Guidance for the Animal Welfare Primate Licences Published

New guidance under the Animal Welfare (Primate Licences) (England) Regulations 2024 outlines licensing requirements for individuals wishing to keep primates and provides statutory instructions for local authorities on administering and enforcing the scheme.

The new guidance covers:

The primate licensing process: statutory guidance for local authorities
Privately keeping primates
Licence applications
Fees
Appointing a suitable person to inspect
Granting primate licences
Inspections of licensed premises
Varying or surrendering a licence
Licence holder applications to surrender a licence
Licence renewal applications
Death of a licence holder
Enforcement and non-compliance
Revoking or varying a licence
Challenging a decision
Reporting primate licences and fees to the Secretary of State

This guidance is for local authority inspectors. It should be read alongside:

The Animal Welfare (Primate Licences) (England) Regulations 2024 (‘the Regulations’) introduced a licensing regime to protect the welfare of primates kept in England. The Regulations apply to the keeping of any non-human primate (referred to as ‘primate’ in this guidance) in England on or after 6 April 2026 unless the primate is kept under a Zoo Licensing Act 1981 licence (‘zoo licence’) or an Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 licence (‘ASPA licence’).

The Regulations require a person who keeps any such primate to hold a primate licence. Existing and prospective keepers of primates will be required to be licensed by the local authority for the area in which the primate is or is proposed to be kept. Only a person (and not an organisation) can keep a primate under this primate licence.

Local authorities are responsible for administering and enforcing this licensing regime. Local authorities must make sure that:

individuals who apply for a licence are likely to meet the licence conditions
licences are not granted to individuals that are disqualified from keeping primates
they take appropriate enforcement action against those individuals who do not have a licence when they should
they monitor compliance with the licence conditions themselves

This guidance is issued under Regulation 20 of the Regulations to assist local authorities in understanding their responsibilities. Local authorities must have regard to this guidance when exercising functions under the Regulations.

Anyone seeking to apply for a primate licence may also use this guidance alongside the Schedule 1 conditions guidance to understand how to obtain a primate licence and comply with the conditions of a primate licence.

The licence conditions set out a range of requirements on the care and management of primates to protect their welfare. Any person who is responsible for a primate also has a legal duty of care under section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to provide for the needs of an animal for which they care for. These include the need:

for a suitable environment
for a suitable diet
to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns
to be housed with, or apart from, other animals
to be protected from pain, suffering, injury, and disease

Compliance with the conditions of a primate licence does not mean this legal duty has been fully met.

Section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 also prohibits animal cruelty which includes causing any unnecessary suffering to a vertebrate animal.

Existing and prospective primate keepers must ensure that they comply with the law including their primate licence conditions. A person who keeps a primate in England on or after 6 April 2026 and does not have a primate licence, a zoo licence or an ASPA licence will be committing a criminal offence.

Existing keepers will need to ensure that any primates currently being kept without a licence have applied for and obtained a licence before 6 April 2026.