This tax relief is designed to encourage people to let out a spare room to a lodger and hence increase the availability of low- cost accommodation. In fact, the relief can also cover short-term lets. If you let rooms in your own home by the night through sites such as Airbnb, the scheme can apply, even if the letting amounts to a bed and breakfast business.
The relief covers gross rental income of up to £7,500 per year from letting furnished residential accommodation in your own home. You must live in the same property as the let rooms, though the relief can apply to rent received when you let the whole house for short periods, perhaps while you are away on holiday. It can’t apply to income you get from holiday lettings where you don’t also occupy part of the same property nor can it apply to income from a buy-to-let not simultaneously occupied by the landlord.
You don’t have to notify HMRC that you are claiming the relief if the gross rents received in the tax year don’t exceed £7,500. If the gross rents exceed that figure you must choose whether to be taxed on the excess above £7,500 or on the actual profits from the letting (the gross rents less any allowable expenses).
