How UK Catteries Are Licensed

The 2018 Regulations

The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 replaced the Boarding Establishments Act 1963, significantly raising minimum standards for cat boarding.

Any person who boards cats in the course of a business — whether at dedicated premises or in their own home — must hold a licence from the local authority in whose area they operate.

Equivalent regulations exist in Scotland (2021), Wales (2021), and Northern Ireland (2024 draft).

The star rating system

Local authorities award a 1–5 star rating based on an inspection against the Schedule 3 conditions. Higher stars are awarded for voluntarily meeting enhanced conditions including additional enrichment provision, CCTV, and higher staffing ratios.

A 1-star licence is legally sufficient to operate. It does not indicate poor practice — a new, well-run cattery may receive 1 or 2 stars initially as it builds an inspection record.

Stars are re-assessed at each licence renewal (typically annually or biennially).

What the licence does not guarantee

Licensing confirms that conditions met the required standard on the inspection date. It is not a real-time quality assurance mechanism. A cattery that passes inspection may change management or decline in quality before the next inspection.

Licensing also does not cover customer service, pricing practices, or the emotional quality of care — these require your own assessment.

The register

Schedule 3 of the Regulations requires that the register of licence holders be publicly accessible. In practice, councils publish this in different formats — some as searchable databases, others as PDFs, a minority only via Freedom of Information request.

We collect these registers and make them searchable in one place. Our data layer records the source council, licence number, and star rating for every listed operator.

Frequently asked questions