What a dog daycare licence costs in England, who checks it, and who is outside it

A dog day care licence in England is one national licence, issued under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 and inspected against the same Defra guidance everywhere. The fee is set by each council. The process guidance says fees must be “fair and reasonable” and may cover the application, the inspection, compliance checks and enforcement against unlicensed businesses. In practice the price depends on the postcode.

On 1 April 2027 Surrey's eleven district and borough councils are replaced by two unitary authorities. East Surrey Council takes over Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead and Tandridge. West Surrey Council takes Guildford, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Waverley and Woking. Animal licensing moves with everything else.

Five councils, four different ways of pricing the same licence, and a threefold difference in what a licensed daycare pays. Nobody has yet said which fee East Surrey Council will adopt, which inspectors it will use, or whether a business rated five stars by one council keeps that rating and its three-year licence when the council that issued it no longer exists. Those are the questions this report puts to the shadow authority.

Every licence carries at least one unannounced visit. A five-star licence lasts three years, so a well-run daycare can go three years between unannounced inspections. A one-star licence lasts a year and is re-inspected, at full cost, every year. New applicants are automatically rated high risk and cannot receive a three-year licence at first application.

Running a boarding or day care business without a licence is a criminal offence under section 13 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Whether anyone is prosecuted is left to each council. There is no national figure, so we asked one.

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said in April 2024 that councils' ability to enforce animal licensing is constrained by a lack of specialist knowledge and training and by inadequate funding. Two councils have since confirmed that the tools exist: an advert on social media is enough to begin an investigation and officers may contact the advertiser directly. The gap is not the law or the tools. It is whether anyone is asked to use them.

Some field-based and walking businesses are licensed by choice, and some councils have moved on their own: Tower Hamlets caps walkers at four dogs in a public place unless they hold the council's £240 professional dog walker licence, which allows six. That order covers public places only and stops at the park gate. The only people in dog care with a number on them are the ones who volunteered to be checked.

The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 raised the maximum sentence for the worst cruelty offences in England and Wales from six months to five years. Two professional dog walkers have since been sentenced after dogs in their care died in hot vehicles. Both pleaded guilty. Neither was licensed, because no licence exists for what they did.

We are not arguing for American sentences. The point is narrower. In England a professional dog walker meets the system only after a dog is dead, because nothing can be inspected, conditioned or taken away before that. A disqualification order is the only record that follows them, and there is no public register of disqualified people that a dog owner can check before handing over a lead.

The licence fee is the small part. The conditions set the wage bill. The required standard is one member of staff to ten dogs; the higher standard that earns a five-star rating is one to eight. Every person on the floor is paired with two fewer paying dogs.

Space sets the ceiling: six square metres per dog, inside and outside counted together, divided into the total. A 120 square metre premises can never take more than twenty dogs whatever the demand. A Level 3 qualification for the person in charge is about £340 plus VAT. None of this applies to a business the licence does not reach.

Two petitions to Parliament are asking for the rules to be reviewed and for walkers and sitters to be brought inside them. Petition 770225, Review regulation of animal boarding and licensing conditions, known as Molly's Law, opened on 19 June 2026. Petition 776716, Introduce stronger welfare regulations for pet care services, opened on 24 August 2026. On 22 September 2026 they had 1,174 and 1,768 signatures, 2,942 between them. Each needs 10,000 for a government response and 100,000 to be considered for a debate.

Duncan's Dog Co is a licensed business and supports both. A licence that costs its holders thousands a year in staffing and is enforced against almost nobody is worth less each year to the people who hold it and nothing at all to the dogs outside it.

Fees were read from each council's published fee table or fees and charges schedule for 2026/27 on 22 September 2026. Where a council's page carries no fee year (Mole Valley, Tandridge) the figure is as listed on that date. The enforcement figures are one council's FOI answer and one council's press release, both linked. The court outcomes are from contemporaneous local press reports of the sentencing hearings; we have not named the defendants here. Petition counts are read from petition.parliament.uk on the date shown and will move.

This report covers England unless it says otherwise. It is not legal advice. If a figure is wrong or has moved, email info@generasoftware.com and the page is corrected in place with the checked date updated. Nothing is appended.

Journalists are welcome to quote any figure with a link to this page. Duncan is available for interview and the daycare in Cobham is open to visit.