Where to advertise rental property in the UK: the 15 best sites for 2026

Published: February 2025. Last updated: June 2026. Reviewed by the August editorial team.

Private landlords in the UK advertise rental property mainly through the big portals, Rightmove and Zoopla, which they reach using an online letting agent such as OpenRent, alongside free platforms like SpareRoom, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and local community groups. Since 1 May 2026, one rule governs every channel: under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 you must state a specific asking rent in the advert and you cannot invite, encourage or accept an offer above it. This guide covers the 15 best places to list, what each one costs, and how to choose the right mix for your property.

Why your choice of platform decides how fast you let

The platform you list on is the single biggest lever on how quickly you fill a vacancy and the quality of applicant you attract. Rental search in the UK now happens almost entirely online, and listings on the major portals draw their heaviest engagement in the first 48 hours, after which visibility drops sharply as newer adverts push them down the feed. Choosing the right platforms therefore shapes four things: your speed to let and the void periods you carry, the type of tenant you reach, your advertising cost, and the volume and quality of enquiries you have to manage. The rules that govern what your advert can say are set out at property listings.

The 15 best websites to advertise rental property

1. Rightmove

Rightmove is the UK’s largest property portal, with well over 150 million visits a month, so for raw reach nothing matches it. Rightmove does not deal with private landlords directly: you list through a registered letting agent or through a service such as OpenRent that acts as your agent. Through OpenRent, a listing including Rightmove costs around £49 at the time of writing (June 2026); the platform reviews pricing periodically, so confirm the current rate. It works best for family homes and competitive markets, and for suburban and rural properties where its reach outperforms rivals.

2. Zoopla

Zoopla is the UK’s second-largest portal, with roughly 60 million monthly visits and a particular strength in urban areas. Like Rightmove, it is reached through registered agents and services such as OpenRent, 99Home and Hello Neighbour. It is included in OpenRent’s standard £49 package. Its audience skews younger and more digitally native, making it a strong fit for flats and professional tenants in towns and cities.

3. OpenRent

OpenRent is the UK’s largest online letting agent and the usual route for self-managing landlords. You create an account, upload your property and photos, and choose a package: a free basic listing on OpenRent’s own site, or a £49 premium listing that adds Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket. Optional tenant referencing costs around £20 per tenant, and it can prepare the tenancy agreement if you want it to. It suits cost-conscious landlords who want portal reach without an ongoing management fee.

4. OnTheMarket

OnTheMarket is the agent-backed portal, with a cleaner interface than Rightmove or Zoopla and listings that sometimes appear ahead of the larger portals. Access is through participating agents, and several online platforms such as 99Home bundle it in for roughly £29 to £49. It works well alongside the bigger portals for fuller coverage, particularly in areas with a strong agent presence.

5. SpareRoom

SpareRoom is the UK’s leading flatshare and house-share site and is essential for HMO properties and room rentals. You can list individual rooms or a whole share. Basic listings are free; premium listings run from about £59 to £149 depending on duration and give priority placement. It is the default for student lets, professional house shares and any room-by-room HMO.

6. Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace has become a serious channel for local lettings, listed free under its property category and easy to share into local groups. It is strong for local advertising and for reaching younger renters, and works well for student properties and urban flats. Because anyone can enquire, apply firm tenant vetting, as free platforms tend to surface a higher share of unqualified leads.

7. Gumtree

Gumtree is one of the UK’s longest-running classifieds sites and still pulls reasonable local traffic. A standard listing is free; featured ads cost around £9 to £19. It works best as a supplement to the major portals, and for unusual properties or niche local markets.

8. Local Facebook groups

Community groups such as “Houses to rent in [your area]” give targeted, genuinely free exposure to local renters. Join the relevant groups, follow their posting rules, and list when permitted. They are most useful in smaller towns where the national portals have thinner coverage, and for building a local reputation.

9. 99Home

99Home is an online letting platform that handles advertising across Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket as part of a fuller service. Complete tenancy-creation packages including advertising run to roughly £69 to £79. It suits landlords who want support from listing through to move-in rather than advertising alone.

10. Hello Neighbour

Hello Neighbour is an online letting agent with a personal account manager. Its “Get Rented” service bundles advertising, applicant screening and tenancy creation, with complete packages around £74 including three months of advertising on the major portals. It is a good fit for landlords who value guided, hands-on support.

11. Quicklister

Quicklister is a budget option focused on advertising rather than full tenancy services. You upload the property, pay a listing fee of around £29 for six weeks, and it distributes to Zoopla, OnTheMarket and other portals. It suits cost-conscious landlords comfortable handling tenant vetting and paperwork themselves.

12. Traditional high-street letting agents

Many landlords still use a local agent for hands-off management. Agents handle photography, advertising on Rightmove and tenant placement, typically charging 8 to 12 per cent of monthly rent plus fees for renewals and check-out. This route suits landlords who cannot self-manage, or properties that need specialist local knowledge.

13. Property management software with listing tools

Some property management platforms offer listing services alongside rent tracking, maintenance and compliance, so you advertise and manage from one place. Costs vary by platform and package. This route appeals to portfolio landlords who want advertising joined up with the day-to-day running of their tenancies.

14. Local newspaper websites

Many regional newspapers still run property sections online, placed through their classified desk for roughly £20 to £50 a week. They work best for rural properties and for areas with strong local readership, particularly where you are targeting older tenants who read the local press.

15. University accommodation boards

For student lets, university accommodation offices often run landlord listing boards, usually free or for a nominal charge. Contact the accommodation office for their process. This is the most direct route to student tenants near a campus, especially for suitable house shares and purpose-built rooms.

How to advertise rental property for free

You can let a property without paying a portal fee, and free channels work well when you treat them with the same care as paid ones. The strongest free combination is an OpenRent basic listing, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and one or two local Facebook groups, all running at once. From working with self-managing landlords across the UK, free platforms generate a higher share of speculative enquiries, so the landlords who do well on them reply fast, screen hard and use professional photographs everywhere. Time your posts for weekday evenings, when most renters are searching, and share the listing through your own networks. Where competition is high, a single £49 OpenRent upgrade to Rightmove and Zoopla, layered on top of the free channels, usually lets a property within about two weeks in most UK markets without ever paying an agent.

How to advertise on Rightmove without an agent

You cannot list on Rightmove as a private landlord directly; you reach it through an online letting agent such as OpenRent or a traditional agent that includes Rightmove in its service. The practical route is to create your listing with an online service, invest in professional photographs, write the description carefully, and price against comparable local properties. Rightmove listings with professional photography consistently attract several times more enquiries than those with phone snaps, with industry observers citing differences in the region of three to four times for typical homes. Quote the rent correctly: portals show both weekly and monthly figures, so use our rent payment term calculator to convert between the two before you publish. Respond to enquiries within hours, and review pricing or photographs if the listing is quiet after the first 48 hours.

Where to advertise a holiday let or short-term rental

Holiday lets and short-term rentals need specialist platforms rather than the residential portals: Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com are the main channels, supported by your own direct booking page where you can. The economics and the rules are different from an assured tenancy, so before you list, check the planning position. England is introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets, and some areas operate planning controls on new short-term use, so confirm your local position with the council. The tax treatment also changed when the furnished holiday lettings regime ended in April 2025, which removed the old capital-allowance and mortgage-interest advantages; see furnished holiday let for what that means in practice, and our guide on whether short-term letting is still profitable for the wider picture. For a standard residential tenancy, stay on the portals and free channels above.

How the Renters’ Rights Act changed rental adverts

Since 1 May 2026 the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has changed what your advert can say. You must state a specific proposed rent when you list or offer a property, and you cannot invite, encourage or accept an offer above that figure. Open-ended adverts such as “rent from £X” or “offers invited” are no longer lawful, and informal bidding wars are banned, a change set out in the Act and explained in the government’s guidance on the rental bidding rules (see the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 on legislation.gov.uk and GOV.UK guidance for landlords). You may accept a figure below your advertised rent, but never above it, so set your asking rent at the level you actually want to achieve and keep a clear record of every offer in case you need to show you complied.

Two further rules shape how you advertise and screen. Your advert and your selection process must not discriminate against tenants because they receive benefits or have children, which rules out “no DSS” wording and “professionals only” framing used as a proxy; our guide to letting to DWP and DSS tenants explains how to assess affordability lawfully. And with Section 21 abolished, the tenant you choose is harder to replace, so thorough reference checks at the application stage matter more than ever.

Writing a listing that converts

Whatever platform you use, the listing copy does most of the work, and the difference between a quick let and a stale advert usually comes down to the photographs and the first two lines. Lead with the strongest selling point, a newly fitted kitchen, a two-minute walk to the station, a private garden, then give an accurate, specific description: bedroom count, included appliances, parking, garden access, transport, schools and local amenities. Be honest about size and condition, because misrepresentation wastes viewings and risks a dispute once a tenant moves in. Our companion guide on how to write a rental property listing walks through the headline, the room-by-room description, the photography and the compliance details in full.

Managing enquiries and viewings

Advertising is only the first step; how quickly you handle the enquiries that follow decides who you let to. From working with self-managing landlords, response speed is the single most consistent predictor of who secures the viewing: renters contact several landlords in one session and book with whoever replies first with a clear time slot, so aim to answer within two to three hours. Pre-screen before booking by asking about move-in date, affordability and any pets or guarantor needs; as a rough guide, annual income of about 2.5 to 3 times the annual rent is workable, and our rent affordability calculator and guide to the rent-to-income ratio show how to read that against the local market. Group viewings on set days to save time and create urgency, present the property clean and well lit, and follow up promptly afterwards. Once you have agreed a tenant, complete a right to rent check before the tenancy starts.

Measuring what works, and managing the tenancy after

Track which platforms actually deliver for your property, not just which feel busy. Three measures tell you most: cost per genuine enquiry, the share of applicants from each platform who proceed to referencing, and time to let. In our experience supporting landlords through onboarding, the gap between channels is wider than most expect: Rightmove and Zoopla tend to produce a higher proportion of qualified applicants than the free platforms, but the cost difference means a blended mix usually wins on a cost-per-let basis. Advertising is also only one input into your total running cost, so the property management fees calculator shows the saving from self-managing rather than handing the listing to an agent.

Once a tenant is in place, the work shifts from finding them to running the tenancy well. August gives self-managing landlords the tools for that stage in one app: automated rent tracking with late-payment alerts, document storage for agreements and certificates, maintenance tracking with a full history, and compliance reminders for expiring certificates and deadlines. How tenants experience that day to day matters as much as how you found them, which is why our guide to the best tenant apps in the UK is worth a look once the tenancy begins.

Frequently asked questions

Can I advertise on Rightmove without a letting agent? 

Not directly. Rightmove only accepts listings from registered agents, so private landlords reach it through an online letting agent such as OpenRent, which lists on your behalf for a one-off fee of around £49 including Zoopla. You keep control of viewings, referencing and the tenancy; the agent simply provides the portal access.

Where can I advertise my rental property for free? 

OpenRent offers a free basic listing on its own site, and Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, local Facebook groups and SpareRoom’s basic tier are all free. The free channels work best in combination and reward fast, professional responses, as they tend to attract more speculative enquiries than the paid portals.

Do I have to put the rent in the advert now? 

Yes. Since 1 May 2026 the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 requires you to state a specific proposed rent in the advert, and you cannot invite, encourage or accept an offer above it. “Rent from £X” and “offers over” wording is no longer lawful. You can accept a lower offer, but set your asking rent at the figure you genuinely want.

What is the best site to advertise a holiday let? 

Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com are the main platforms for holiday and short-term lets, ideally alongside your own direct booking page. Check the planning and registration position with your council first, and remember the furnished holiday lettings tax advantages ended in April 2025. You can start managing your tenancies free with August once a standard let is in place.

Final thoughts

Where you advertise shapes how fast you let, the quality of tenant you attract and ultimately your rental yield. The reliable approach is to pair the major portals, reached through OpenRent, with free supplementary channels such as Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and local groups, then back the listing with professional photographs, fast responses and thorough vetting. With the Renters’ Rights Act now in force and a clear asking rent required on every advert, choosing the right channels and presenting the property well is what gets a reliable, long-term tenant in place.

Disclaimer: This article is a guide and not intended to be relied upon as legal or professional advice, or as a substitute for it. August does not accept any liability for any errors, omissions or misstatements contained in this article. Always speak to a suitably qualified professional if you require specific advice or information.