Norfolk second home rules: council tax premium, stamp duty and holiday lets

By James Ward Money and Property Finance Editor Apr 10, 2026 · Updated Sep 24, 2026

9 min read

Breckland covers Thetford, Swaffham, Dereham, Attleborough and the villages around them. Great Yarmouth borough includes Gorleston and Caister, and the Norwich charge applies inside the city council boundary only.

South Norfolk Council approved a 100% premium on 18 March 2025 and left its assistant director of finance to decide when to start charging it. Its council tax pages and its 2026-27 council tax leaflet do not mention one. Broadland’s cabinet recommended a premium in March 2023, when the council had 422 second homes on its books, but its council tax pages list premiums only for long-term empty homes. If you are buying in either district, ask the council tax team whether a premium will apply and from when.

The money goes to all the bodies on the bill, the county council taking the largest share. Norfolk County Council agreed to hand back 25% of its extra premium income in 2025-26 to the districts for affordable housing and homelessness work. North Norfolk expected the premium to raise about £1.7m.

Exceptions to the premium

The government sets the exceptions, and they apply in every English council. The premium does not apply to:

• a home that would be someone’s main residence if they were not living in armed forces accommodation;
• an annexe forming part of, or treated as part of, the main house;
• a home actively marketed for sale or for let, for up to 12 months in each case;
• a home where probate or letters of administration were granted in the last 12 months;
• job-related homes, such as tied accommodation;
• occupied caravan pitches and boat moorings;
• seasonal homes where year-round living is banned, the property is restricted to holiday use, or a planning condition stops anyone staying more than 28 days in a row.

The last one covers many Norfolk holiday parks and chalet sites. These exceptions only remove the premium. The ordinary council tax bill still applies.

Business rates for holiday lets

A second home let to holidaymakers can move from council tax to business rates. The Valuation Office Agency decides, and since April 2023 the property must have been:

• available to let commercially for at least 140 nights in the last 12 months, with the intention of doing the same over the next 12 months, and
• let commercially for at least 70 nights in the same 12 months.

Nights the owner uses the property, and cheap lets to friends or family, do not count. Once on business rates, a cottage with a rateable value of £12,000 or less pays nothing under small business rate relief, with tapered relief up to £15,000. An owner with more than one business property can lose the relief after a grace period, unless the others each have a rateable value of £2,899 or less and the total stays under £20,000.

If a property misses either test it goes back on council tax, and in most of Norfolk that means the premium. Do not take a seller’s word that a cottage is “on business rates”. Ask for the VOA listing and the booking records for the last 12 months.

Planning

In February 2024 the government said it would create a new planning use class, C5, for short-term lets that are not anyone’s main home, and let councils require planning permission for new ones. As of September 2026 we can find no order bringing C5 into force in England, so turning a house into a holiday let does not yet need planning permission on those grounds. The plan concerned holiday lets. A second home that only the owner uses was not part of it.

Conditions already on a property bind you whatever happens nationally. A holiday occupancy condition on a converted barn, or a local-connection tie on a village development, can stop you living there all year or limit who can buy it after you. Ask your solicitor to check the planning history for occupancy, holiday use and local-connection conditions before you exchange.

The national holiday let register

The government consulted on a national registration scheme for short-term lets in England in 2023 and confirmed in February 2024 that it would go ahead. On 7 September 2026, LandlordZone reported, the culture secretary Lisa Nandy told Parliament that registration will be mandatory from March 2027. Owners will pay a fee and receive a number to show on listings, and councils will be able to see the data.

If letting income is part of your plan, cost in the registration fee and fire safety work before the first booking. Government fire safety guidance for holiday lets already applies, with a separate standard for properties sleeping more than 10 people or with more than two floors. Check the GOV.UK page on letting a self-catering holiday home before you list.

Where second homes are concentrated

The figures are highest on the north Norfolk coast. The district council’s 2022 analysis of council tax and business rates records found 7,169 second homes and holiday lets among 58,857 homes, 12.2% of the total. In a string of coastal parishes the share is far higher:

King’s Lynn and West Norfolk has more than 3,000 second homes, about one in 20 homes in the borough. Inland the numbers are small: South Norfolk had 737 second homes on its council tax records in its March 2025 report, and Broadland 422 in 2023. Our guide to Norfolk’s beaches covers the coast these figures describe.

Stamp duty and income tax

Buying a second home anywhere in England adds a stamp duty surcharge of 5% of the price, on top of the normal rates. It rose from 3% on 31 October 2024. Companies and other corporate buyers pay a flat 17% on homes over £500,000.

On a £500,000 cottage the surcharge is £25,000. The normal stamp duty on that price is £15,000, so the total bill is £40,000. Budget for it from the start.

The furnished holiday lettings tax regime ended in April 2025. Holiday let income is now taxed like other rental income, so the tax advantages a seller’s figures may assume no longer apply.

Empty homes

An inherited house left empty and unfurnished counts as an empty home, and that can cost more still. Councils can charge a premium once a home has been empty for a year, rising to a 300% premium, four times the normal bill, after 10 years. Broadland charges its premium after two years empty. Let it, sell it or move in: the longer it stays empty, the higher the bill can go.

Before you make an offer

1. Confirm which district the property is in. A village near a boundary can fall either side, and the premium follows the district.
2. Get the council tax band and work out the annual bill with the premium from the first day of ownership.
3. Check the planning history for occupancy conditions, local-connection ties and any change of use.
4. If the seller says the property is on business rates, ask for the VOA listing and evidence that it met the 140-night and 70-night tests.
5. On or near the coast, read our Norfolk coastal erosion buyer’s guide, which explains which Shoreline Management Plan units are Hold the Line and which are Managed Realignment or No Active Intervention, and our Norfolk flood risk guide.
6. Add the 5% stamp duty surcharge to the standard calculation.
7. Work out whether you can hold the property on the doubled council tax bill with no letting income at all.

Where to check the official position

• North Norfolk: north-norfolk.gov.uk
• King’s Lynn & West Norfolk: west-norfolk.gov.uk
• Great Yarmouth: great-yarmouth.gov.uk
• Norwich: norwich.gov.uk premium policy
• Breckland (via Anglia Revenues Partnership): angliarevenues.gov.uk
• South Norfolk and Broadland: southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk
• Valuation Office Agency, business rates for self-catering: gov.uk/VOA

Related guides

The Hunstanton, Cromer and Wells area guides cover three coastal towns with second-home buyers. The list of Norfolk villages with a working shop and pub shows which still have both open all year. If you are thinking of moving for good instead, start with whether Norfolk suits you and our guide to moving from London to Norfolk.

This guide is for general information only and does not constitute legal, financial or tax advice. Always take independent professional advice and confirm the current position with the relevant council and HMRC before exchanging contracts.

Plan the move

How we produced this guide

Premium decisions and start dates are from each council’s own council tax pages, policies and committee papers, linked in the list above; the South Norfolk and Broadland positions come from their cabinet reports of March 2025 and March 2023 and their current council tax pages. The Wells Band D figure is from North Norfolk’s 2026-27 charges. The exceptions, business rates tests, small business rate relief, stamp duty rates and empty homes rules are from GOV.UK. Parish second-home shares are from North Norfolk District Council’s 2022 second and holiday home analysis. Checked 24 September 2026. See our methodology page for source links.