Wales opens its visitor accommodation register next month. Joining it is free. Ignoring it costs £1,400 per property.
From October 2026, anyone who takes bookings for overnight stays in Wales must register with the Welsh Revenue Authority. gov.wales is blunt about the reach: "You must register by 31 March 2027, even if your local council does not introduce Visitor Levy."
That is 195 days from today.
The penalty ladder is in section 7 of the Visitor Accommodation (Register and Levy) Etc. (Wales) Act 2025.
£100 for each unregistered premises. £10 a day for the next 30 days. A further £1,000 per premises after that.
gov.wales gives the total as £1,400 per premises. The Act's own numbers come to the same figure, which is worth checking rather than assuming.
Per premises. Across 10 cottages that is £14,000.
Two things sit in the Act that the guidance pages do not lead with.
The 31 night test. Section 2 defines visitor accommodation by bookings of 31 nights or less. A unit that only ever takes bookings of 32 nights or more falls outside this Act. If you hold corporate or relocation stock, check your booking mix before you assume you are in scope.
The occupier limb. Section 3 says a provider is a person who, in the course of trade or business, provides or offers visitor accommodation and "is an occupier of the premises". If you manage on an agency basis and the owner is the occupier, which of you is the registrable person? The guidance does not answer it, and for a management company that is the whole question rather than a detail.
Two practical points.
Registration runs through GOV.UK One Login. gov.wales: "You can create a GOV.UK One Login before registration opens." Worth doing now rather than in the October queue.
And licensing is a different Act. The Development of Tourism and Regulation of Visitor Accommodation (Wales) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 27 April 2026, and gov.wales states "the legal default is that the licensing scheme will come into force in March 2030". October is a register, not a licence, and a lot of coverage runs the two together.
One honest caveat. No specific day in October has been published, and I could not reach the Act's interpretation section, so I cannot tell you how it defines "occupier".
Free to join, £1,400 a property to ignore, and the part still unanswered is whose name goes on it.
If you run Welsh stock on an agency basis, who is registering, you or the owner?
