Pull The Listings, Start Counting

If you run a Welsh holiday let and you take the listings down for the winter, a 30 day clock starts. Deregistration sounds like something you do on the way out of the business. Section 14 does not say that.

The register duties commenced on 1 October 2026 under WSI 2025/1305. Section 14(1) requires a person to apply to the Welsh Revenue Authority for removal "before the 31st consecutive day on which that person has not provided or offered to provide visitor accommodation at any premises". Section 3(5)(a) defines offering to provide as including "advertising or otherwise marketing the accommodation".

So the test is 30 consecutive days with nothing offered anywhere in Wales. A seasonal operator who pulls every listing is inside it. One who leaves the listings live is not.

The WRA penalties guidance, published 1 October and stamped 08:48 that morning, says the charge for failing to register, update or deregister "is £100 per premises". Its worked example: "If you no longer provide accommodation in all 3 of your cottages, you must deregister within 30 days. If you do not, you'll get a £300 penalty." It then escalates at "£10 × 3 premises × 30 days = £900".

Section 15 contains no premises multiplier. Section 15(1) is "a penalty of £100"; section 15(3) is £10 a day, then £1,000. On 3 cottages the guidance's 2 worked figures total £1,200 and the Act's total £400. The multiplier does exist, but in section 7, failing to register, as "£100 × A" where A is the number of unregistered premises. That arithmetic has been carried across to a section it does not sit in.

Three honest caveats. Nothing bites yet: sections 10 and 15 commence 1 April 2027, as does reasonable excuse at section 17, and the commencement order switched on section 23 "for all purposes except for in respect of a decision relating to a penalty under Part 2". No section 9 duty can even be breached before 31 October 2026. And the guidance is not wrong everywhere, because its registration arithmetic is right.

Three dates, one duty, worth noticing. Section 9 says 30 days from the change. The penalties page says "within 30 days after the change happens". The overview page, updated 8 October, says: "Our service is only open for registration now. If your details change, you'll need to update them by 31 March 2027. We'll allow registration updates early next year."

In Wales the duties arrived in October and the price of breaking them is still being drafted.

Register, diary day 30 from your last offer, and ask the WRA where the section 15 multiplier comes from.

Which is it in Wales: 30 days, or 31 March?