Usually yes — and the surprise is which way round it works. A rental left furnished between tenancies can be charged the second-homes premium from the day it stands empty, while the same property left unfurnished pays no premium for a year. Same void, different furniture, a very different bill.
You are liable for council tax the moment there is no resident tenant — as the owner, not the outgoing or incoming tenant — and the bill exists whether or not the property earns anything that month. This covers England only: Wales runs its own premium regime, with different caps and different commencement dates, and nothing here should be read across.
Which regime you land in — and how long you have before a premium can apply — turns on one decision most landlords make without realising it is a decision at all: whether the property is furnished while it stands empty.
This guide is part of our landlord compliance series — sourced guides to the biggest deadlines and duties facing English landlords right now.
Council tax splits an empty rental into two categories, charged on opposite timetables. A property that is furnished but nobody’s sole or main residence — what a furnished flat between tenancies is — counts as a second home. Since 1 April 2025, billing authorities in England have been able to charge a second-homes premium of up to 100% on such a property, with no grace period: it can apply from the day the tenancy ends.
Strip the same property back to unoccupied and substantially unfurnished and it falls under the empty-homes schedule instead, which does not bite until the property has been empty for 12 months. So the cheaper void, on council tax, is often the empty one — the opposite of what most landlords assume when they leave the furniture in.
Once an unfurnished property passes 12 months empty, the premium climbs with the vacancy. Under section 11B of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, as amended by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023: after 1 year, a 100% premium — a bill of 200% of normal council tax; after 5 years, a 200% premium — 300% of normal; after 10 years, a 300% premium — 400% of normal, four times the standard bill.
The one-year threshold is itself recent. Until 1 April 2024, a property had to stand empty for two years before the first premium applied — a good deal of coverage still in circulation describes the old two-year rule, which is why the date of any source matters here.
These are powers, not automatic charges. Each billing authority decides whether to apply the premiums and at what level, up to the statutory maximum. The figures above are ceilings, not a universal bill — check your own council’s council tax pages.
We deliberately do not publish a per-council table: nearly three hundred separately-maintained sources going stale at different rates, and a table that is wrong for your authority is worse than none. Use GOV.UK’s own “Find your local council” lookup to find your billing authority, then read that council’s own published, dated premium policy.
GOV.UK guidance sets out mandatory exceptions that hold the premium off for up to 12 months. Three matter most to a landlord: probate, running up to 12 months from the date probate or letters of administration are granted; major repairs or structural alteration, up to 12 months while the work is done, not reusable on the same property unless it is sold; and a property actively marketed for sale or let, up to 12 months, not reusable again unless the property has actually been sold, or let on a tenancy of six months or more.
They can run consecutively. An inherited property can sit under the probate exception and then move onto the marketing exception when it goes up for sale, buying more than one twelve-month window in sequence — provided each one’s conditions are genuinely met.
The House of Commons Library states it plainly: an exception stops the premium, not the underlying council tax. Qualify for the major-repairs exception and you still pay the normal 100% bill for those 12 months — you have only avoided the extra charge on top. “Exempt from the premium” is not “exempt from council tax.”
The repairs exception is narrower than it sounds. It is aimed at works that make a property genuinely uninhabitable while they are carried out — structural repair or alteration. Replacing an outdated bathroom or kitchen does not qualify, and redecoration certainly does not. If you are relying on it, check your council’s policy and the GOV.UK class definition first — most refurbishments do not count.
A property left empty after the owner dies moves through three stages, and the clocks do not run together. Until probate is granted: a Class F exemption means no council tax at all, even if the property is still furnished. For six months after probate is granted: the Class F exemption continues — still no council tax. Then, the 12-month premium exception: it runs for 12 months from the date probate was granted. Once the six-month exemption ends, normal council tax becomes due, but the premium cannot be added until the twelve months from grant are up.
In practice: no tax for six months after grant, then normal tax with no premium until the twelve-month point, then the premium can apply if the property is still empty and the council charges it.
Under the Warm Homes Plan, privately rented homes must reach EPC C by 1 October 2030, and the retrofit to get there can take months. Most of that work is not structural in the major-repairs sense, so it may not qualify for the repairs exception. Do the retrofit with the property empty and unfurnished and you are on the empty-homes clock; leave it furnished and you can be charged the second-homes premium from day one.
A landlord doing exactly what the 2030 deadline requires can trip the premium while doing it. Plan the void, the furnishing status, and any exception around the works before you start — see our EPC C by 2030 guide for the retrofit timeline itself.
1. Decide furnished-or-unfurnished deliberately, not by inertia. Leaving furniture in “just in case” between tenancies can start the more expensive clock, not the more cautious one.
2. Find your billing authority and read its own published premium policy. Use GOV.UK’s own lookup and note the date of whatever policy you find — these reset annually.
3. If you are relying on an exception, check it is genuinely structural, or genuinely marketed. A refurbishment is not automatically “major repairs”, and the marketing exception only resets on an actual sale or a let of six months or more.
4. If you are mid-retrofit for EPC C 2030, check the council tax position before you start. Work that is not structural does not buy you the repairs exception, and the twelve-month clock runs regardless of why the property is empty. A premium at 100% is a real cut to what an empty property costs you — worth checking against what it earns when let. Our rental yield index ranks gross yield across 294 English local authorities, free.
Do I pay council tax on an empty rental property between tenancies? Yes. An empty rental is still liable for council tax. Left furnished, it can be treated as a second home and charged the second-homes premium from the first day; unfurnished, the empty-homes premium does not apply until 12 months, but the normal bill is still due throughout.
Is it cheaper to leave a rental furnished or unfurnished between lets? On council tax, unfurnished is often cheaper. A furnished empty rental can face the second-homes premium immediately where the council charges it, whereas an unfurnished one has a 12-month runway before any empty-homes premium applies.
How much is the council tax premium on a long-term empty property? Up to 100% extra after one year, 200% after five, and 300% after ten — so a decade-empty property can pay four times the normal bill. These are maximums; each council decides whether to charge them and at what level.
If my property qualifies for an exception, do I stop paying council tax? No. An exception removes the premium, not the council tax itself. You still pay the normal 100% bill for the period the exception covers.
Does refurbishing a rental count as “major repairs” for the exception? Usually not. The exception is for structural repair or alteration. Replacing a kitchen or bathroom, or redecorating, generally does not qualify — check your council’s policy and the GOV.UK class definition before relying on it.
What happens to council tax on an inherited property in probate? No council tax is due until probate is granted and for six months afterwards (Class F). Normal council tax then applies, but a premium cannot be added until 12 months after the grant of probate.
Could an EPC C retrofit trigger a council tax premium? It can. A retrofit is not usually “structural”, so it may not qualify for the repairs exception, and a property left empty for the works is on the empty-homes clock — or, if furnished, exposed to the second-homes premium from day one. Factor the premium into your retrofit timing.
UK Property Portal is written and published by Dan Woodcock, working independently from UK. It is a one-person operation — there is no newsroom and no research team behind it — and every figure, date and threshold on this page is sourced, attributed and dated to the document it comes from. Read the full editorial standard →
A premium at 100% is a real cut to what an empty property costs you.
Gross rental yield ranked across 294 English local authorities — official ONS and HM Land Registry data, sourced and dated.
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