UK vets face major reform as CMA seeks to cut consumer costs

Last month the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has unveiled major changes for the vet industry aimed at boosting competition, improving price transparency and reducing costs for pet owners.

The CMA’s legally binding measures – which will start coming into force later this year – include requirements for all vet practices to publish comprehensive price lists, caps on certain prescription fees, the creation of a price comparison website, and mandatory branding to clearly disclose whether a clinic is part of a larger corporate group.

Angelique Bret, a competition and consumer law expert with Pinsent Masons, said the CMA’s wide-ranging remedies would mean major reform for the UK’s veterinary sector.

“The CMA is signalling that transparency and consumer empowerment will be at the heart of its approach in addressing the problems it had identified,” she said.

“Veterinary businesses will need to implement these new requirements once they come into effect in stages from September 2026 onwards – or face fines up to 5% of their global annual turnover under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA)”.

The CMA’s remedies package includes 20 measures across six categories of business operations, aimed at reducing costs and improving competition and transparency for consumers.

Under the final measures, all practices must display up-to-date prices for standard services – such as consultation fees, common treatments, diagnostic tests, and even typical pet cremations– on their websites and in their premises. Fewer than 40% of clinics currently publish any prices online.

With nearly half of UK pet owners unaware their vet was part of a large chain, the CMA is compelling major vet groups to clearly display the name of their parent company on clinic signage and marketing so that clients understand whether or not the veterinary practice is corporate owned or independent.

Vets will be required to provide a written estimate for any treatment expected to cost £500 or more -except in emergencies – along with an itemised bill after work is done, following research by the CMA which found less than half of pet owners received any pricing information in advance for non-routine treatments, and only 29% got written estimates for major procedures.

To encourage price competition, vets will now be required to inform clients of their right to a written prescription, allowing them to shop around for cheaper medicines, with a cap on the fee for prescriptions – starting at £21 for the first medicine and £12.50 for each additional item, and vet businesses will be required to have written internal policies to prioritise animal welfare and clinical best practice over upselling or cross-referrals within the company.

The cost of pet cremations is also being addressed, with the CMA finding that many pet owners have opted - perhaps unknowingly - for costly individual pet cremations through their vet, when a communal cremation would be substantially cheaper. Vets will have to provide clear, upfront pricing for all cremation options, including add-ons, and always offer the lower-cost communal cremation as a readily available choice.

Long exclusivity notice periods in contracts between vet clinics and out-of-hours emergency providers are to be banned, allowing practices to more easily switch to a different provider if it offers a better deal for their customers.

The CMA also flagged that the existing system for handling client complaints about vets was inadequate - there is currently no mandatory process for vet practices to deal with complaints or provide redress when things go wrong. To strengthen accountability, the CMA is making it compulsory for all practices to have a clear, accessible in-house complaints procedure and to engage in independent mediation if a dispute with a pet owner cannot be resolved directly.

Further CMA consultations are also planned ahead of the implementation of the new rules to help shape and finalise them by September 2026. Implementation of the new rules for vet businesses will occur in stages over the following 12 months, to be driven by the type and size of the vet business.

The CMA will also impose separate requirements on the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) within the next six months, with an expanded role for the industry regulator that will include upgrading its public “Find a Vet” website to include pricing information, enabling third-party comparison tools and making it much easier for pet owners to compare options before choosing a practice.

A new levy on veterinary businesses - scaled by practice numbers - will fund the RCVS’s expanded regulatory activities, which will be phased in between December 2026 and September 2028.

The moves come alongside a UK government consultation earlier this year on updating laws around the veterinary sector in parallel with the CMA’s efforts, which would bring practices under direct regulation and introduce official licensing similar to GP surgeries or care homes, which has been backed by both the authority and the wider vet industry.

Giles Warrington, competition law expert at Pinsent Masons, said the new rules would have mixed implications for larger vet service providers.

“On the one hand, the CMA has refrained from imposing more intrusive remedies such as across-the-board price caps or interventions in acquisitions,” he explained.

“However, the CMA’s remedies package will necessitate significant operational changes for larger vet groups within a shorter timeframe compared to smaller vet practices. They will have to ensure price lists and ownership disclosures are rolled out across hundreds of clinics, train staff to provide written estimates and discuss cheaper alternatives with clients, and review their sales and referral practices.”

“Some revenue streams could be impacted – for instance, capping prescription charges and encouraging pet owners to buy medicines elsewhere could affect margins that corporate practices earn from selling medication for pets,” said Warrington.

The culmination of the vets market investigation comes as the CMA is pursuing a broader agenda of interventions in consumer-facing markets amid ongoing cost-of-living pressures. In its annual plan for 2026–2027, the authority highlighted that “championing consumers” and targeting practices that harm household budgets are top priorities.

Bret said: “The UK veterinary market is one of several sectors where competition authorities have identified rising costs to consumers. For instance, a new market study into private dentistry was launched by the CMA in March 2026 to examine whether patients have sufficient options and information in the £8.4 billion private dental care market. That review will look at issues like pricing transparency, and was initiated after the Chancellor raised concerns about ‘hidden costs’ in private dental bills.”

“Unlike the vets market investigation, the CMA indicated it does not currently expect the dentistry market study to lead to a full market investigation with binding orders,” she said.

Tadeusz Gielas, competition and consumer law expert with Pinsent Masons said: “the vets market investigation is amongst the CMA’s most far-reaching market inquiries in years, showcasing how the authority’s combined competition law and consumer protection expertise and extensive statutory powers can help transform an industry”.

“The CMA remedies for the vets market also align with the authority’s broader ongoing consumer protection and competition law work in areas such as pricing transparency, subscription contracts, and the use of algorithms; and notably come at a time when the Middle East conflict and other global factors are driving up prices for consumers and supply costs for businesses,” said Gielas.  

The CMA’s veterinary services market investigation was formally launched in May 2024, following an informal CMA market review that began in September 2023. The CMA’s original November 2025 deadline to conclude the investigation was extended by six months, until March 2026, due to an “unprecedented response from both the public and the sector”.

The CMA now has until 23 September 2026 to finalise its orders to make the remedies binding on vet business and the RCVS.