The Landlord Portal on GOV.UK: How to Register on the PRS Database and Renew Your Entry

If you have gone looking for the landlord portal on GOV.UK and come away empty-handed, you are not doing anything wrong. As of 11 August 2026 there is no live sign-in page where a private landlord in England can register a property on the new Private Rented Sector (PRS) Database. The service is coming, the duty behind it is already written into statute, and the sensible move today is to get your data pack ready rather than refresh a URL that does not exist yet.

TL;DR: the short version

Registration on the PRS Database — the thing most landlords mean when they search for the "landlord portal" — has not opened yet. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) implementation roadmap says rollout begins from late 2026 and will be phased by region, with a mandatory annual fee confirmed closer to launch. When your area goes live you will need a landlord entry for yourself and a dwelling entry for every property you let, and you will not be able to lawfully market, advertise or let a home without both being active. Letting or advertising an unregistered property carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 or prosecution for serious or repeat breaches. Renewal matters more than landlords expect: the Renters' Rights Act 2025 expressly allows a higher fee to reactivate an entry that has gone inactive than you would have paid to keep it active.

Is the landlord portal on GOV.UK live yet?

No. The database provisions in Part 2, Chapter 3 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 were switched on at Royal Assent only for the limited purpose of making regulations. MHCLG's own investigatory powers guidance, updated in 2026, still describes the database provisions — including the section 82(3) duty to hold active entries — as "not yet in force".

What is in force is Phase 1 of the Act, from 1 May 2026: periodic tenancies, the new section 8 grounds, the revised section 13 rent increase route and the discrimination and bidding bans. The database and the PRS Landlord Ombudsman sit in Phase 2. According to the MHCLG implementation roadmap published in November 2025, database rollout starts from late 2026, public access and data sharing follow the launch of landlord registration, and mandatory Ombudsman membership is expected in 2028. Our Renters' Rights Act timeline tracks how those phases stack up.

Which "landlord portal" are you actually looking for?

The phrase covers at least four different things, and landlords lose hours on the wrong one. This table is the quickest way to work out which door you need.

On the last row: the government's PRS Database pilot information sheet for landlords states that GOV.UK One Login is how councils and landlords will access the service, and asks participants to create one if they do not already have it. If you have never set up a One Login, doing that now removes a step later. On Wales, the Office for National Statistics notes that private landlords in Wales are required to register with Rent Smart Wales — a separate scheme, not the England database.

What will you have to provide when registration opens?

The MHCLG roadmap sets out the minimum expected content for each property, subject to Parliament approving the regulations: the landlord's contact details, including details for all joint landlords; property details such as full address, house or flat, number of bedrooms, number of households or residents, and whether it is occupied and furnished; and safety information — gas, electrical and Energy Performance Certificates.

That last item is the sting for anyone running on a shoebox of paperwork. A database entry is a standing declaration, so a CP12 that expired in March or an EICR you cannot lay hands on becomes visible rather than merely inconvenient. If your certificates are scattered, storing tenancy documents securely in one place is the cheapest preparation you can do this month.

How will registration on the landlord portal work, step by step?

The exact screens will be fixed by regulations under section 77 of the Act, so treat this as the shape of the journey rather than a script. The sequence below follows the statute and the published plans.

1. Create or confirm your GOV.UK One Login. Pilot material points to One Login as the way in for both landlords and councils. Use an email address you will still control in five years, not an old agent's.
2. Make your landlord entry. One entry per landlord. Joint landlords are expected to be captured individually, so a husband-and-wife or sibling partnership should assume two sets of details, not one.
3. Make a dwelling entry for each property. Address, type, bedrooms, occupancy, furnished status, plus the gas, electrical and EPC information.
4. Pay the fee. Section 81 requires the regulations either to specify the amount or to let the database operator set it by reference to the costs of running and enforcing the database. The roadmap describes it as an annual fee, confirmed closer to launch.
5. Collect your unique identifiers and put them in your adverts. Section 84 provides for unique identifiers, and section 82(2) requires any written advertisement for a residential tenancy to include them. Update your listing templates, your window card and whatever you send to the portals.
6. Keep the entry current. Section 78 allows regulations requiring active entries to be kept up to date — and expressly says those update requirements cannot carry a fee. Correcting your details is free; letting the entry lapse is not.

One detail worth knowing in advance: section 77 allows an entry to be made before every requirement has been met, provided the outstanding items are supplied within a period that cannot exceed 28 days from the day the entry is made. In practice that means you may be able to register while chasing a missing certificate — but the clock is short and hard-edged.

What does "renewing" your registration actually mean?

There is no renewal button in the statute. Instead the Act works on active and inactive entries. Under section 77(4), an entry is active from the moment it is made until it becomes inactive under regulations made under section 79 — and section 79 allows those regulations to make an entry go inactive after a specified period if requirements (including fee payment) are not met.

Then comes the part landlords should read twice. Section 81(5) permits the fee charged to make a lapsed entry active again to be higher than the fee you would have paid had it never lapsed. In plain terms: the law anticipates a reactivation premium. Missing the renewal is not a neutral admin slip you can fix at the same price a week later.

Under section 81(5), reactivating a lapsed entry can legally cost more than keeping it active ever would have. Diarise the renewal like a gas safety date.

The duty itself is short and worth quoting, because it is the hook every penalty hangs from.

What happens if your entry lapses or you never register?

MHCLG's guide to the Renters' Rights Act states that a landlord who lets or advertises a property without it first being registered can be issued a civil penalty of up to £7,000 by the local council, and that repeat breaches or serious offences such as providing fraudulent information can attract a penalty of up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution. The same guide confirms landlords will need to be registered in order to use certain possession grounds, with section 90 restricting possession where entries are not in place; the government has said landlords will always be able to rectify non-compliance rather than be locked out indefinitely.

A worked example

Take a landlord with four terraces in Preston, all let, one becoming vacant in January. When the North West phase opens she creates one landlord entry and four dwelling entries. Three properties have CP12s renewed in February and EICRs from 2023; the fourth has an EPC that expired last year. She registers the first three cleanly and uses the section 77 window on the fourth while the EPC assessor visits — comfortably inside 28 days. In January she checks the dwelling entry for the vacant house is active, pulls the unique identifiers into the advert, and lets it. Contrast the same landlord who lets the entry drift inactive over Christmas, advertises in January anyway, and finds herself facing a reactivation fee, a possible £7,000 penalty and a possession route that is blocked until the entry is fixed. The difference is one diary entry.

For context on scale, MHCLG's guide puts the sector at 11 million private renters and 2.3 million landlords in England — the database is being built to cover all of them, which is precisely why the rollout is regional rather than a single national switch.

What should you do before your region opens?

Five things, none of which require the portal to exist:

1. Build the data pack per property: address, type, bedrooms, households, occupancy, furnished status.
2. Get current certificates in one folder: CP12, EICR, EPC. Our gas safety certificate guide covers the 12-month cycle if yours have drifted.
3. Sort joint ownership details now — full contact details for every joint landlord, not just the one who does the admin.
4. Create a GOV.UK One Login if you do not have one.
5. Update your advert template so there is a slot for the unique identifiers.

And budget for the fee separately from your licensing costs. Registration is a national duty; it does not replace or refund a council scheme, as we explain in selective licensing fees: what landlords actually pay. If you want the broader picture of the registration duty rather than the mechanics, our property portal registration guide covers who is caught and why.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I register on the landlord portal on GOV.UK today?

No. As at 11 August 2026 there is no live PRS Database registration service for landlords in England. MHCLG's implementation roadmap says rollout begins from late 2026 and will be phased by region, so your area may go live later than others.

Do I need to register properties that are already let, or only new tenancies?

The duty in section 82(3) of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 applies to a person who is a residential landlord in relation to a dwelling, not just to new lettings. Landlords should expect to register existing tenancies as well as properties they are about to market, once the regulations commence.

How much will PRS Database registration cost?

The amount has not been set. Section 81 of the Act requires the regulations either to specify the fee or to let the database operator calculate it from the costs of running and enforcing the database, and MHCLG has described it as an annual fee to be confirmed closer to launch.

What happens if I forget to renew and my entry goes inactive?

An inactive entry means you are in breach of the duty to hold active landlord and dwelling entries, which exposes you to a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for letting or advertising, and can restrict possession under section 90. Section 81(5) also allows a higher fee to reactivate a lapsed entry than to keep it active.

Does registering on the database replace my selective licence or HMO licence?

No. The PRS Database is a national registration duty under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and sits alongside local authority licensing. If your property is in a selective licensing area or needs an HMO licence, those obligations and fees continue separately.