Two small tents pitched on a quiet grass field at a Certificated Site

If you run a Certificated Site, the five unit rule is the number your whole certification hangs on. It sounds simple enough on paper, five units, no more, but the detail of what actually counts, when it applies, and what happens if you slip over it catches out more CS owners than you would think. This guide walks through exactly what the rule says, what counts as a unit, and how to run your site so the number never becomes a source of stress.

We will cover where the CS five unit rule comes from, what actually counts towards it, the organised rally exemption, the everyday situations that trip owners up, and simple habits that keep you compliant without turning every booking into a headcount.

What the CS five unit rule actually says

A Certificated Site, or CS, is a small campsite certified by the Camping and Caravanning Club. The certification lets a landowner run a site without needing full planning permission or a site licence from the council, and that exemption exists because the site stays genuinely small. The condition attached to it is that no more than five units may be on the land at any one time.

This comes from the same piece of legislation that governs CL sites, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, and the cap works the same way in both cases. It is not a target to aim for or a number you round up to on a quiet week. It is the legal line between an exempt CS and a site that is technically operating without the licence it needs.

If you are still deciding whether a CS or a CL suits your land, our guide to CL versus CS sites covers the differences in certifying club, cost and flexibility beyond the shared unit limit.

What counts as a unit on a CS site

CS sites tend to attract a wider mix of guests than CL sites, tents included alongside caravans and motorhomes, so getting clear on what counts as a "unit" matters even more here. In practice, each of the following takes up one of your five places, regardless of size or how long it is staying:

Because CS sites so often mix tents and touring units on the same field, this is where the counting gets fiddly. A family who arrive with a caravan and pitch a separate tent for the teenagers is usually two units, not one, unless your certifying club's terms say otherwise for that specific arrangement. If you are ever unsure whether a particular booking counts as one unit or two, it is worth checking directly with the Camping and Caravanning Club rather than guessing and hoping.

What does not count is a car parked without an accompanying tent or caravan, or a day visitor who is not staying the night. The test is always what is actually being slept in, not how many vehicles or people arrived with it.

Bookings are not the same as units

One of the most common slip ups is treating "five bookings" as the same thing as "five units". They are not. A single booking that includes a caravan and a separate tent for visiting family is really two units against your cap. Likewise, a booking taken for "one pitch" that turns out to be a caravan plus an awning tent big enough to sleep in is worth checking, since a sleeping tent alongside a caravan can sometimes count separately.

The safest habit is to ask a simple, direct question at the point of booking: how many separate units, tents, caravans or motorhomes, will actually be staying overnight. Record that number against the pitch, not just the party size, so your running total of units on site is always accurate.

The rally and organised meet exemption

Like CL sites, CS sites are permitted a small number of organised club events each year where the normal five unit cap can be exceeded. These are recognised meets or rallies organised through the Camping and Caravanning Club, not simply a busy bank holiday weekend you decide to treat as an exception.

The number of meets allowed per year, and how many nights each one can run, depends on your certifying club and the specific terms attached to your certificate. Do not estimate this from memory or from what a CL owning friend has told you, since the detail can differ. If you want to host a larger event, get the exemption confirmed in writing with your club well before the date, and keep that confirmation filed alongside your CS certificate. Running with more units than your certificate allows on the assumption it will count as a meet is not a risk worth taking with your certification.

Where owners slip over the limit without meaning to

Almost no CS owner sets out to breach the five unit rule. It tends to happen through small, ordinary moments rather than deliberate overbooking:

None of these are dramatic failures on their own. They are quiet, everyday moments where the count creeps up without anyone noticing, right up until a club inspection or a neighbour's complaint brings it to light.

How to keep track without it becoming a chore

The CS owners who never worry about the five unit rule are the ones who treat it as a simple, always visible number rather than something to calculate from memory every time a booking comes in. A few habits make this automatic:

If your CS is still run from a paper diary or a whiteboard in the porch, this is exactly the sort of detail that quietly goes wrong on a busy weekend. Proper campsite booking software shows you live occupancy at a glance, so you know how many of your five places are filled before you say yes to one more tent.

What happens if you breach it

Regularly exceeding five units, whether through loose tracking or deliberate overbooking, puts your CS certification at risk. The Camping and Caravanning Club can withdraw certification, and without it your land needs full planning permission and a site licence to keep operating as a campsite at all, a far slower and more expensive process than turning away one extra tent. A single accidental overlap of an hour is unlikely to end your certificate, but a pattern of it, especially if reported or spotted during an inspection, is a genuine risk to take seriously.

The key takeaway

The five unit rule is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the specific condition that lets a field become a legal, licence free campsite, and it protects something genuinely valuable for small site owners. Know exactly what counts as a unit on your particular mix of tents and tourers, treat rally exemptions as something to confirm with your club rather than assume, and build simple habits around tracking who is actually on site right now. Do that and the five unit rule stops being a worry and just becomes part of running a well organised little CS.

If you would like an always accurate view of exactly how many units are occupying your CS, right down to today's arrivals and departures, try CampSuite free today. It is free for CL and CS sites, takes about 15 minutes to set up, and no card is required to get started.