The short answer is: usually yes. Most commercial campsites in the UK need a caravan site licence from their local authority. But there are some important exceptions, and the word "licence" covers more ground than most first-time operators realise. This guide walks through the campsite licence landscape in the UK: when you need one, when you don't, what it costs, what it covers, and how it sits alongside planning permission and the Club certification schemes.

A quick caveat: the rules around campsite licensing differ between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and individual local authorities interpret them with their own flavour. This page gives you an accurate general picture, but before you commit to any plan, speak to your local authority's licensing team. A ten-minute phone call beats weeks of guessing.

The Two Things People Mean by "Campsite Licence"

When someone asks whether they need a licence to run a campsite, they're usually mixing together two distinct legal requirements. It's helpful to separate them up front.

The first is a caravan site licence. This is a licence granted by your local authority under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. It regulates how you operate a site: pitch spacing, fire safety, sanitation, water supply, drainage, and so on. Every commercial caravan site in the UK generally needs one, unless it falls under an exemption.

The second is planning permission. This is a completely separate consent from the planning department of your local authority, granted under planning legislation. It governs whether you're allowed to use the land for a campsite in the first place. Changing the use of a field from agricultural grazing to a camping business almost always requires planning permission, unless you're operating under a specific permitted development right such as the 28/60-day rule.

New commercial campsites normally need both: planning permission to change the use of the land, and a caravan site licence from the same local authority to operate the site legally.

CLs and CSs are exempt from the caravan site licence, but the interaction with planning permission is more nuanced. More on this below.

When You Do Need a Caravan Site Licence

You need a caravan site licence for any land used as a "caravan site" as defined by the 1960 Act, unless you fall under an exemption. In practice this means:

The licence is granted by the local authority where the site is located. The authority inspects the site, sets conditions based on national model standards and local considerations, and grants the licence if satisfied. The licence typically runs indefinitely, but with annual renewal fees and periodic inspection.

When You Don't Need a Caravan Site Licence

Several exemptions matter for small-site operators. The common ones:

CL and CS sites

If your site is certified by an exempted organisation, you don't need a caravan site licence for the pitches covered by that certification. The two big exempted organisations are the Caravan and Motorhome Club, which certifies CLs, and the Camping and Caravanning Club, which certifies CSs. Both schemes run under separate Club-set standards and inspections. For a full comparison see our guide to CL sites vs CS sites, and for a step-by-step application walkthrough, our guide to how to start a CL site.

Use within a dwelling's curtilage

Using land within the curtilage of your own home for very limited incidental use may not trigger a site licence requirement, though planning and environmental health rules still apply. This is narrow and easily over-interpreted; treat it as advice, not a route to run a site.

Temporary use under permitted development

The 60-day rule in England (28 days elsewhere in the UK) lets you use land for temporary camping without planning permission for that window. The site licence rules have their own equivalent exemptions for very short uses and certain exempted bodies' rallies. For the detail, see our dedicated guide to the 28-day / 60-day rule.

Agricultural and forestry exceptions

Limited exceptions exist for genuine agricultural and forestry workers using caravans on the land they work. These are tightly drawn and rarely apply to commercial camping operations.

Exempted rallies

Rallies organised by exempted organisations under specific conditions do not require a licence for the duration of the rally. This is relevant to Clubs running their own rallies rather than commercial operators.

What About Planning Permission?

Planning permission is a separate issue to the site licence, and it usually bites first. To run a new commercial campsite on land that isn't already authorised for that use, you generally need planning permission for change of use from whatever the land is currently classified as (usually agricultural or some form of open land) to a camping or caravan site use.

Key things to know about planning:

In short: a CL or CS sidesteps the caravan site licence, but it does not necessarily sidestep planning. Always check with the planning authority.

What a Caravan Site Licence Actually Requires

Licence conditions are drawn from national model standards. Exact conditions vary by authority, but expect requirements across the following areas:

The local authority inspects before granting the licence and periodically afterwards. Non-compliance can lead to conditions being varied, enforcement action, or in serious cases, revocation.

Fees and Timescales

There's a new application fee and an annual renewal fee, both set by individual local authorities and updated from time to time. They're modest relative to running costs for a commercial site. Contact your authority's licensing team for their current fees.

Timescales depend on how busy the local authority is, how clean your application is, and whether planning permission is already in place. From first contact to a licensed operating site can take anywhere from a couple of months to a year or more, with planning often the longest part of the critical path.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Devolved nations have their own licensing regimes with broadly similar aims and some local differences:

If your land is outside England, always work directly with the relevant local authority rather than assuming the English position applies.

Other Permissions You Shouldn't Forget

Even once your site licence and planning are sorted, other compliance obligations apply. These aren't campsite-specific but they do catch new operators out:

A Sensible Order to Tackle This

If you're starting from scratch, a reasonable order of operations looks like this:

  1. Decide whether you want a year-round site, a seasonal one, or a Club-certified CL or CS. This decision drives everything else.
  2. Talk to your local planning authority early. Describe the proposal, the land, and ask what they'd expect in a planning application, or whether they think CL certification is a sensible route for your plot.
  3. If a CL or CS is the right fit, apply to the relevant Club and work through their certification process.
  4. If a full site is the right fit, pursue planning permission first, then the caravan site licence from the same local authority.
  5. Sort insurance, GDPR registration, and any food/alcohol/music licensing you'll need.
  6. Set up a reliable booking system that keeps clean records from day one, which is useful for your operation and for demonstrating compliance with licence conditions.

Done in this order, you avoid the expensive mistake of spending on groundwork for a scheme that isn't permitted on your land.

Summary