Minister Browne Prescribes New Planning Form for Short-Term Letting Retention

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne T.D., has made S.I. No. 500 of 2026, the Planning and Development (Short Term Letting - Planning and Development Act 2000) (Change of Use) Regulations 2026, prescribing a new form for planning applications made for the retention of a change of use to short-term letting. The instrument was published in the Iris Oifigiúil of Friday, 2 October 2026, Number 79, in section I. It amends the Planning and Development Regulations 2001.

The regulations are made under sections 33 and 262 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, according to the notice published by authority. Their stated purpose is narrow and procedural: to prescribe a new form to be used in respect of planning applications made for the retention of change of use to short-term letting. The change therefore lands on the application paperwork that hosts and landlords must file when they seek to keep an existing short-term letting use, rather than on the substantive planning tests themselves.

What the instrument changes

The notice sets out three specific amendments to the existing planning framework:

• Articles 22 and 33 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 are amended.
• Schedule 3 of the same 2001 Regulations is amended.
• A new form is prescribed for planning applications for the retention of change of use to short-term letting.

The notice does not state a commencement date, an application fee, or transitional arrangements for applications already in the system. It is confined to the prescription of the new form and the consequential amendments to the 2001 Regulations.

Who is affected

The measure is aimed at the owners and operators of residential property used for short-term letting, the segment of the market that includes holiday and platform-mediated rentals. Where such a use requires retention through the planning system, the new form is the document that must accompany the application. Because the regulations operate through the national planning code rather than through a local development plan, their effect is nationwide rather than confined to a single planning authority.

Publication and availability

Copies of the instrument may be purchased from Government Publications, Mountshannon Road, Kilmainham, Dublin, D08 XA06, by telephone on 046 942 3100 or by email at publications@opw.ie. The price stated in the notice is €3.00. The same issue of the Iris Oifigiúil also carries S.I. No. 501 of 2026, a commencement order made by James Browne under the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Act 2025.

The regulations matter to anyone letting residential property on a short-term basis, because the form prescribed by S.I. No. 500 of 2026 is now the route through which a retention application for that change of use is made. For landlords and hosts who have been letting without planning permission for the change of use, the practical consequence is that the paperwork for regularising the position has been restated in a single, nationally prescribed document.

Source: Iris Oifigiúil, Number 79, 2 October 2026, section I (official reference: S.I. No. 500 of 2026).