Let the house pay for winter: the sums behind three months in the sun
Letting your home while you spend winter in Spain or Portugal can cover much of the cost. First check HMRC rules, your lease, your insurance and the small print.
Reviewed, edited and approved by Editor-in-chief Daniel Sköld · Updated 28 October 2026
Contents
Heating an empty house all winter and then flying back to it is a strange British habit. Every January, thousands of us turn the thermostat up in Shropshire while a one-bedroom flat in Tavira or Alicante sits waiting at off-season rates. The obvious question is whether someone else could live in your house, pay you for it, and in effect cover your three months of oranges and outdoor lunches.
Often they can, at least in part. But the people who do well out of it have read the small print first: HMRC’s, their insurer’s and, if they’re leaseholders, their freeholder’s. Here is how the sums actually work.
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Do I pay tax on renting out my home while I’m abroad?
Almost certainly, yes. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, so a December-to-February let falls neatly inside one year, which keeps the paperwork simple. Everyone gets a £1,000 property allowance, and if your gross letting income stays under that you don’t need to declare it. Three months’ rent on a family home will blow straight past £1,000, so treat the allowance as a rounding error. Once you’re over it, you register for Self Assessment and pay Income Tax at your usual rate on the profit. Your choice is to deduct either your real costs or the flat £1,000, whichever helps you more.
Then there’s the Rent a Room Scheme, which lets you take up to £7,500 a year tax-free (£3,750 each if two of you share the income). It has been fixed at that level since April 2016. It covers furnished accommodation in your only or main home, and was built for lodgers who share the house with you. Whether it stretches to letting the whole house while you’re on the Costa Blanca depends on the property still counting as your main residence. That’s a grey area, and HMRC’s helpsheet HS223 or an accountant should settle it before you bank on it. You can’t claim the scheme and the property allowance on the same income.
One old perk is gone. The furnished holiday lettings tax regime was abolished from April 2025, so short-let income is now taxed much like any other rental income.
The lease, the lender and the law of unintended tenancies
Leaseholders should dig out the lease before anything else. Many forbid subletting without the freeholder’s consent, and plenty contain a clause restricting the flat to use as a private dwelling, which is often read as ruling out holiday lets. Consent can come with an admin fee. Breaking a lease covenant puts the lease itself at risk, which is a big price for a winter in Spain. If you have a mortgage, the lender will want to give permission too.
Where you live matters as well. In London, letting a whole home on short lets is limited to 90 nights per calendar year unless you get planning permission. Conveniently, December, January and February add up to exactly 90 nights. In Scotland, anyone offering a short-term let needs a licence from the council, and that has applied to all hosts since October 2023. In Northern Ireland, self-catering accommodation offered to tourists has to be certified by Tourism NI.
The biggest trap is accidentally creating a tenancy. If you let to someone as their main home rather than as a holiday let, they may gain rights that make it very hard to get them out by March. In England, the Renters’ Rights Act replaces fixed-term assured tenancies with rolling ones. Get the type of agreement right, through a reputable agent or a solicitor, before you hand over the keys.
The house that pays for your winter is the one you’ve told the truth about: to HMRC, to the freeholder and to the insurer.
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Will my home insurance cover paying guests?
Probably not as it stands. Standard home policies usually assume you live in the property. Many limit cover if the house is unoccupied for more than about 30 or 60 days, and many exclude damage or theft by paying guests altogether. Councils and insurers give the same advice: tell your insurer before you let, accept that the premium may go up, and remember that keeping quiet can void the policy. Expect to need specialist landlord or holiday-let cover, and put that cost into your sums from the start.
Council tax is less dramatic. If your guests are on holiday and their main home is elsewhere, the bill stays with you. Energy is the cost people forget: short lets normally include bills, and that means you’re heating the house in January for someone else. That’s fair enough, but it eats into the profit.
How much does a winter in Spain or Portugal actually cost?
Here’s an illustrative example rather than a promise. Say your house lets for £2,000 a month. Over three months that’s £6,000, and after agent or platform fees, cleaning, extra insurance and winter bills, you might clear £4,000 before tax. A basic-rate taxpayer would then keep a bit over £3,000. Against that, a one-bedroom flat in a working town rather than a golf resort, somewhere like Tavira or Olhão in the Algarve, or a Valencia neighbourhood away from the beach, can often be found for well under the summer price on a monthly winter let. That’s when owners are glad of anyone at all. Faro, Málaga, Alicante and Valencia all have plenty of winter flights from UK regional airports, so getting there is rarely the expensive part.
Choose places that stay open in winter. Resort strips can feel like a film set after the crew has gone home. Towns with a market, a university or a year-round local population, such as Valencia, Málaga, Tavira or Setúbal, keep their cafés going in February.
Rough day-to-day prices, which vary a lot between city centres and villages: in Spain, a small draught beer (caña) costs about €2–3 (£1.70–£2.60), dinner with wine around €25–35 (£21–£30) a head, and a 5km taxi about €10–12 (£8.50–£10). In Portugal, a small beer (imperial) is about €1.50–2.50 (£1.30–£2.15), dinner €20–30 (£17–£26) and a 5km taxi about €7–10 (£6–£8.50).
One more limit: Spain and Portugal are both in the Schengen area, where British visitors can stay 90 days in any 180. Three full months will take you right up to that, and the days you spend in other Schengen countries count too. Check the latest FCDO travel advice and entry requirements, make sure your passport meets the validity rules, take your GHIC for state healthcare, and buy travel insurance that covers a long stay.
In short
Letting your home can pay for a good part, sometimes most, of three winter months in Spain or Portugal, but only if the paperwork is in order. Expect to pay Income Tax on anything over the £1,000 property allowance; don’t count on the £7,500 Rent a Room Scheme unless you’re sure the house still counts as your main home. Get consent from your freeholder and lender, buy proper insurance and use a holiday-let agreement rather than a tenancy, and the sums can work nicely. Skip those steps and an expensive surprise in March is likely.
Archie Inglis writes about travel for men 45 and over: city breaks, winter sun, road trips, rail journeys, walking holidays and the longer trips you've been putting off. Where's worth going, how to get there without the hassle, and how to make the money go further.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to archie@midcent.uk.
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