We work remotely with veterinary businesses in every part of the United Kingdom. Your regulator does not change at a border and neither do the CMA remedies — three other things do, and these pages are grouped by nation so you can see which apply to you.
Most practice owners start by searching for an accountant nearby, and the honest answer is that proximity stopped being the thing that matters. We are remote-first across the whole United Kingdom: everything runs over video, phone and email, scheduled around consulting hours rather than ours, with records, questions and approvals handled securely online. What you gain by widening the search past your postcode is a practice that works only with veterinary businesses, so nobody has to be told what a POM-V is, why premises registration is charged per branch rather than per practice, or what a cap on written prescription fees does to a dispensary.
This is the part that most general advice, and most of what an AI assistant will tell you, gets backwards. The RCVS regulates veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses across the whole United Kingdom — and it does not regulate the businesses they work in anywhere in it, because it has no statutory power to. Non-vets have been able to own a UK veterinary practice since 1999, and the Practice Standards Scheme is, in the RCVS's own words, a voluntary accreditation. The compulsory registration is of premises that store or supply medicines, on the Register of Veterinary Practice Premises, charged per premises and renewing 1 April, with every branch registered separately.
The CMA's remedies are UK-wide as well. Draft Article 1(3) of the Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order 2026 states in terms that this Order extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. So the published price lists, the parasiticide list, pet care plan disclosures, written estimates where the cost is reasonably likely to reach £500 including VAT, itemised bills, the prescription fee cap and the complaints package reach a practice in Belfast on the same terms as one in Bristol. The Order has not been made: the CMA published its final report on 24 March 2026 and its own deadline for putting the Order in place is 23 September 2026, which is a drafting deadline rather than a date anyone has to comply by. The obligations follow three to twelve months after the Order is made, and a Small Veterinary Business — fewer than 15 first opinion practices and out-of-hours centres, which almost every independent is — gets three months longer on most remedies, though not on all of them.
Which leaves three things that genuinely change with the nation you practise in. Not the regulator, and not the remedies.
This is the largest real difference in the United Kingdom and it is easy to miss. Under the Windsor Framework, EU Regulation 2019/6 on veterinary medicinal products applies in Northern Ireland rather than the Great Britain Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013, with EU Regulation 2019/4 covering medicated feed; both jurisdictions also apply Regulation (EC) No 470/2009 on residue limits. The consequence a practice feels every day is prescription validity. In Great Britain a written prescription is valid from the date of signing for up to six months as standard, or 28 days for a controlled drug. In Northern Ireland a prescription for an antimicrobial or an antibiotic is valid for only five days from the date of issue. That is a real operational difference, and it interacts with the CMA's draft Article 15, which will require a written prescription in hard copy by the end of the consultation or digitally within 48 hours.
Scottish rates and bands, set by the Scottish Parliament, apply to non-savings, non-dividend income, and they follow where a person lives rather than where they work — gov.uk states it without qualification: you pay Scottish Income Tax if you live in Scotland. So a Scottish practice owner's profit share, and a Scottish director's salary, are taxed on a different scale from an identical practice owner's in England. What is not devolved is everything else, and those are the figures we will state: National Insurance, with Class 4 at 6% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above; dividend tax at 10.75%, 35.75% and 39.35% from 6 April 2026 with a £500 allowance; and corporation tax at 19% up to £50,000 and 25% above £250,000, with the limits divided by one plus the number of associated companies. An incorporated Scottish practice therefore has one leg of its extraction arithmetic on the Scottish scale and the other on the UK one, which is why an English worked example gives it the wrong answer. Try the incorporation calculator and then have the figures checked properly.
England moved to five multipliers on 1 April 2026: a standard 48.0p, a small business rate of 43.2p where the rateable value does not exceed £50,999, two lower Retail, Hospitality and Leisure multipliers of 43.0p and 38.2p, and a high-value multiplier of 50.8p where the rateable value reaches £500,000. Two points matter for a practice. A veterinary practice is not a Retail, Hospitality and Leisure property, so it never pays the lower two — which means the coverage framing April 2026 as a rates cut for high-street premises was not written about you. And all five figures are England only. Wales sets its own multipliers and reliefs through the Welsh Government and ran its own revaluation taking effect on 1 April 2026; Scotland's rates and reliefs are set by the Scottish Government; and Northern Ireland has nothing of the kind — a regional rate set by the Northern Ireland Executive plus a district rate set by each of the eleven district councils, applied to Net Annual Value and collected by Land and Property Services.
Wales is the case worth being careful about, because the temptation is to manufacture a difference. There is not one in the places that would matter most: the RCVS regulates vets and nurses in Wales as everywhere, the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 apply across Great Britain so prescription validity is the Great Britain position, the CMA Order extends to Wales, and income tax uses the same rates and bands as England and Northern Ireland. The £38 premises registration fee is published for England and Wales together. What is devolved is business rates and animal health and welfare policy, where the Senedd and the Welsh Government legislate separately.
Corporation tax, VAT, National Insurance, payroll and auto-enrolment, Companies House filing, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for a self-employed locum, capital allowances on equipment and Business Asset Disposal Relief at 18% from 6 April 2026 are all UK-wide. So is the thing most practices actually want fixed: knowing what a consultation costs to deliver before a price list has to be published. Start with the CMA compliance and pricing page, the profitability calculator or the prescription fee modeller. Not on the list below? We act for veterinary businesses right across the UK — get in touch and we will tell you where you stand.
Five business rates multipliers from 1 April 2026, and a veterinary practice is not a Retail, Hospitality and Leisure property. Everything else is UK-wide.
The Royal Veterinary College, and a branch-heavy market where every registration multiplies.
Accountants for London practices
A dense out-of-hours market, and the one remedy that bites on day one.
Accountants for Manchester practices
Mixed practice with a rural hinterland, and the associated-companies divisor.
Accountants for Birmingham practices
City small animal work, a farm hinterland, and your margin against the CMA's sample.
Accountants for Leeds practices
Leahurst, and the 2026/27 employment costs that all moved the same way.
Accountants for Liverpool practices
Langford, and what genuinely changes for a branch across the Severn.
Accountants for Bristol practices
Sutton Bonington, and the goodwill relief a practice buyer rarely gets.
Accountants for Nottingham practices
A rural North East market, and the Scottish taxpayer on your payroll.
Accountants for Newcastle practicesThe same medicines rules and the same income tax bands as England. Business rates and animal health policy are devolved to the Welsh Government.
Devolved business rates. Same medicines rules, same income tax bands as England.
Accountants for Cardiff practicesScottish income tax on non-savings, non-dividend income, and devolved business rates. National Insurance, dividend tax and corporation tax stay UK-wide.
The Dick Vet, and Scottish income tax on the practice's profits.
Accountants for Edinburgh practicesScottish income tax through the payroll, and out-of-hours cover.
Accountants for Glasgow practicesEU Regulation 2019/6 under the Windsor Framework, so an antimicrobial prescription is valid for five days. Rates are a regional plus district rate on Net Annual Value.
EU Regulation 2019/6, and a five-day antimicrobial prescription.
Accountants for Belfast practicesThe city pages are a sample. Everything runs remotely, and the only things your nation changes are medicines law in Northern Ireland, income tax in Scotland and business rates in England.
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