How many UPRNs are there in the UK?

There are approximately 39 million UPRNs in Great Britain, covering around 29 million residential and commercial properties, plus sub-units, shells, and land parcels. Homedata covers 29 million active UPRNs — every property an application is likely to need.

What Is a UPRN? The Unique Property Reference Number Explained

Q: What does UPRN stand for?

UPRN stands for Unique Property Reference Number. It is a persistent numerical identifier — up to 12 digits — assigned by GeoPlace (a joint venture between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey) to every addressable location in Great Britain, including residential and commercial properties, public buildings, plots of land, and sub-divided units.

Q: How do I find the UPRN for a property?

You can look up a UPRN via: (1) the Ordnance Survey Open UPRN dataset (free bulk download), (2) the Valuation Office Agency's Council Tax portal, or (3) the Homedata address lookup API, which returns the UPRN for any UK address in a single call. The Homedata free tier allows 100 lookups per month with no credit card required.

Q: Why are UPRNs useful for property data?

UPRNs act as the primary key that links disparate property datasets — Land Registry titles, EPC certificates, council tax banding, planning applications, and environmental risk scores all reference the same UPRN. Without a UPRN, joining these datasets requires fuzzy address matching, which introduces errors. With a UPRN, a single API call can retrieve data from multiple government registers reliably.

What is a UPRN?

A Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) is a persistent numerical identifier — up to 12 digits — assigned to every addressable location in Great Britain. This includes houses, flats, offices, garages, plots of land, and even sub-divided units within a building. UPRNs are assigned and maintained by GeoPlace, a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey.

Once assigned, a UPRN never changes — even if the property is demolished and rebuilt, or the street is renamed. This persistence is what makes the UPRN valuable: it acts as a stable primary key that allows different government and commercial datasets to be reliably joined.

Who assigns UPRNs?

Local authorities assign UPRNs via their Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG), which feeds into GeoPlace's National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG). When a planning permission is granted and a new address is created, the local authority adds a new UPRN to their gazetteer, and GeoPlace distributes it to downstream users — including Ordnance Survey, Land Registry, the Valuation Office Agency, and the ONS.

Why UPRNs matter for property data

The UK has several major property datasets — Land Registry price paid, EPC certificates from MHCLG, council tax banding from the VOA, planning applications from local authorities, and environmental risk data from the Environment Agency. Each was created independently, and none uses a consistent address format.

Joining them by address text (fuzzy matching) introduces errors: "14 High Street" vs "14, High Street" vs "Flat 14 High Street" may or may not be the same property. The UPRN removes this ambiguity — every dataset that references a UPRN can be reliably joined.

The Homedata API uses UPRN as its primary identifier. Pass a UPRN and get back EPC data, sold prices, flood risk, planning history, council tax band, and comparable sales — all linked to the same property.

How to look up a UPRN

Three methods:

Ordnance Survey Open UPRN dataset — free bulk download of all 39 million UPRNs with coordinates. Useful for data scientists but not suitable for per-property real-time lookups.
Valuation Office Agency — council tax portal shows UPRN in some council tax reference data, but not accessible for arbitrary address lookups.
Homedata address lookup API — type a partial address or postcode, get back a list of matching properties each with their UPRN. The free tier allows 100 lookups per month.

GET /api/address/find/?query=14+thornton+road+bristol
Authorization: Api-Key YOUR_KEY

{
  "results": [
    {
      "uprn": "10023456789",
      "address": "14 Thornton Road, Bristol, BS7 8EJ",
      "latitude": 51.4762,
      "longitude": -2.5989,
      "property_type": "residential"
    }
  ]
}

UPRN vs other property identifiers

UPRNs are often confused with other identifiers:

Title number — assigned by Land Registry when a property is registered. Multiple UPRNs can share one title (e.g. a house with a registered garage).
Council tax reference — a local authority internal code, not standardised across councils.
EPC lodgement number — unique to each EPC certificate assessment, not to the property itself.
Postcode — covers multiple properties; not unique to a single address.

Pricing

Address lookup via the Homedata API costs 2 calls per request on the free tier (100 calls/month). Paid plans start at £49/month. Once you have a UPRN, all subsequent property data lookups cost 1 call each.

Frequently asked questions

What does UPRN stand for?

Unique Property Reference Number — a persistent up-to-12-digit identifier assigned by GeoPlace to every addressable location in Great Britain.

How do I find the UPRN for a property?

Use the Homedata address lookup API, the OS Open UPRN bulk dataset, or the VOA council tax portal. The Homedata free tier offers 100 lookups/month.

Why are UPRNs useful for property data?

They link disparate government datasets — EPC, Land Registry, council tax, planning — without error-prone address matching.

How many UPRNs are there?

Approximately 39 million in Great Britain, covering around 29 million active residential and commercial properties.