Housing categories · Regulations 2025, Schedules 1 and 2
Jersey housing licence
None of Jersey's six residential statuses is called a housing licence. The status that decides which of the island's homes you may rent or buy is your residential status under the 2025 Regulations. About 90% of Jersey homes are Qualified. Five of the six statuses may rent or buy them in their own right or alongside a partner, and a Standard-status person can still share one. Licensed status is the closest to a licence.
- Qualified homes
- About 90% of homes
- Registered homes
- About 10% of homes
- Statuses now
- Six
- Licensed status
- One home to rent or buy
gov.je housing guidance, checked 21 October 2026
the part of the market open to every status
none of them is called a housing licence
you must live in it, and a home you bought must be sold or transferred if the status ends
Figures checked against gov.je. Jersey thresholds change, and superseded numbers stay in circulation for years. Confirm the current figures before you act on them.
What does “housing licence” mean in Jersey today?
“Housing licence” is not a status in the 2025 Regulations. The Regulations that took effect on 14 September 2026 name six statuses, and two of them tie a Qualified home to an employer’s permission: Licensed status and Licensed for Lease Only status.
Licensed status is the closest to a licence. An employer holds a permission, the employee receives Licensed status when they start the agreed job, and the status allows one Qualified home. For that route, Licensed status is the page to read.
What is the difference between Qualified and Registered homes?
Registered homes are open to every status. Qualified homes are open outright to four of the six for renting, to a fifth only through a partner, and never to Standard in its own right.
All domestic property in Jersey sits in one category or the other. gov.je puts the split at about 90% Qualified and about 10% Registered. The category belongs to the home. A person on Standard status who rents in their own name is therefore choosing from roughly a tenth of the island’s housing, however much they can afford to pay.
Which homes can each status rent or buy?
Permanent Entitled and Entitled holders can rent or buy any number of homes. Every other status is limited to one, with further restrictions on Qualified homes. The table is Schedules 1 and 2 of the Regulations, read with the gov.je housing guidance, as at 21 October 2026.
| Status | Rent a Registered home | Rent a Qualified home | Buy a home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Permanent Entitled, Entitled | Any number | Any number | Any number |
| Licensed | One, as your main home | One, as your main home | One, as your main home |
| Licensed for Lease Only | One | One, on an ordinary lease of under nine years | Not on your own |
| Entitled for Work Only | One | Live in one only alongside an eligible partner who holds Permanent Entitled, Entitled, Licensed or Licensed for Lease Only status | Only jointly with an eligible partner who holds Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Licensed status |
| Standard | One | No | No |
gov.je’s transaction table limits Standard and Entitled for Work Only leases of Registered homes to under nine years. Schedule 2, paragraph 1 of the Regulations states no such limit, so confirm the lease term with gov.je before you sign.
Three details that the table cannot carry.
One means one. Licensed, Licensed for Lease Only, Entitled for Work Only and Standard holders may each hold a single home at a time, and must live in it.
Joint purchase has conditions. An Entitled for Work Only or Licensed for Lease Only holder can buy only alongside an eligible partner who holds Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Licensed status, and both must intend to live there. Where the partner holds Licensed status, the two must buy jointly. Partners and Entitled for Work sets out who counts.
Entitled can carry conditions. Anyone granted Entitled status on economic or social grounds, the route the High Value Residency programme uses, always carries conditions that restrict access to the property market. A grant on hardship grounds may carry them too. The conditions are set case by case. The High Value Residency property rules cover the published minimums.
What happens to the home if Licensed status ends?
If you own the home, you must sell it or transfer it to someone who holds Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Licensed status. If you rent it, you lose the right to keep living in a Qualified home. In both cases the right to live in Qualified accommodation goes with the status.
Under Regulation 13, Licensed status ends when you stop being employed by the business to do the licensed work, or when a condition of the allocation stops being met. gov.je’s guidance adds that it is also lost if you are no longer ordinarily resident in Jersey. gov.je notes a discretion to let a person stay in their existing property “in certain circumstances”, but does not describe them, so do not plan around it.
Licensed for Lease Only follows the same rules (Regulation 15), for the rented home. An inherited property is the exception for every status: you may occupy it, and a Licensed or Licensed for Lease Only holder may keep living there even after the status is lost.
Can someone without status share my home?
Yes. A person of any status may live with a second person whose status allows that second person to rent or buy the home. That covers a partner, a child, a housemate or a lodger.
A householder can take up to five lodgers without registering under the Tourism law. Three to five lodgers bring the home within the Public Health and Safety (Rented Dwellings) Law 2018. gov.je’s lodging-house guidance adds that a lodger does not have the same legal status as a tenant, particularly on protection from eviction, and that to become a tenant a person must have a CHW status.
What stays out of reach until you are Entitled?
Social rented housing and assisted purchase both need Entitled or Permanent Entitled status in your own right. First-time-buyer concessions need it too, or an Entitled spouse or civil partner who has never owned a home anywhere. These are not part of the Control of Housing and Work Law. They are separate policies, and gov.je lists their criteria on the housing guidance page.
A Licensed holder can therefore buy a home on the open market, but cannot join the Affordable Housing Gateway waiting list or buy a first-time-buyer property. The Gateway also asks for three months’ residence before you apply. Entitled status at ten years is the ordinary point at which those doors open. How the ten years are counted.
Which three questions should you ask before accepting a role?
Ask which status you will hold, which category the homes you are likely to view fall into, and what happens to the home if the job ends.
For a new hire the answer depends on the permission the employer holds: Licensed, Licensed for Lease Only or Standard. Someone who already holds Entitled, Permanent Entitled or Entitled for Work Only keeps that status. Either way, the answer decides every column of the table above. The second matters because a Standard-status renter can only rent a Registered home, so the category settles which homes are worth viewing. The third comes from Regulations 13 and 15, which end the status with the job, and from gov.je’s guidance, which ties the right to live in Qualified housing to the status. A job offer does not settle where you can live.
If the answer on status is Standard, read the Registered column of the table before anything else. The guide to renting in Jersey and the guide to buying deal with what you will find once you know where you can look.
Rules and categories were checked against gov.je and the 2025 Regulations on 21 October 2026. Check any lease or contract with gov.je before you sign. We coordinate relocations and do not give regulated legal advice, so an advocate should look at your own purchase or lease.