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Licensing in Canterbury

Canterbury has no selective or additional licensing scheme in force.

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Check an address in Canterbury

We'll match the postcode to its ward and the schemes below.

Licensing, ward by ward

Select a ward to see its name and licensing.

  • National rules only21

Current ward boundaries from ONS. Some homes are exempt, so check your postcode and the scheme details below.

Selective licensing
None
Additional HMO licensing
No
Article 4 on house shares
Yes
Consultation
None open

Licensing schemes

  • Mandatory HMO licence

    In force

    Mandatory HMO licensing (national scheme, Canterbury fees)

    Area

    The whole of Canterbury district (national scheme).

    Fee

    Published standard fee: £1,498.97

    Council 'Apply for an HMO licence' page (no fee year printed; fetched 26 October 2026): up to five people living there £1,498.97; each additional person £86.64. No renewal rate, Part A/B split or discounts shown.

    Who needs one
    Large HMOs rented to five or more people forming more than one household who share toilet, bathroom or kitchen facilities, where at least one tenant pays rent. The council page adds purpose-built flats of no more than two units (including above commercial premises) where tenants form more than one household and share facilities.
    Exemptions
    The council page says purpose-built flats of three or more units, such as halls of residence, do not need a licence, nor do properties of listed Specified Educational Establishments.
    Apply on the council’s websiteLicence conditions
    How we checked this

    The council page says 'A licence is valid for five years' and that it will normally inspect within six months of issuing a licence. Applicants must make sure the property has planning permission for HMO use before applying. The Housing strategy 2026 to 2030 records 723 licensed HMOs on 17 June 2026 and names tackling unlicensed HMOs as an action.

    Sources

Article 4 for house shares

Canterbury has an Article 4 direction on HMOs (houses in multiple occupation, or shared houses). Turning a family home into a shared house may need planning permission.

Area
Specific areas: the Housing strategy 2026 to 2030 says the council 'adopted an Article 4 Direction covering the urban area of the city of Canterbury and neighbouring parishes that requires planning permission for small HMOs', with policy that HMOs in Article 4 areas should not exceed 10% of dwellings within a 100m radius of an application property. The council's change-of-use page says planning permission is needed for C3 to C4 (three to six unrelated people) within the HMO Article 4 direction area and points to the council's planning information map to check a property. planning.data.gov.uk records the area as 'Canterbury and surrounding area. Dated 25.02.2015 effective 25.02.2016' (article-4-direction-area reference 73412, 'Canterbury City Council Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO) Article 4, Direction 1', start-date 2016-02-25). Committee search results (fetched 26 October 2026 before the committee site became unreachable) show notice of the direction was served on 25 February 2015 for 'a designated area including the city of Canterbury and surrounding areas', and that Council considered its implementation on 1 October 2015 after a Decision Review Committee referral of a decision not to confirm it; the confirming minute text itself could not be loaded.
Takes effect
25 Feb 2016

Council source

Civil penalty policy

Not yet confirmed

We have not found Canterbury's civil penalty policy yet.

Consultations

We found no consultations when we researched Canterbury.

Not yet confirmed

We could not settle these points when we researched Canterbury. Check them with the council before you rely on them.

  • Not yet confirmed

    No selective or additional licensing scheme, proposal or consultation was found on the council's HMO pages, and the Housing strategy 2026 to 2030 mentions only mandatory HMO licensing. The council's committee site (democracy.canterbury.gov.uk) timed out for full-text searches on 26 October 2026, so committee papers were not searched for licensing proposals; absence is inferred, not stated by the council.

  • Not yet confirmed

    The HMO Article 4 effective date (25 February 2016) rests on planning.data.gov.uk; the 1 October 2015 Council minute confirming the direction could not be loaded. Check the exact boundary on the council's planning information map (https://mapping.canterbury.gov.uk/webapps/Planning_information/).

  • Not yet confirmed

    Locate the council's private sector housing civil penalty policy and whether it has been updated for the Renters' Rights Act 2025.

  • Not yet confirmed

    The HMO fee page has no fee year; confirm it is the 2026/27 figure.

Landlord register

The national landlord register is separate from licensing. Canterbury is in South East, where registration is planned from 15 March 2027 to 14 June 2027. The regulations are still in draft. Read about the register