to both — is not published anywhere we could find. So we compiled it.
Updated 4 September 2026Next update December 2026Free to cite with attribution
What one compliant property costs to open
Licence fee plus planning application fee, where a planning application is required. This is the regulatory cost of opening — it excludes acquisition, fit-out, fire safety works and professional fees, which vary too widely by building to index honestly.
| City | Mandatory licence | Planning | Regulatory cost to open |
|---|---|---|---|
| LondonLondonCompliance guide → | £977 – £1,570Widest spread in the country — Tower Hamlets £977, Westminster £1,540 plus £68 per letting above five. The borough decides the number. | Article 4 in partsAt least 22 boroughs have directions; some borough-wide, others ward-specific | £977–2,200 |
| BristolSouth WestCompliance guide → | £1,886 new / £1,564 renewalThe most expensive licence we found. Accreditation with the NRLA or West of England Landlord Association typically attracts a discount. | Citywide Article 4Citywide since September 2021 — permission needed in every ward+ £600 application | £2,486 |
| BirminghamWest MidlandsCompliance guide → | ~£755 additional, 5-year termCitywide additional licensing since 5 June 2023 catches three- and four-person HMOs. Designation ceases 4 June 2028. | Citywide Article 4Citywide since 8 June 2020 | £755–1,400 |
| ManchesterNorth WestCompliance guide → | Set per scheme, two stagesA selective licensing fee of £800 was reported at consultation stage. The binding constraint here is Policy H11, not the fee. | Article 4 in partsCovers the student belt — Fallowfield, Withington, Rusholme, Moss Side, Hulme, Ardwick, parts of Longsight | £800–1,600 |
Fees verified 4 September 2026 from council sources. Councils change schedules without much notice — confirm on the authority's own page before applying. Where a range is shown, the spread reflects genuine variation between boroughs or between licence types, not uncertainty on our part.
Mandatory HMO licence: the cheapest fee we found against the most expensive
£1,886 new / £1,564 renewal
£977 – £1,570
Set per scheme, two stages
~£755 additional, 5-year term
Lowest published figure per city, so the comparison is like-for-like at the bottom of each range. Bristol's new-licence fee is roughly double Tower Hamlets' — the same statutory licence, the same five-year term.
Source: Birmingham City Council — Additional licensing designation 2023 (PDF) · Bristol City Council — private renting and licensing · Manchester City Council — private landlords information
The rent it has to be paid out of
Compliance cost only means something against the rent it has to come out of. These are ONS figures — the official statistics, not a portal's asking-price sample.
| Area | Average monthly rent | Annual change | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | £1,388 | +3.3% | June 2026 |
| England | £1,446 | +3.4% | June 2026 |
| LondonMost expensive English region, slowest-growing | £2,302 | +2.2% | June 2026 |
| Scotland | £1,012 | +1.3% | June 2026 |
| West MidlandsBirmingham's region | £971 | not published | June 2026 |
| North WestManchester's region | £961 | +5.4% | June 2026 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | £862 | not published | June 2026 |
| Wales | £843 | +4.9% | June 2026 |
| North EastHighest rent inflation of any English region | £776 | +5.9% | May 2026 |
Two reference months appear in this table because the ONS publishes regional inflation rankings and regional rent levels on slightly different cycles. We have labelled each row rather than blending them into one figure — a blended number would look tidier and be wrong.
What the numbers say
The same licence costs twice as much depending on the city
A mandatory HMO licence in Tower Hamlets is £977. In Bristol a new licence is £1,886. Same statute, same product, same five-year term, roughly double the price. Across a ten-property portfolio that is a £9,000 difference that appears at exactly the point where cash is tightest — before a single room is let.
Where rents are cheapest, licence costs are not
Bristol sits in the South West with a licence at £1,886, while Birmingham's West Midlands rent of £971 comes with a £755 additional licence. The compliance cost does not track the rent level, which means the cities with the thinnest rent per room can carry the heaviest per-property fixed cost. That ratio, not the headline rent, is what decides whether a small portfolio works.
Two of our four cities have removed permitted development entirely
Birmingham since June 2020 and Bristol since September 2021 both operate citywide Article 4 directions, so every house-to-HMO conversion needs planning permission with no exempt wards. Manchester and London apply theirs in parts. An acquisition model that assumes permitted development is wrong in half the cities on this table.
Rent inflation has inverted the map
The North East recorded the highest rent inflation of any English region at 5.9% in the twelve months to May 2026, while London recorded the lowest at 2.0%. London remains by far the most expensive market at £2,302 a month, but it is no longer the one where rents are moving. Growth has shifted to the regions with the lowest absolute rents.
How this was built
Rent figures come from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents and carry the reference month they were published for. Licence fees and planning positions come from the councils themselves, checked in September 2026, and each city's detail page links to the source.
The regulatory cost to open is our own calculation: mandatory licence fee plus the planning application fee where an Article 4 direction makes an application unavoidable. It deliberately excludes acquisition, fit-out, fire safety works and professional fees — those are real costs and often larger, but they vary so much by building that indexing them would produce a number that looks precise and means nothing.
Four cities is a small index and we would rather say so than pad it. These are the four UK markets where we have verified both the fee schedule and the planning position from source. It grows as we verify more, and the update date at the top tells you when it last moved.
Sources
- ONS — Private rent and house prices, UK: June 2026
- ONS — Price Index of Private Rents, UK (latest release)
- Birmingham City Council — Additional licensing designation 2023 (PDF)
- Birmingham City Council — City-wide Article 4 Direction relating to HMOs
- Bristol City Council — private renting and licensing
- Manchester City Council — private landlords information
- GOV.UK — House in multiple occupation licence
- Housing Act 2004, Parts 2 and 3
Citing this index
Free to use with attribution. Suggested citation:
StartColiving, “UK Coliving Entry Cost Index”, updated 4 September 2026. https://startcoliving.com/data/uk-cost-index/
If you think a figure is wrong, tell us which one and what it should be — corrections go in the log on our methodology page.
UK market dossier — the national picture
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Why we publish this
We built this index because we needed it — you cannot advise an operator on where to open without knowing what opening actually costs there.
StartColiving is a marketing and advisory team working only in coliving — 18+ brands over 8+ years, plus a marketplace of our own. The research on this site is free and stays free; it is how we show our working rather than a lead magnet with a form in front of it.