The New Vet Rules: What Your Practice Website Must Show from March 2027

From 23 March 2027, small vet businesses in the UK must put more on their website: prices, care plans, cremation, how to complain and who looks after pets out of hours. Here is what changes, in plain English, with a checklist you can go through in ten minutes.

Why this is happening

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigated vet services for household pets from September 2023 to March 2026. In September 2026 it made a legally binding Order. It requires practices to give pet owners more information, so they can compare practices and prices. Much of it is about what you show on your website.

This guide covers small vet businesses: those with 14 or fewer practices (out-of-hours centres count too). Larger businesses, with 15 or more, must add most of these to their website earlier, from 23 December 2026.

One part of the Order already applies, but it isn’t about your website: since September 2026, out-of-hours providers can’t hold practices to notice periods of more than 12 months or charge early termination fees.

What your website must show from 23 March 2027

1. A price list, one click from your home page. It shows the typical price, including VAT, for each of the 36 services listed in the Order that you offer, with a note that prices can be higher in complex cases. The page must use the word “price”, “prices”, “pricing” or “fees” in its menu link and page details.
2. Parasiticide prices: your most-sold flea, tick and worm products (those you sold 100 or more of last year, or your top 10), with any unavoidable fees and VAT included, a prominent link to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate’s Register of Online Retailers, and a note that owners should ask their vet or SQP which product their pet needs.
3. The details of any pet care plan you offer: what’s included, how often each service can be used, the total price a month and a year, the price of each service on its own, and how to cancel.
4. Practice information: your team’s qualifications (names can be left out), any RCVS Practice Standards Scheme accreditation with a link to the RCVS information about it, and, if another business covers your out-of-hours care, who they are, where they are, their phone number and website, and when they’re open.
5. Your end-of-life options: an individual or communal cremation through you, making your own arrangements with a crematorium, or taking your pet home for burial. Individual and communal cremation prices go on your price list, and extras such as urns or paw prints are priced separately.
6. How to complain: your written complaints process, including the option of mediation if a complaint can’t be settled.
7. The RCVS complaints “Decision Tree”, which the RCVS will publish by 22 January 2027.

Your booking confirmations change too: the first email or text confirming a consultation must give its price and link to your price list page.

If your practice is part of a group or network, you must also show the group’s name. The Order’s definition can include one owner running more than one practice, so check it if you have several branches.

And from 23 September 2027

A second set of changes follows six months later: information about written prescriptions on your website, caps on what you can charge for a prescription, and written estimates and itemised bills for clients.

A ten-minute checklist

Open your website on your phone and answer each question with a yes or a no:

1. Can I reach a price list for the 36 services in one tap from the home page?
2. Does it show our most-sold flea, tick and worm treatments and their prices?
3. If we offer a care plan, does the site give its total price a month and a year?
4. Are our cremation options shown, with prices?
5. Is there a page that explains how to complain?
6. Does it list our team’s qualifications and, if someone else covers out of hours, their details?
7. Do our booking confirmation emails and texts give the consultation price and a link to our price list?

Every “no” is a page or a section to add before March 2027. Then add the RCVS Decision Tree once it is published.

What we see on practice websites

When we checked 40 independent practice websites in October 2026, most already had a price list. Parasiticide prices were missing on almost all of them, and cremation prices on most. Many had no page explaining how to complain. None of this is required yet, so there is time to put it right calmly, rather than in a rush next spring.

You don’t need to build the price list from scratch. Free tools such as Pricebook.vet already exist for it, and the Order lists the 36 services to price. The work that takes time is the rest: the care plan, cremation, complaints and practice pages, written clearly in your practice’s own words.

How we can help

We write and build the missing pages from your practice’s own facts, inside your current website, as part of our website design work. We can also set up your booking confirmations to include the consultation price and the price list link, as part of our AI systems and automation work. We check the pages against the published rules on a set date as part of our website checks and audits. We don’t give legal advice and we never call a website “compliant”: you check the final wording against the Order.

Want a free one-page check? Send us your website address and we’ll tell you what your site already shows and what it still lacks.

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Sources: the CMA’s Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order 2026 and its explanatory note, and the GOV.UK guidance for small and large veterinary businesses (both updated 15 October 2026). Checked 19 October 2026. This is a summary to help you plan, not legal advice.