Fixed-term versus rolling student tenancy

Short answer

It depends on two things I cannot tell from your question alone: first, whether your agreement is a tenancy or a licence, and second, whether your fixed term has actually ended. These distinctions matter a great deal following the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which reshaped the rules on rolling (periodic) tenancies from 1 May 2026.

The key distinction: tenancy or licence

Purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) is usually let under one of two very different legal arrangements, and the label on the document is not decisive. What matters is the substance of the arrangement.

If you have your own self-contained flat or studio, or a room over which you have exclusive possession for a fixed period at a rent, you are likely to have a tenancy, even if the provider calls it a “licence” or “occupation agreement”.

If you share facilities, the provider retains significant control and rights of access, moves students between rooms, or provides services in a way inconsistent with exclusive possession, the arrangement may genuinely be a licence to occupy rather than a tenancy. Many large PBSA operators deliberately structure their agreements as licences.

This distinction is the single most important factor in answering your question, because the two are treated completely differently under the new regime.

If your agreement is a tenancy

Under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, assured shorthold tenancies were abolished. All existing assured shorthold tenancies automatically became assured periodic (rolling) tenancies on 1 May 2026, and it is no longer possible to create a new fixed-term assured tenancy for residential lets. Assured tenancies are now periodic by default.

If your accommodation is let on an assured tenancy, then in principle it will now be a rolling periodic tenancy rather than a fixed-term contract, even if the paperwork you originally signed described a fixed term. The Act also treats a fixed term and any statutory periodic tenancy that follows it as a single continuous assured tenancy for the purposes of the new rules.

However, student accommodation has been given specific treatment. There is a dedicated statutory carve-out for the student sector, reflected in the Student Accommodation (Miscellaneous Provisions) (England) Regulations 2026 and in the Act itself. The general policy intention is that mainstream PBSA can continue to operate on a fixed academic-year cycle rather than being forced onto open-ended rolling tenancies in the same way as ordinary private rentals. In practice this is achieved partly by keeping much PBSA outside the assured tenancy regime altogether (see below) and partly through specific possession and student-let provisions. So the fact that ASTs generally became rolling tenancies does not automatically mean your particular student contract did.

If your agreement is a licence

Licences to occupy fall outside the assured tenancy regime entirely. They were not converted into assured periodic tenancies on 1 May 2026, and the Renters’ Rights Act changes to fixed terms and rolling tenancies simply do not apply to them.

If you genuinely have a licence, then your agreement remains whatever the licence document says it is. It will still be a fixed-term arrangement if that is what the licence provides, and it will end (or roll on, or convert to a periodic licence) strictly according to its own terms rather than by operation of the new statutory rules. Many PBSA providers rely on this precisely so they can keep offering fixed academic-year contracts with defined start and end dates.

Whether your fixed term has actually ended

Even where a fixed-term arrangement exists, what happens at the end of the term depends on the type of agreement and its wording.

For a tenancy that has not been brought within a special student exemption, expiry of the fixed term does not leave you with nothing; under the current regime the tenancy continues as a periodic tenancy rather than simply ending. That is the sense in which a former fixed term can become a rolling arrangement.

For a licence, you need to read the end-of-term and holding-over clauses. Some licences simply end on the stated date. Others provide that if you remain in occupation and the provider accepts payment, the arrangement continues on a periodic basis (weekly or monthly). That kind of continuation is a matter of contract, not the statutory rolling-tenancy rules.

What I would need to know to give you a definitive answer

To tell you which of these applies to you, the following facts are decisive.

1. What the agreement is actually called and, more importantly, whether you have exclusive possession of your own room or flat.

2. Whether the provider is a commercial PBSA operator, a university, or a private landlord, and whether the building is managed on an academic-year basis.

3. The stated start and end dates of your fixed term, and whether that end date has passed.

4. What the agreement says about what happens at the end of the term, including any holding-over, renewal, or continuation clause.

5. Whether you have been asked to sign anything new, or have simply stayed on and continued paying.

Practical next steps

1. Read your agreement carefully, focusing on how it describes itself, whether it grants exclusive possession, the fixed-term dates, and any clause dealing with what happens after the end date.

2. Check whether the end date of your fixed term has already passed and whether you have continued to occupy and pay since then.

3. Ask the provider in writing to confirm, in plain terms, whether they treat your current occupation as a continuing fixed-term arrangement, a periodic (rolling) arrangement, or a licence, and on what notice either side can end it. Their answer, and their conduct in accepting payment, will often clarify the position.

4. If you are trying to leave early, or the provider is trying to remove you, or there is a dispute about notice or further rent, the tenancy-or-licence question and the exact wording of your end-of-term clause will determine your rights, so pin those down before committing to any position.

If you can tell me the type of provider, whether you have your own room or flat, what the document calls itself, the fixed-term dates, and what the end-of-term clause says, I can tell you much more precisely whether you are now on a rolling arrangement or still bound by a fixed-term PBSA contract.