The Landlord Database Has a Date and a Price: What £65 a Property Does to Your Yield

Every landlord publication has now told you the PRS Database is real, has a date, and has a fee. What nobody has done is put that fee where it belongs: as a line in your net yield, next to your service charge and your agent fee.

That's the gap this article fills. The what-is-it coverage is done. This is the what-does-it-cost version.

What's Confirmed, and What Isn't Yet

The government announced on 9 September 2026 that the "Register your rental property" service, the Private Rented Sector Database created under the Renters' Rights Act, opens 15 December 2026. It starts in the West Midlands and rolls out region by region.

That fee is £65 per property, per year, renewed annually, with pro-rated discounts for anyone who registers early in the rollout. It comes from the government's registration guidance, not from the press release itself or from the underlying regulations. Those regulations give the database operator the power to set a fee based on running costs, so £65 is the answer government has published, not a number written into law. Worth knowing if you're asked where it comes from.

One more caveat worth sitting with: the detailed timetable and fee sit in a draft statutory instrument, still awaiting approval by both Houses of Parliament. The dates and figures in the draft match the campaign material exactly, so there's no reason to expect them to move, but "confirmed" here means "the government's published timetable", not "law already in force". If you're writing this into a client note, say it that way.

The Regional Rollout

Registration opens region by region, not all at once. Each region gets a three-month window to register once its date lands, and you can register early from 15 December regardless of where your property sits.