HMO Licence Cost London 2026: All 32 Boroughs

HMO licence fees in London look chaotic on the surface — they vary by borough, by scheme, by room count, and by whether the property falls under mandatory, additional or selective licensing. A four-bed HMO that costs £597.50 to license in Hammersmith & Fulham could cost £1,500 across the river in Tower Hamlets and £1,750 in Westminster's upper band. The fees moved upward in most boroughs for 2026, with Tower Hamlets posting the headline 75% increase, and Hillingdon launching an entirely new additional licensing scheme on 24 August 2026.

This page is the one-stop reference for what every London borough is charging in 2026, how each fee is structured, and — more usefully — what the council fee actually buys you and what it leaves out. The headline number is rarely the biggest line on a real HMO licensing budget. Pre-application fire-safety, electrical and gas compliance work routinely adds £500–£3,000, and a failed first inspection adds remediation cost on top of that. We have shepherded several hundred mandatory and additional applications through the 32 boroughs and the cost pattern is consistent: the council fee is between a third and a half of the total spend.

If you are budgeting a new HMO licence application — or renewing an existing one — read the table, then read the sections after it. The compliance budget matters more than the council fee.

Why HMO Licence Fees Vary So Much

Three drivers explain the spread between £597.50 and £1,750:

• Borough policy and cost recovery — Each borough sets its own fee schedule under section 63 of the Housing Act 2004, subject to the Hemming v Westminster ruling at the Supreme Court that fees must reflect the actual cost of running the licensing scheme. Boroughs with high-volume schemes and efficient processing teams (Newham at the lower end) can charge less; boroughs with bespoke assessment processes and smaller volumes (Westminster) charge more.
• Room count and property size — Some boroughs use a flat fee per licence regardless of size; others apply a per-room loading. Brent's £1,140 base + £60 per let room is the clearest worked example, but several other boroughs run hybrid models that step the fee up at 5, 7 and 10 rooms.
• Scheme type — Mandatory licensing (5+ occupants, 2+ households) is the headline scheme. Additional licensing (smaller HMOs) and selective licensing (all PRS in designated areas) are priced separately and the spread between schemes within a single borough can be £400 or more.

The 2026 fee schedules also reflect a sector-wide catch-up after several years of static pricing — Tower Hamlets' 75% rise to £1,500 is the most visible, but Westminster, Camden, Islington and Hackney all nudged upward for 2026. Our HMO licensing application support service tracks the fee schedule for every borough so the budget you see at quote stage is the budget you pay.

Fee Structure Explained — Flat vs Per-Room

Two pricing models dominate the 2026 schedules:

• Flat fee per licence — One fee covers the licence regardless of how many let rooms the property contains. Most central and south London boroughs use this model. Westminster's £1,375–£1,750 band is a flat fee within room-count tiers, not a per-room loading.
• Base fee plus per-room loading — A base administration fee plus an incremental amount for each let room. Brent's £1,140 + £60 per room is the cleanest example. A 6-room HMO in Brent therefore pays £1,140 + (6 × £60) = £1,500. The per-room model penalises larger HMOs but rewards smaller ones.

Both models also typically split the headline fee into Part A (application and assessment, paid up front, non-refundable if the application is refused) and Part B (licence issue, refunded if the licence is not granted). The Part A/Part B split varies from 30/70 to 50/50 depending on borough — read the published schedule before applying so the refund position is clear if the application is later withdrawn or refused.

Renewal vs first application — Most boroughs charge the same fee for a five-year renewal as for a first application; a minority discount renewals by 10–20% on the basis that the assessment workload is lower. Hackney and Camden are the boroughs to watch on this point — their renewal schedules genuinely run below their first-application schedules.

Mandatory Licence Fees — All 32 London Boroughs

The table below sets out the mandatory HMO licence fee for each of the 32 London boroughs in 2026. Fees are the five-year licence price unless otherwise noted, inclusive of Part A and Part B. Where a band is shown, the lower figure is the small-HMO entry price and the upper figure is the large-HMO ceiling.

Fees are taken from each borough's published 2026 fee schedule and are correct at the time of writing. Borough fee schedules can change mid-year — always confirm the current figure on the borough's licensing page before applying. For an apples-to-apples comparison across multiple boroughs (common for portfolio landlords with properties scattered across London), our HMO licensing application support service pulls the current fee and conditions for each borough into a single quote sheet.

Additional Licensing Fees

Additional licensing under section 56 of the Housing Act 2004 covers HMOs that fall outside the mandatory threshold — typically three or four occupants forming more than one household, or HMOs in designated areas that the borough has decided to bring under licensing. Additional schemes are declared borough-by-borough and run for a fixed term (usually five years) before they must be renewed by the council.

Additional licence fees are usually lower than mandatory fees because the properties are smaller — Newham's additional fee starts at around £750 and Hammersmith & Fulham's additional fee runs below its mandatory £597.50 — but a few boroughs price additional and mandatory at the same rate because the compliance assessment is functionally identical. The licence conditions are also identical in most cases: a Grade A fire alarm to BS 5839-6, a current EICR under BS 7671, a gas safety certificate, fire doors to FD30, and a thirty-day room-size schedule.

Hillingdon's new additional scheme commences 24 August 2026 — landlords with existing unlicensed HMOs in scope should apply before commencement to avoid civil penalty exposure under section 249A of the Housing Act 2004 (up to £30,000 per breach).

Selective Licensing Fees

Selective licensing under Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004 is a separate regime. It applies to all private-rented homes in a designated area — not just HMOs — and is used by boroughs to address concentrated problems of antisocial behaviour, low housing demand or poor housing conditions. Selective licence fees typically run £500–£900 per property for a five-year licence and are usually cheaper than HMO fees because the conditions are lighter (no FRA requirement, EICR and GSC requirements typically aligned with statutory minimums).

Selective and additional schemes can overlap geographically — a four-bed HMO in a selective-licensing ward needs the HMO additional licence, not the selective one, but a single-family let in the same street needs the selective licence. The conditions are different and the fees are different. Check the borough's licensing map before assuming which scheme applies.

What the Council Fee Does Not Cover

The council fee buys the assessment, the inspection visit and the issuance of the licence document. It does not buy the compliance work that the licence conditions require. Before submitting an application, you typically need the following certificates and reports on file — none of which the council provides:

• HMO fire risk assessment to PAS 79 — Typically £200–£450 depending on property size. See our HMO fire risk assessment service.
• EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) under BS 7671 — Typically £180–£350 for a small HMO, £400–£600 for a larger one. See our EICR service.
• Gas safety certificate (CP12) under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 — Typically £80–£120. See our gas safety certificate service.
• BS 5839-6 fire alarm commissioning certificate — Typically £150–£300 for a Grade D commissioning, £300–£600 for a Grade A commissioning.
• Emergency lighting commissioning to BS 5266-1 (Grade A HMOs only) — Typically £180–£350.
• Room-size measurement schedule compliant with the borough's licence conditions (typically 6.51 m² minimum for single rooms, 10.22 m² for doubles).

The compliance pack alone routinely adds £500–£1,500 to the budget before any remedial work is done. If the property already meets all the standards, that is the floor; if it needs upgrading, the floor rises sharply.

The Hidden Cost — Failing the First Inspection

The single biggest cost variable on an HMO licence application is the remedial work triggered by the first inspection. Council inspectors visit either at the application stage or shortly after the licence is granted, and the items they flag are at the landlord's cost. The typical remedial ranges we see across the 32 London boroughs:

• FD30 fire doors — £350–£500 per door supplied and fitted to the half-hour rated standard with intumescent seals, smoke seals and a self-closing device. A typical 4-bed HMO needs 5–7 new doors, putting the line at £1,750–£3,500.
• EICR remedial works — £200–£800 to clear C1 and C2 codes on a Code 2 EICR. C1 (danger present) is rare but non-negotiable. C2 (potentially dangerous) almost always shows up on pre-1990s installations.
• Smoke alarm rewire and Grade A upgrade — £180 per detection point for a Grade A interlinked system, £80–£120 per point for a Grade D1 upgrade.
• Emergency lighting installation — £150–£250 per luminaire fitted to BS 5266-1, plus the commissioning certificate.
• Lock and ironmongery upgrades — Thumb-turn locks on bedroom doors, key-operated mortice locks on the front door, intumescent strips on door frames. £80–£150 per item.

A first-time HMO applicant whose property has not been upgraded in the last decade should budget £1,500–£3,500 of remedial work on top of the council fee and the compliance pack. The applicants who hit the lower end have already done the fire doors and the EICR; the applicants who hit the upper end are starting from a standard rental conversion.

A Real Budget Example — Tower Hamlets 4-Bed HMO

A genuinely worked example for a four-bed additional-licence HMO in Tower Hamlets at the 2026 fee schedule:

• Council fee (Tower Hamlets additional licence) — £1,500
• ERL HMO licence application support — £400
• ERL pre-licence compliance audit — £250
• HMO fire risk assessment to PAS 79 — £350 (already on file, reused if current)
• EICR under BS 7671 — £250 (already on file, reused if within 5 years)
• Gas safety certificate — £100 (annual, already on file)
• Typical remedial works on first inspection — ~£1,800

Headline total: £3,950 to £4,650 for a single four-bed HMO, of which the council fee is £1,500 (about 35% of the spend). The application support and the pre-licence audit together (£650) are the smallest line items but are the highest-leverage spend on the budget — they catch the failure modes that drive the remedial line. Skip them and the remedial line typically doubles.

How to Reduce the Total Cost

Three levers actually move the number:

• Single supplier for application + audit — Splitting the licence application between an agent (typically £600–£900) and a separate compliance audit (£600–£800) routinely runs £1,500+ from two suppliers. Bundling with one supplier (ERL's £400 application support + £250 pre-licence compliance audit = £650) cuts the bill roughly in half and removes the handover gap where defects fall through the cracks.
• Pre-licence audit before the council inspection — A £250 audit identifies the items the inspector will flag and lets you fix them before the visit rather than after. Every item fixed pre-inspection saves the remediation premium of a follow-up visit and a second inspection fee in some boroughs.
• Five-year renewal cycle — Most boroughs offer a five-year licence. Some renewal applications can be processed at a discount versus first applications (Hackney and Camden are the obvious ones). Plan the renewal at month 54, not month 60, to avoid the lapse-and-re-apply premium.

For the wider compliance picture — how HMO licensing sits alongside EICRs, gas safety, EPC ratings and the Smoke Alarms (England) Regulations 2022 — our landlord compliance hub for London ties the regimes together on a single page. For the licence application itself, our HMO licensing service at £400 covers the full application across all 32 boroughs and the HMO compliance checks service at £250 covers the pre-licence audit. The two services bundle at £650 against an industry average closer to £1,500.

Ready to budget your HMO licence? Call Emergency Repairs London on 0207 046 1363 or WhatsApp 07456 975436 with the borough, the room count and the current compliance status. A borough-specific quote covering council fee, application support, pre-licence audit and expected remedial range takes about ten minutes over the phone.

FAQs

The FAQ schema at the foot of this page covers: total HMO licence cost in London in 2026, whether HMO licence fees are tax deductible, why fees rose in 2026, refund position if the licence is refused, and whether additional licences are cheaper than mandatory licences.

Save the number now — 0207 046 1363 or WhatsApp 07456 975436. Get the licence budget right at planning stage and the rest of the HMO project follows.

John Alexander N. — Director, Emergency Repairs London