Home boarding licence for dogs (England)
If you board other people’s dogs overnight in your own home as a business, you need a home boarding licence from your local council under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018. The hardest part is rarely the inspection itself, it is producing the written procedures, policies and records the council expects to see. This page explains what is required, and how to get a complete pack ready to submit.
Do you need a home boarding licence?
You need a licence if you board dogs in your home commercially, even for a small number of dogs. Looking after dogs in their owner’s home (dog sitting), or earning below the HMRC £1,000 trading allowance, may be exempt, but your council decides. Home boarding means overnight stays in your own home, which is different from dog day care (daytime only) and from boarding kennels.
What the council checks
Your council inspects your home against the general conditions (Schedule 2) and the home-boarding-specific conditions (Schedule 4 Part 3). In practice that means:
- A suitable environment: each dog (or dogs from one household) has its own room to rest and hide, away from other dogs.
- Staffing and competence, with training records, plus the higher-standard ratio of one full-time person per eight dogs.
- Written procedures: feeding, cleaning, disease control, monitoring, transport, and what happens if a dog dies or escapes.
- A written emergency plan, risk assessments, and a vet-agreed preventative healthcare plan.
- Records kept for at least three years, and your licence and number displayed.
The documents you need to submit
Alongside the council’s application form, the fee and your public liability insurance, you are expected to provide a full set of written procedures, policies, risk assessments, consent forms and a plan of your premises. Writing these from dense government guidance is what holds most applicants up.
PetApproved builds the whole written pack for you from a short questionnaire: operating procedures, emergency and contingency plans, fire risk assessment, cleaning and isolation procedures, the vet healthcare letter, booking and consent forms, and a submission checklist, each mapped to its exact licence condition.
Common questions
Can I home board dogs in a rented house?
Yes, but you will usually need your landlord’s written permission, and the planning use of the property must be acceptable. Our submission checklist prompts you for both.
How many dogs can I home board?
Your licence states a maximum, agreed with the council based on your space and staffing. The higher standard expects at least one full-time person per eight dogs.
Do I need a licence if I earn under £1,000 a year?
Possibly not. If your trading income stays below the HMRC £1,000 trading allowance you may not need a licence, but your local council has the final say, and earning more than £1,000 does not automatically make you a business either. If in doubt, ask your council.
What happens if I operate without a licence?
Running a licensable animal activity without a licence is a criminal offence under the 2018 Regulations, with an unlimited fine and/or up to six months in prison. It is not worth the risk.
How long does the licence last?
One, two or three years. Meeting the higher standards earns a longer licence and a higher star rating (1 to 5), which means fewer renewals and a lower long-run cost.