Action on Empty Homes publishes the most authoritative guide to empty homes data
Each year Action on Empty Homes analyses the Government’s official data on long-term empty homes, producing the only comprehensive analysis of this data.
Our data breakdowns and ‘Key Takeaways’ below are based on Government data published by MHCLG in November 2025.
We breakdown Council Taxbase data and here you can see an overview of where most homes are out of use in England
For an A to Z listing for all local council areas in England in 2024, see here
For our analysis of empty homes role in our national housing crisis; and our policy proposals for change to create additional low carbon affordable housing supply, see our page on ‘The Last Decade - 10 Years of Rising Numbers of Wasted Empty Homes’
We show how empty homes can add genuinely affordable housing supply, creating homes that are healthy and affordable for residents, in the places people want to live, with services already in place; while helping to meet our climate goals and reducing our carbon footprint.
The Last Decade section includes a detailed analysis of how empty homes have risen in the last 10 years, since the last national empty homes programme ended.
We show what the enormously divergent regional trends tell us about how we have been getting England’s housing wrong and why our housing crisis is intensifying.
We document how the data has transformed in a decade, which has seen long-term empty homes numbers rise by 50% nationally - but more than double in London, where our housing crisis is most intense. London now has greater overall vacancy than the North East of England. While the South West region, another housing crisis hotspot, is our most vacant region of all. Read all about it in ‘The Last Decade - 10 Years of Rising Numbers of Wasted Empty Homes’
Key takeaways
Numbers of long-term empty homes rose yet again by 38,301 to 303,185. Long-term empties are now at their highest level since 2011 (exceeding even pandemic-related data).
More homes in England are now long-term empty than during the Covid-19 pandemic when the housing market was closed.
Second Homes out of residential use total 267,894
Total vacancy in England is now over a million homes: 1,022,158
Regional Breakdown
What do we mean when we say there are over 1 million empty homes in England? How do we arrive at that figure?
See the official Government data release - here. To see how numbers of empty homes have changed over the last 20 years (from 2004) click on Table 615 and go to the tab ‘All Vacants’.
Note that each November’s Council Taxbase data is added to the Dwelling Stock Estimates Release and to Table 615 the following May.
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To be classed as ‘long-term empty’ a home has to be liable for council tax and to have been unfurnished and not lived in for over 6 months. This figure is increasing all the time, but as at October 2025, it was 303,143 - a rise of 14% on 2024 and over 50% up on 2016 - the year after the last national Empty Homes Programme ended.
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These are homes which are empty, many long-term, but for which there is a reason we might all understand - for example, the owner has died, which is the largest category, comprising over 124,000 homes, or nearly 60% of council tax exempt empties. As at October 2025, these numbered over 212,000. Most exemption categories are not time limited. These homes are not classified as long-term empty by Government, even when they have spent many years empty.
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These are unfurnished and empty but haven not been this way for longer than 6 months. Homes in this category may well go on to become long-term empties. As at October 2025, these numbered nearly 240,000.
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These are homes which nobody lives in but are furnished. Some may be used as weekend or holiday homes for their owners, but increasingly many are seen as investments, left to sit empty, accruing value for their owner. Some homes leave the Class F exemption for homes of the deceased and then become classed as ‘second homes’, without ever getting brought into use, sold, rented out, or even cleared of the deceased person’s belongings. Some may be used as Airbnb type short lets, although many of these now pay business rates and do not appear on the Council Taxbase at all. As at October 2025, there were over 268,000 of these so-called ‘second homes’.
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Like second homes these are never used as primary residences but instead generate income for their owners, blocking them from becoming anybody’s home. In many cases owners ‘flip’ to business rates and qualify for Small Business Relief avoiding all local tax. Analysis in Summer 2025, found nearly 74,000 such dwellings, flipped to business rates. NONE of these are included in our total vacancy figure of 1,022,433 for 2025. In the South West region alone there were 21,678 paying business rates (and that region is already classed as the most vacant in England without counting these homes). For context the latest figure for Airbnbs in London is over 87,000 suggesting many more may be concealed within other data categories.