Best PMS software for holiday lets and B&Bs in UK and Ireland 2026

Paolo Vezzola

Founder · Vezpa PMS · Profile →

If you run a holiday cottage, B&B, glamping site, guest house or small hotel in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, the day-to-day mix of obligations is unique to these two markets: the abolition of the Furnished Holiday Lettings tax regime in April 2025 in the UK, the Short-Term Tourist Letting Register coming into force in Ireland with Fáilte Ireland, Making Tax Digital quarterly reporting from April 2026 for sole traders, business rates vs council tax thresholds that vary between England, Scotland and Wales, and the daily reality of Booking.com being almost mandatory in both countries. A Property Management System (PMS) that doesn't account for these specifics forces you to do the work by hand — and at that point you might as well stay on a spreadsheet. In this guide I lay out exactly which features a PMS must have to work in the UK and Ireland in 2026, what the real prices are, and how to avoid the common pitfalls of the big international vendors.

What a PMS should actually do for you

A Property Management System is the software that runs the day-to-day operation of a holiday let or small accommodation business: bookings, calendar, pricing, guests, check-in and check-out. For a B&B or holiday cottage operator in the UK or Ireland, the PMS must offer at minimum:

• Clean planning grid: a calendar that at a glance shows which units are free and which are booked
• Channel manager: automatic two-way sync with Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia and Agoda without manual updates
• Booking engine: the ability to take direct bookings from your own website without commission
• Guest record keeping: a digital register that complies with the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972 in the UK and the Hotel Proprietors Act 1963 in Ireland for non-UK / non-Irish guests
• Payments: Stripe integration with cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and 3D Secure
• Statistics & reports: occupancy rates, revenue per room, seasonal trends to support your business decisions

There are PMS solutions that are excellent in one of these areas and seriously weak in others. The most common case: international vendors (Cloudbeds, Mews, SiteMinder, Hostaway) are strong on the channel manager but completely ignore the UK and Irish tax regime, the MTD requirement and the Fáilte Ireland register, leaving you to do that work by hand or with a separate accounting tool.

What changed in 2025-2026 that affects your PMS choice

Furnished Holiday Lettings abolished in the UK (6 April 2025)

Until 5 April 2025, UK holiday lets that met the FHL conditions (available 210 days, let 105 days, average let under 31 days) enjoyed a special tax regime: full mortgage interest deduction, capital gains tax reliefs, plant-and-machinery capital allowances, and pension-contribution relief. From 6 April 2025 the FHL regime was abolished. UK holiday let income is now treated as ordinary property income, which means:

• Mortgage interest is restricted to a 20 % basic-rate tax credit (instead of full deduction)
• No more CGT reliefs (Business Asset Disposal Relief, rollover relief, holdover relief)
• No more capital allowances on furnishings — replaced by the less generous "replacement of domestic items" relief
• Income no longer counts as "relevant earnings" for pension contribution purposes

For higher-rate UK holiday let owners, this has materially reduced after-tax profit. A good PMS should at minimum produce a clear annual income / expense report broken down in the way HMRC now expects (property income page of the SA105) so you or your accountant can file accurately.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — April 2026

From 6 April 2026, sole traders and landlords with combined self-employment / property income above £50,000 must keep digital records and submit quarterly summaries to HMRC under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA). The threshold drops to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. If you operate a holiday let as a sole trader and your gross rental income is over £50,000, you are in scope from 6 April 2026.

A PMS that's MTD-aware will produce a quarterly export (income, expenses categorised, period totals) that you or your accountant can push into HMRC-recognised software. PMS solutions that don't think about MTD leave you copying numbers into a spreadsheet four times a year — which is exactly what MTD was supposed to eliminate.

Short-Term Tourist Letting Register — Ireland

The Irish government passed the Short-Term Tourist Letting Register Act in 2024 and Fáilte Ireland is rolling out the register through 2025-2026. Once in force, every short-term let in Ireland (under 21 days per stay) must be registered with Fáilte Ireland and display a registration number on every advert (including Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo). Operating without a number is an offence with fines up to €300,000 for serious or repeated breaches. This is on top of the existing requirement that short-term lets in a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) over 90 days per year need planning permission for change of use.

A PMS for the Irish market must store the Fáilte registration number, include it automatically on direct booking pages, and ideally connect to channel manager outputs so the number flows through to Airbnb and Booking listings without manual intervention.

Real prices for PMS in UK and Ireland

The prices listed on PMS vendor websites are rarely the prices you actually pay. Below is a realistic picture for a B&B with 5 bedrooms or a holiday cottage operator with 5 units in the UK or Ireland:

The big international vendors advertise "starting prices" that only apply to a handful of units and basic modules. As soon as you turn on the full channel manager, the booking engine, payment processing and reporting, the bill doubles or triples. Watch out particularly for commission on direct bookings: some PMS vendors charge 2-3 % on every booking that flows through their system, which on a busy summer can add up to hundreds of pounds per month.

What's typically missing from international PMS

1. Furnished Holiday Lettings transition reporting

Cloudbeds, Mews, SiteMinder, Hostaway and most international PMS solutions still treat UK holiday lets as a generic "vacation rental" without distinguishing the new tax regime. They can record income and expenses, but they don't structure the export the way HMRC now expects (UK Property income with the new rules). For accountants this means extra reformatting at year-end, and for owners it means slower self-assessment filing.

2. MTD ITSA quarterly export

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has been on the horizon for years and the deadline of April 2026 is finally here. International PMS solutions designed for the global market generally don't have an MTD ITSA export, because MTD is UK-specific. Owners who use these PMS solutions end up keeping a parallel spreadsheet just for the quarterly submission — which defeats the purpose of having a PMS in the first place.

3. Fáilte Ireland Short-Term Tourist Letting Register number

The Irish register is brand new and most international vendors haven't built support for it. The registration number must appear on every advert and every direct booking page. Without a structured field for it in your PMS, you're copy-pasting it manually each time — which means it eventually goes wrong on at least one listing and triggers a compliance risk.

4. Business rates vs council tax handling

In England, a holiday let must be available for 140 days per year and actually let for 70 days to qualify for business rates (where Small Business Rate Relief often makes the bill £0) instead of council tax. In Wales the threshold is 252 days available and 182 days actually let (much stricter, brought in from 2023). In Scotland the threshold is 140 days available. A PMS that tracks "available days" and "let days" automatically gives you the data you need to defend a business rates application against the Valuation Office Agency — international PMS just record bookings and leave you to count the days yourself.

Comparison criteria for a small operator

If you run a holiday let or B&B with 1 to 15 units in the UK or Ireland, these are the seven criteria that actually matter when choosing a PMS:

1. Final monthly bill, not the headline price. Always ask for a quote with all the modules you actually need (channel manager, booking engine, guest register, payments) for your exact unit count.
2. Native integration with Booking.com and Airbnb with no extra fees and no commission on direct bookings.
3. Available-days / let-days tracking for the business rates threshold (essential in England, Wales and Scotland).
4. Revenue reports with occupancy rates, RevPAR and income breakdowns by channel and period.
5. Fáilte Ireland registration number stored and displayed on direct booking pages (essential in Ireland).
6. Stripe / GoCardless integration for direct bookings, including 3D Secure.
7. UK-based or Ireland-based customer support: when something goes wrong you want to talk to someone who understands the regulatory context, not a global call centre.

Why Vezpa is built for the UK and Ireland

Vezpa is a PMS designed for the European market with full UK and Ireland support. Concretely that means:

• Available-days and let-days tracker built into the calendar, ready for business rates applications in England, Scotland and Wales
• Fáilte Ireland registration number stored in property settings, automatically displayed on direct booking pages
• Revenue reports with occupancy, RevPAR, income by channel and period — exportable to CSV for your accountant
• Channel Manager with Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia, Agoda included, no extra fees
• Statistics & reports with occupancy rates, revenue per room, seasonal analysis and custom date ranges
• Stripe payments with Apple Pay, Google Pay and 3D Secure
• Hotel guest register compliant with the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972 and the Hotel Proprietors Act 1963
• English-language support by email, chat and phone

Frequently asked questions

Does Vezpa work for Scottish short-term lets that need a licence?

Yes. Vezpa stores the short-term let licence number issued by your Scottish local authority (mandatory under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 short-term let licensing scheme since 2023) and displays it on direct booking pages. The licence number is a required field in property settings.

Can I import bookings from another PMS?

Yes. Vezpa offers a free import service for bookings and guests from the most common PMS solutions (Cloudbeds, eviivo, Freetobook, Lodgify, Hostaway, Mews). Migration usually takes 1 to 3 working days and keeps existing bookings intact.

Is there a minimum number of rooms to use Vezpa?

No. Vezpa works from 1 unit (a single holiday cottage) to 50 rooms. Pricing starts from €39/month (Smart plan: up to 8 rooms + 3 apartments) and scales with unit count.

Does Vezpa handle the Northern Ireland VAT split?

Yes. Northern Ireland uses UK VAT (20 % standard) for most services but is part of the EU customs union for goods. For tourism services in Northern Ireland the 20 % UK VAT applies, and Vezpa applies it correctly with no extra configuration.

What about Wales business rates?

Wales raised the holiday let threshold to 252 days available and 182 days actually let from April 2023, which is the strictest in the UK. Vezpa's available-days tracker works exactly the same in Wales as in England — you can see at any time whether you're on track to meet the 182-day let threshold for the year, which is critical for business rates eligibility.

Conclusion

Choosing a PMS in the UK and Ireland comes down to three points: tracking days available and days let for the business rates threshold, storing the Fáilte Ireland registration number (in Ireland), and producing revenue reports you can hand to your accountant. If any of these are missing, you'll be doing manual work that the PMS was supposed to eliminate.

If you're picking a PMS for the first time, start with a free trial, connect Booking.com, enter a few real bookings and see whether the workflow runs smoothly. The difference between a good PMS and a bad one only becomes apparent on the second or third booking, when the routine starts and there's no patience left for manual data entry.

Note: information about competitor products is based on publicly available sources at the time of publication; for purchasing decisions, always verify on the vendor's official website.