There are 1,056 holiday lets on Torridge District Council’s business rates list for 2026-27. Almost three quarters sit in the EX39 postcode district around Bideford, Westward Ho!, Appledore and Hartland, the median one is rated at just £3,600, and in a single year 115 joined the list while 81 left it.
Those numbers come from the council’s own records, which bill every self-catering property in the district that qualifies for business rates. It is a full count of every holiday let the council bills for business rates, and it says a good deal about what owning one here involves.
Where the 1,056 come from
Torridge publishes its full business rates property list as a spreadsheet, refreshed roughly every six months. Each row is a rated property with its address, postcode, rateable value and a code saying what kind of property it is. Holiday lets carry the self-catering code, so they can be counted exactly.
We took the extract dated 31 July 2026, kept every self-catering unit, and compared it with the June 2025 extract to see what had changed. The council leaves out personal data about individual ratepayers, so the list names no private owners, and nothing here identifies one.
Two things the count includes and leaves out:
- It includes lodges and chalets on holiday parks, each rated as its own unit, alongside cottages, barns, annexes and flats.
- It leaves out every holiday let on council tax. A property only joins the business rates list once it has been available for 140 nights and actually let for 70 in a year. One that falls short is billed council tax and does not appear. So 1,056 is a floor: the number of short lets trading in Torridge is higher, by an amount no public list records.
How that 140 and 70 night test works, and what counts toward it, is covered in Airbnb or holiday let: is there a difference?
Almost three quarters are in EX39
765 of the 1,056 are in the EX39 postcode district. The coast between Westward Ho! and Hartland carries the market, and the inland parishes around Holsworthy and Torrington carry most of the rest.
| Postcode sector | Holiday lets | Share | Places named most in the addresses |
|---|---|---|---|
| EX39 1 | 401 | 38% | Westward Ho!, Appledore, Northam |
| EX39 5 | 215 | 20% | Woolsery, Bucks Cross, Higher Clovelly, Littleham |
| EX39 6 | 89 | 8% | Hartland, Welcombe |
| EX22 7 | 70 | 7% | Holsworthy, Bradworthy, Sutcombe |
| EX21 5 | 47 | 4% | Beaworthy, Ashwater, Highampton |
| EX22 6 | 35 | 3% | Holsworthy, Pyworthy |
| EX38 8 | 35 | 3% | Great Torrington, Langtree |
| Everywhere else | 164 | 16% | High Bickington, Winkleigh, Dolton and the smaller parishes |
Westward Ho! and Appledore between them account for more than a third of the district. If your property is in EX39 1, there are hundreds of other holiday lets within a couple of miles of it, and a guest browsing the area sees many of them side by side. The listing has to earn its click.
Hartland’s sector holds 89. Our registered office is in Hartland, so this is home ground.
The typical holiday let here is small, and pays no business rates
The median rateable value is £3,600. Half of all Torridge holiday lets sit between £2,700 and £4,700, and 1,012 of the 1,056 are rated at £12,000 or less.
That threshold matters. Small business rate relief takes the bill to nothing where the rateable value is £12,000 or less and the property is the owner’s only business property. Owners with more than one property can still qualify in some cases, under extra conditions.
1,056 Torridge holiday lets by rateable value, 2026-27
Nearly all of them sit under the relief line
Each column counts the holiday lets in a £2,000 band of rateable value. The dashed line is £12,000, where small business rate relief stops being full.
1,012 of 1,056 are rated at £12,000 or less. Where the owner has no other business property, each of those pays no business rates while it stays on the list.
That changes what the rating list means for an owner. For most holiday lets in Torridge, being on it costs nothing. The money is in staying on it, because the alternative is council tax, and in Torridge council tax on a second home now carries a premium.
In one year, 115 joined and 81 left
Comparing the two extracts, 115 self-catering units appear on the 2026-27 list that were nowhere on the 2025-26 list. 81 that were on the 2025-26 list have gone from the 2026-27 list entirely.
The leavers sit well below the rest of the market on rateable value. The newcomers look much like the list they joined.
Rateable value, median and middle half
The holiday lets that left were the small ones
The dot is the median. The bar covers the middle half of each group, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
Left the list (81)£2,900
Whole list (1,056)£3,600
New on the list (115)£3,500
The leavers' median is £700 below the market's. A lower rateable value usually means a smaller or plainer property, which is the kind most likely to struggle to reach 70 let nights.
The list does not say why any property left. Some will have been sold, some taken back for family use or let to a tenant. Some will have failed the 70-night test and moved to council tax. The figures support one reading: the properties leaving are concentrated at the small end, which is where a let that is not getting booked tends to sit.
The new arrivals tell you something too. A property only reaches the rates list after it has already let for 70 nights, so the 115 are trading holiday lets, every one of them, and each is now competing for the same guests as yours.
The year the 70-night test arrived
The national figures show how hard that test can bite. The 70-night condition took effect in England on 1 April 2023. In the year to 31 March 2024, 11,960 self-catering holiday homes were deleted from the business rates lists of England and Wales, almost double the 6,130 of the year before. 11,430 of them had a rateable value under £6,000.
Torridge lost 220 that year, and 200 holiday homes were added to its council tax list over the same period. Only Cornwall, South Hams and Dorset lost more in the South West.
The Valuation Office Agency does not record a reason for each deletion. The timing and the concentration in the smallest properties point clearly at the new condition.
What falling off the list costs in Torridge
A holiday let that leaves business rates is billed council tax instead, and if nobody lives there as their main home it is a second home for council tax purposes. Torridge has charged a 100% premium on second homes since 1 April 2025, which doubles the bill.
There are exceptions set nationally. The one that matters most for holiday lets covers homes whose planning permission prevents year-round occupation, for example a condition that stops anyone living there for more than 28 days at a stretch. If your property has a condition like that, check how the council has classed it.
So for a typical small Torridge cottage, leaving the rates list means swapping a bill of nothing for council tax charged twice over. What decides which side you land on is the number of nights the property is actually let.
What this means if you own one here
Every figure on this page comes back to bookings. The rating list is a test you pass by getting the property let, and the 81 that left in a year are the clearest local evidence of what happens when a listing stops earning its nights.
That is a marketing problem first: the right guests, the right channels, the right price on each night and a calendar that fills its quiet weeks. It is the part of running a holiday let we put first, and it carries the most weight in a district this crowded. How much a holiday let can earn sets out how the income adds up, and what occupancy a UK Airbnb should expect covers how many of those nights are realistic.
If you own a holiday let in Torridge and want to see what it should be earning, and how comfortably it clears 70 nights, get a free Airbnb valuation. It takes about a minute, and the nights assumption is written down so you can hold it against the test yourself.
Frequently asked questions
How many holiday lets are there in Torridge?
At least 1,056. That is the number of self-catering units on Torridge District Council’s business rates list for 2026-27, from the extract dated 31 July 2026. Holiday lets billed council tax are not on that list, so the true number of short lets in the district is higher.
Where are most holiday lets in Torridge?
On the coast. 765 of the 1,056 are in the EX39 postcode district, and 401 are in the single sector covering Westward Ho!, Appledore and Northam.
Do holiday lets in Torridge pay business rates?
Most pay nothing. 1,012 of the 1,056 are rated at £12,000 or less, where small business rate relief removes the bill for an owner with one business property. The relief only applies while the property qualifies for the rates list at all.
Does Torridge charge a council tax premium on second homes?
Yes. Torridge has charged a 100% premium on second homes since 1 April 2025, so the council tax bill is doubled. A holiday let that drops off the business rates list can end up paying it, unless one of the national exceptions applies.
Sources
- Torridge District Council, Freedom of Information: business rates data sets: the full non-domestic property extracts for 2026-27 (dated 31 July 2026) and 2025-26 (June 2025), which exclude personal data about individuals. Self-catering units counted and compared by Straight Up Stays. Checked 15 October 2026.
- Valuation Office Agency, Self-catering holiday homes: movement between non-domestic and Council Tax rating lists, tables 1, 2, 3 and 4: deletions by year for England and Wales, by rateable value band, and for Torridge in 2023-24. Published 17 December 2024, checked 15 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, Apply for business rates for a self-catering property in England: the 140 and 70 night conditions. Checked 15 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, Small business rate relief: no business rates at a rateable value of £12,000 or less where it is your only property. Checked 15 October 2026.
- Torridge District Council, Change to council tax charge for second homeowners from 1st April 2025: the 100% premium on second homes. Checked 15 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, Guidance on the implementation of the council tax premiums on long-term empty homes and second homes: the Class L exception for seasonal homes and planning conditions. Updated 1 May 2026, checked 15 October 2026.
