Most practice owners have this the wrong way round. The Practice Standards Scheme is voluntary. Registering your premises is not — it is a legal requirement if you supply or store medicines, it costs £38 per premises per year, and every branch counts separately.
Guide · Updated August 2026
The RCVS puts it plainly: if your veterinary practice supplies or stores medicines, you are legally required to register it. The register is the Register of Veterinary Practice Premises, and the RCVS holds it on behalf of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate under the Veterinary Medicines Regulations. It is a medicines obligation administered by a professional regulator, which is precisely why it gets filed in the wrong mental drawer.
The mechanics:
| Item | Position |
|---|---|
| Fee | £38 per premises per year in England and Wales, exempt from VAT |
| Renewal date | 1 April each year |
| Branches | Charged separately. One main premises plus two branches means three times the fee |
| Held by | The RCVS, on behalf of the VMD |
The triggers for registration are broader than “the building with the dispensary in it”. They include buildings where veterinary surgeons provide services; premises advertised as part of a veterinary practice; facilities open to the public for the treatment of animals; closed buildings that serve multiple clients; buildings owned by charitable providers where veterinary services are delivered; and any location that receives wholesale deliveries of medicines. A branch that opens two mornings a week, or a unit that exists mainly to take deliveries, is inside the net.
The fee is small enough that the risk is not the money. The risk is a premises nobody registered, which is a medicines compliance failure rather than an administrative one. Keep a single list of every address the business operates from and reconcile it to the register each March, before the 1 April renewal.
In the RCVS's own words, the Practice Standards Scheme is a voluntary accreditation for UK veterinary practices. Nobody has to be in it. What it offers:
That last point is the one to weigh commercially. You are buying, among other things, a single assessment instead of two. And the CMA's draft Article 6 now requires practices to publish their staff qualifications, RCVS accreditations and PSS awards — so an accreditation you hold becomes a published fact rather than a poster in reception. Our guide to the CMA remedies sets out that publication duty in full.
Why none of this reaches the business itself. Non-vets have been able to own a UK veterinary practice since 1999, and the RCVS has no statutory power to regulate the businesses veterinary professionals work in — only the individual veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses on its registers. The CMA identified exactly this in its final report of 24 March 2026, finding that the system of regulation of vets is outdated and unfit for purpose because it applies only to veterinary professionals and not to the businesses in which they work. If you have come from another regulated profession, do not assume its ownership rules apply here. They do not.
There are two separate Codes of Professional Conduct — one for veterinary surgeons and one for veterinary nurses — each with its own supporting guidance chapters. They bind individuals, not the practice. The CMA's draft Article 13 comes at that from the other side, requiring veterinary businesses to have policies ensuring that vets and nurses can act in accordance with those Codes.
The obligation most often misquoted is the 24-hour one. Supporting guidance Chapter 3, paragraph 3.1 says that all veterinary surgeons in practice must take steps to provide 24-hour emergency first aid and pain relief to animals according to their skills and the specific situation. The page was last updated on 8 October 2024.
Two things follow, and both are commonly got wrong:
| Registration | Fee | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Veterinary surgeon, UK practising, 2026–27 | £431 | Due on or before 30 April 2026 |
| The same, paid 1–31 May | £468 | A £37 late fee. Removal from the Register if unpaid by 31 May |
| Veterinary surgeon, non-UK-practising | £214 | Same cycle |
| Veterinary surgeon, non-practising | £71 | Same cycle |
| Registered veterinary nurse | £85 from 1 November 2025 | Renewal cycle 1 November to 31 October |
| Veterinary practice premises | £38 per premises, VAT exempt | Renews 1 April, every branch separately |
The consequence of missing 31 May is removal from the Register, not a bigger invoice. For a practice, that is a rota problem and a prescribing problem, because a veterinary surgeon who is off the Register cannot prescribe a POM-V. It is worth one diary entry a year at practice level rather than leaving it to each individual.
Illustrative example — one year of RCVS fees for a small independent. A practice with a main site and three branch premises, three UK-practising veterinary surgeons and two registered veterinary nurses.
Premises: four registrations at £38 = £152, VAT exempt, all renewing 1 April. Veterinary surgeons: three at £431 = £1,293. Registered veterinary nurses: two at £85 = £170. Individual fees together are £1,293 + £170 = £1,463, and the whole bill is £1,463 + £152 = £1,615.
If one of the three veterinary surgeons pays on 5 May rather than by 30 April, their fee is £468 instead of £431 — £37 more — taking the total to £1,652. Whether the practice or the individual bears the registration fee is a matter for the employment contract, not for the RCVS. Figures are illustrative.
There is a single statutory Register of Veterinary Nurses. All veterinary nurses transferred onto it by 17 February 2015 under a supplemental Royal Charter.
And then the fact that surprises almost everyone: the title “veterinary nurse” is not protected by law. Anyone may call themselves a veterinary nurse, whatever their training. The RCVS proposed statutory protection of the title to Defra in 2021 and it forms part of the current reform proposals, but as things stand the protection does not exist. For a practice, that matters in two everyday places: how you describe your team on the website — which draft Article 6 will require you to publish — and how you handle a job applicant whose title is not backed by registration.
The permission comes from Schedule 3 to the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966. Only registered and student veterinary nurses may carry out, on delegation from a veterinary surgeon employed in the same practice, any medical treatment or any minor surgery not involving entry into a body cavity — and only where the animal is under the care of a registered veterinary surgeon and the nurse acts at that surgeon's direction.
Every limb of that does work. Same practice. Delegated by a veterinary surgeon. Animal under the care of a registered veterinary surgeon. No entry into a body cavity. Getting the delegation right is the practical difference between a nurse-led clinic that works and one that does not, and it feeds directly into how you cost and price nurse time — which is where our pricing guide picks the thread up, and where payroll and team structure meet it.
The Code requires veterinary surgeons to ensure that all their professional activities are covered by professional indemnity insurance or equivalent arrangements. All means all, including work done outside your main employment.
The RCVS gives locums a specific warning, and it is worth quoting the shape of it: locums should have particular regard to this issue, because although the host practice's insurance is likely to provide cover for negligence claims, it may not provide any other type of cover — representation at an RCVS concerns or disciplinary process being the obvious gap. That is not required cover, but it can be insured separately. If you locum, do not assume the practice's policy is sufficient; our locum tax guide covers the cost side of that decision.
Defra consulted on Reform of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 from 28 January 2026 to 25 March 2026, and received 6,219 responses, of which 6,034 came in online. It was announced as the biggest veterinary sector reforms in 60 years.
What was proposed:
The summary of responses has not been published and nothing is in force. The government has said it will be published later in the year. The CMA's final report cross-refers to the consultation and notes at paragraph 133 that the reform appears to be taking forward its own recommendation, adding that non-vets who play a significant role in setting prices, quality standards and processes in veterinary businesses will finally be subject to compulsory regulation. That is a description of a proposal. Until the response is published and legislation follows, the position remains the one set out at the top of this guide: individuals are regulated, businesses are not, and premises registration is the only compulsory registration in the business.
What we do with this. We keep the compliance calendar — premises renewals on 1 April, individual registrations by 30 April, the nurse cycle from 1 November — inside the practice's own reporting so it is not a separate thing to remember, and we cost accreditation and registration into the budget properly, including the VAT difference between PSS fees and the exempt premises fee. That runs alongside our practice accounts and tax service. We are accountants: nothing here is clinical, regulatory or legal advice.
What has moved on the CMA remedies, the dates coming up, and one number worth checking in your practice. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
No. In the RCVS's own words the Practice Standards Scheme is a voluntary accreditation for UK veterinary practices. The registration that is compulsory is of premises: if your practice supplies or stores medicines you are legally required to register the premises on the Register of Veterinary Practice Premises, which the RCVS holds on behalf of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. That costs £38 per premises per year in England and Wales, is exempt from VAT and renews on 1 April, with every branch charged separately. Practice Standards Scheme fees, by contrast, carry VAT at 20%. One real benefit of accreditation is that the premises is exempt from a separate VMD inspection.
£38 per premises per year in England and Wales, exempt from VAT, renewing on 1 April. The fee is charged per premises rather than per business, so a practice with one main site and two branches pays three times the fee. The figure quoted by the RCVS is for England and Wales; the position for Scotland and Northern Ireland was not confirmed in our research, so check it directly if you operate there. Registration is triggered more widely than people expect: buildings where vets provide services, premises advertised as part of a practice, facilities open to the public, closed buildings serving multiple clients, and any location receiving wholesale medicine deliveries.
No. RCVS supporting guidance Chapter 3, paragraph 3.1 says all veterinary surgeons in practice must take steps to provide 24-hour emergency first aid and pain relief to animals according to their skills and the specific situation. Taking steps does not require personal continuous provision: the guidance contemplates directing clients to appropriate alternative services when the veterinary surgeon is unavailable, so outsourced out-of-hours cover satisfies it. What is not acceptable is stating that 24-hour emergency cover is provided without giving full information about the service. The CMA's draft Article 6 separately requires practices to publish who their out-of-hours provider is.
It is not. Anyone may call themselves a veterinary nurse regardless of their training. There is a single statutory Register of Veterinary Nurses, onto which all veterinary nurses transferred by 17 February 2015 under a supplemental Royal Charter, but the title itself carries no legal protection. The RCVS proposed statutory protection to Defra in 2021 and it forms part of the current proposals to reform the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966, which are not law. Registration does matter for what a nurse may do: Schedule 3 to the 1966 Act limits delegated medical treatment and minor procedures not entering a body cavity to registered and student veterinary nurses.
It is proposed, not law, and no date attaches to it. Defra consulted on reform of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 from 28 January 2026 to 25 March 2026 and received 6,219 responses. The proposals include a licence to practise for individuals, a fitness-to-practise process, regulation of veterinary nurses and allied professionals, modernised RCVS governance, and regulation of veterinary businesses through a licensing system with enforcement up to loss of licence. The summary of responses has not been published. Until it is, and until legislation follows, the RCVS regulates individual veterinary surgeons and nurses only, and the sole compulsory business registration is of premises that store or supply medicines.
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