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Do you pay council tax on a static caravan or holiday lodge?

No, not on a licensed holiday park. The pitch is non-domestic property, the park is the rateable occupier, and your share of the business rates comes back to you as a separate annual charge. Here is the law, the figures, and the point at which it changes.

Published 2026-07-26 · updated 2026-07-26 · 10 min read · all figures sourced below

No. A static caravan or holiday lodge on a licensed holiday park is not a dwelling for council tax, so no council tax bill is issued for it. The pitch is non-domestic property, the park operator is the rateable occupier, and the park recovers your share of the business rates through a separate annual charge.

That is the short answer, and it comes from statute, not from park policy. The longer answer is worth reading, because the rule that keeps you out of council tax is the same rule that puts you into business rates, and it flips the moment anyone treats the caravan as their main home.

Why is a holiday caravan not a dwelling?

Because of one sentence in the Local Government Finance Act 1988. Section 66(1) makes property domestic if it is used wholly for the purposes of living accommodation. Section 66(3) then carves caravans out of that: subsection (1) "does not apply in the case of a pitch occupied by a caravan", unless "the caravan is the sole or main residence of an individual", in which case the pitch and the caravan are domestic property.

The test is not whether you sleep in it, or how often. It is whether it is your sole or main residence. A holiday caravan is not, so the pitch stays non-domestic.

Council tax then falls away by itself. Section 3(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 defines a dwelling as property that is not shown, and not required to be shown, in a non-domestic rating list. A non-domestic pitch is in the rating list. It is therefore not a dwelling, and council tax has nothing to attach to.

Section 66(7) says whether a structure is a caravan is decided under Part I of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. The Valuation Office Agency's rating manual records that from 1 October 2006 in England, a twin-unit caravan can be up to 20.00 metres long, 6.80 metres wide and 3.05 metres in internal height, following an amendment to section 13(2) of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. Wales adopted the same dimensions in 2007. Most things sold as lodges are caravans in law, which is why the lodge and caravan answer is identical.

Who actually pays the rates on a holiday park?

The park does. The Non-Domestic Rating (Caravan Sites) Regulations 1990 take every pitch on a site that is occupied by someone other than the site operator and treat those pitches, together with the operator's own part of the site, as one hereditament "and as occupied by that site operator".

The regulations define a pitch for a leisure caravan as one where, under the site licence or planning permission, a caravan stationed on it "is not allowed to be used for human habitation throughout the year". The closing period on your site licence is precisely what puts your pitch in that category. A relevant site is one of 400 square yards or more that includes some non-domestic property. Pitches occupied by a charity for charitable purposes are excluded from the amalgamation.

So the park receives one rates bill covering the whole site. You never receive one. You pay a share of it regardless.

Haven sets out the mechanism on its own site fees page. The charge to owners "is based on the average holiday home rateable value notified to us by the Valuation Office Agency", and rates are invoiced to owners in November for the following calendar year. That description matches the regulations exactly.

Can you find out how much of the park's rates are yours?

Yes. The right sits in the regulations, so the park cannot withhold it. Regulation 4 of the 1990 regulations requires the valuation officer, within one month of the rating list being compiled or altered, to tell the site operator in writing how many caravans occupied by people other than the operator are included in the assessment, and how much of the rateable value is attributable to those caravans together with their pitches.

Regulation 4(3) then gives the owner the corresponding right. Any person occupying a pitch for a leisure caravan on a relevant site may, after giving reasonable notice to the valuation officer, at any reasonable time and without payment, inspect a copy of the statement supplied to the site operator.

This is a route to a figure the park otherwise controls. If your rates charge has jumped and the explanation is thin, the valuation officer holds the number the park was given. The regulations have been in force since 1 April 1990.

What the rates charge actually costs

Haven publishes running costs on its site fees page, based on Golden Sands in Lincolnshire in January 2026. It gives average rates including water as £324, average gas and electricity as £426, insurance at £217 to £495, and site fees from £4,770 to over £10,000. It puts annual total costs at £5,737 to over £10,000.

Those figures do not sit together comfortably on the same page. The FAQ block lower down says site fees "start from £4,645 per year", while the costs table says £4,770. The same page also says water charges alone were between £330 and £600 per year in 2024, which is difficult to reconcile with rates and water together averaging £324 in 2026 unless Golden Sands sits below the cheapest park Haven operates. Treat one park's January snapshot as a sample rather than a national figure, and ask your own park for its number in pounds.

A national average rates charge per holiday home is not something this site has been able to verify on any published page, and the charge depends on the rateable value of the individual park, so expect it to vary widely. The reliable figures are the two you can obtain directly: the park's own invoice, and the regulation 4 statement held by the valuation officer. For the wider picture see the true cost of owning a holiday lodge, and put your own numbers through the ownership cost calculator.

When would you pay council tax on a static caravan?

When the caravan is somebody's sole or main residence. Section 66(3) then makes the pitch and the caravan domestic property, it comes out of the rating list, and it is banded for council tax like any other home.

That is the normal position on residential park home sites, which hold licences for year-round occupation. The VOA rating manual treats the pitches and vans on those sites as domestic property, with communal buildings remaining non-domestic. It is not the position on a holiday park, where the licence forbids habitation throughout the year, and where living there full time would breach the licence in any case.

The VOA manual also explains why the caravan itself gets valued at all. A caravan is a chattel and not rateable as such, but where it is enjoyed with the land with enough permanence that annexation to a defined pitch can be inferred, its value is included in the assessment. That principle comes from Field Place Caravan Park Ltd v Harding (VO), decided by the Court of Appeal in 1966. Decking, fencing, mains connections and a garden all point towards permanence.

Does the holiday letting rule change any of this?

Not for a caravan on a pitch. The self-catering test in the 1988 Act applies to "a building or self-contained part of a building", which a caravan on a leisure pitch is not. Caravans are dealt with under section 66(3) instead.

The test matters if you own a holiday property that is a building, such as a cottage or a fixed chalet. In England, section 66(2B) makes it non-domestic where it was available for commercial letting in short periods for at least 140 days in the previous year, was actually let for at least 70 days, and the owner intends 140 days of availability in the coming year. GOV.UK states the same 140 and 70 night thresholds.

Wales sets the bar much higher. Section 66(2BB) requires 252 days of availability and 182 days of actual letting, figures substituted in 2022 and applying from 1 April 2023. Two changes took effect on 1 April 2026 under the Non-Domestic Rating (Amendment of Definition of Domestic Property) (Wales) Order 2026. The 182 day letting test can now be met as an average over two or three years, and up to 14 days donated free of charge through a registered charity count towards both thresholds.

Miss the threshold in either country and the property is domestic, which means a council tax bill. The two sets of numbers are easy to confuse, so it is worth saying plainly: 252 days is the Welsh availability threshold and 140 days is the English one. The Welsh rules diverge in several other places too, covered in buying a holiday lodge in Wales.

Does the second home council tax premium apply to a holiday lodge?

Not to a caravan on a holiday park, because there is no dwelling for a premium to be charged on. It can apply to a holiday property that is a building and carries a council tax band.

In England, section 11C of the 1992 Act, inserted by section 80(2) of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, lets a billing authority add up to 100 per cent to the council tax where there is no resident and the dwelling is substantially furnished. A first determination has to be made at least one year before the financial year it applies to, which is why April 2025 was the earliest possible start. GOV.UK describes it as up to two times the normal bill.

Two exceptions are worth knowing. The Council Tax (Prescribed Classes of Dwellings and Consequential Amendments) (England) Regulations 2024 created Class K, covering every chargeable dwelling in England that consists of a pitch occupied by a caravan or a mooring occupied by a boat, and Class L, covering dwellings restricted by a planning condition that prevents occupancy as a sole or main residence, permits holiday letting only, or prevents occupancy for a continuous period of at least 28 days in a year. Both are excepted from the premium for financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2025. Neither removes standard council tax where it is properly due.

Wales allows a larger premium and got to the exceptions first. Section 12B permits up to 300 per cent, with that ceiling in force from 1 April 2023. Class 5 of the Council Tax (Exceptions to Higher Amounts) (Wales) Regulations 2015 has excepted pitches occupied by a caravan and moorings occupied by a boat since 31 January 2016, roughly nine years before England's equivalent. Class 6 of the same regulations, replaced on 1 April 2023, covers the same three planning conditions as England's Class L.

What to check before you buy

Read the site licence and find the closing period. That clause is what keeps the pitch non-domestic, and it is also what stops you living there.

Ask the park what last year's rates charge per holiday home was, in pounds. A percentage or a range is not an answer.

If the figure looks wrong, give the valuation officer reasonable notice and ask to inspect the regulation 4 statement for the site.

If what you are buying is a building rather than a caravan, establish which side of the 140 and 70 day line it sits in England, or the 252 and 182 day line in Wales, before you assume anything about the bill. The consequence of getting it wrong is a council tax bill on a property you expected to pay business rates on, and in Wales a possible premium on top of it. Site fee pressure is a related problem, dealt with in why site fees keep rising.

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