FullWorkings UK tax and finance calculators

Rent a Room

2026-27

The letting

Rent receivedFor the tax year, including anything charged for bills or meals. £
ExpensesThe share that relates to the letting — insurance, repairs, utilities. Not improvements. £
Do you share the incomeWith a partner or joint owner. It halves the threshold.
Your other incomeSalary or pension. It decides the rate the rent is taxed at. £
Where you liveScotland sets its own Income Tax rates.

What it costs

Tax on the rent £0.00 a year
Better method—
Your threshold£0.00
Left from the rent£0.00

The two methods, side by side

Rent a Room — taxable£0.00
Rent a Room — tax£0.00
Claiming expenses — taxable£0.00
Claiming expenses — tax£0.00
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How this is worked out

The Rent a Room Scheme lets you take a threshold of rent tax-free from a lodger in your own home. ⚠ But it is a choice, not an allowance — and it is not always the better one.

⚠ Under the scheme you get no expenses at all

That is the trade. Take the scheme and you are taxed on the rent above the threshold with nothing deducted. Stay out of it and you are taxed on rent minus expenses, with no threshold. So the scheme wins when expenses are small and loses when they are large, and once the rent is over the threshold the comparison is a real decision rather than a formality.

A lot of advice presents the threshold as free money on top of the ordinary rules. It is not, and treating it that way costs the landlord with genuine costs to claim.

Sharing halves it

If someone else shares the income — a partner, a joint owner — the threshold is halved for each of you, not split from a whole one. Two people each get the halved figure.

The rent is taxed on top of your other income

So the rate depends on what else you earn, which is why this page asks. Comparing the two methods by taxable amount alone can pick the wrong one when they fall either side of a band.

Capital Gains Tax

Letting part of your home can affect Private Residence Relief when you sell it. That is a separate calculation and it can be worth far more than the Income Tax either method saves — see the Capital Gains Tax calculator for the shape of it.

What this does not cover

Whether you qualify at all: the scheme is for furnished accommodation in your only or main home, so it does not cover a property you have moved out of, or an office let. Bed and breakfast and guest house income, which can qualify but interacts with trading rules. More than one lodger where the income is not shared. Losses, which you cannot have under the scheme. And the election itself, which has to be made — the ordinary rules apply by default once rent is over the threshold.

Where these figures come from

Every figure above is read from a dated rate file rather than written into the page, and each one is checked against the gov.uk page it came from. How these numbers are kept right sets out the whole process.

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