Pet Animals Act 1951
Any premises selling animals as domestic pets or for ornamental purposes needs a pet shop licence.
Animals cannot be sold in the open air or from a market stall.
The Pet Animals Act 1951 does not consider insects to be pets.
Pet shops do not need a dangerous wild animal licence to sell such classified animals.
Online application and payment available
Downloadable application form
Licence conditions
Fees and charges
Additional information
Animal Welfare Act 2006
As you may be aware, the law that protects animals is changing. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 came into effect on 6 April 2007. This Act brings together and modernises animal welfare legislation, some of which dates from 1911. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 will:
- Introduce a 'duty of care' on people to ensure the needs of any animal for which they are responsible
- Create a new offence of failing to provide for the needs of an animal in your care
- Place more emphasis on owners and keepers who will need to understand their responsibilities and take all reasonable steps to provide for the needs of their animals.
Further details of how the Act may affect you can be found from Defra's and the RSPCA's websites.
Please note: The above documents are in Portable Document Format (PDF) and therefore require a suitable reader to view them. A reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided on the site).