Businesses requiring a licence

You are likely to need a licence if you want to:

• sell on credit 
• hire or lease out goods for more than three months 
• lend money 
• issue credit cards or trading checks 
• arrange credit for others 
• offer hire purchase terms 
• collect debts 
• help people with debt problems 
• advise on people's credit standing
• administer agreements (but do not collect debts) for creditors or assignees (from October 2008, you can apply for the licence from 6 April)
• help individuals to locate and correct records about their financial standing (from October 2008, you can apply for the licence from 6 April).

You are not likely to need a licence (unless you are a credit-reference agency) if:

• you only deal with limited companies 
• you are just accepting credit cards or trading checks issued by someone else (and you didn't introduce the borrower to them) 
• you are just allowing customers to pay their bills in four or fewer instalments within a year beginning on the date of the arrangement.

Your licence must cover all the categories of credit activities that you plan to carry out.  It is a criminal offence to carry out any activities that are not covered by your licence.

All professions or trades are 'businesses' for licensing purposes. Even if you make no charge for services or are non profit-making, you may still need a licence.

If your licence is due for renewal or if you are applying for a new licence or to vary an existing licence you might want to refer to Do you need a credit licence? (pdf 166 kb).

To make an application please go to the applications page.

Back to: Consumer credit licences