To hold a gathering of birds, a general licence must be applied for by the person organising the event. This involves applying to APHA, notifying them of the date or range of dates and the address of the premises the gatherings are taking place, at least 7 days before the event.

The person applying for the licence must give their details, including full name of contact person, contact address, telephone number and email address (where available), and anticipated numbers and type(s) of birds that will be gathered together, plus the purpose of the gathering.

This is to keep a record in case there is an outbreak of notifiable disease, and in an update to the general licence issued on 7th February 2025, as well as ensuring the pigeons do not come from a control zone, there is now a condition relating to the mandatory requirement for those wishing to keep any species of birds, which is to place themselves on the Kept Bird Register, i.e. “The licensee must also advise participants to comply with the mandatory registration requirements for keepers of birds kept at any premises in Great Britain”.

Full details of the general licence to hold a gathering of birds can be found on the Government website and also on our downloads page.

Chris Sutton
RPRA CEO

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19/09/24: In England and Wales you must register if you keep poultry or other captive birds by 1st October 2024. This includes any birds you keep as pets. You are breaking the law if you do not register.

How to register

If you have a County Parish Holding (CPH) number

• To race from the EU, you will have already informed the authorities that you keep birds and you do NOT need to register again.
• If you have a CPH number for farming purposes, you must add birds to your address

If you DO NOT have a CPH number
You can register online, it should take about 10 minutes. You will be asked for:

• your contact details
• details of the owner of the birds (if this is not you)
• the location where you keep the birds
• details of the birds you keep (species, number and what you keep them for)

Please go to Register as a keeper of less than 50 poultry or other captive birds 

You do not need to register psittaciformes or passeriformes (such as budgies, parrots, cockatiels and finches) if they are both:

• fully housed in a dwelling (your home or another indoor structure)
• with no access to the open air

You do not need to register an exempt bird to visit a veterinary practice.

If your birds are taken outdoors at any time, for example to be exercised, trained, or taken to bird gatherings or shows, they MUST be registered. Go to poultryregistration.defra.gov.uk

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04/09/24: Keepers of less than 50 birds are now obliged by law to register for a CPH number, and you must do this by 1st October. See below for the ways to do this.

By registering, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) will contact you with updates and guidance if there’s a disease outbreak (such as bird flu) in your area, and you’ll help prevent the spread of disease and protect all kept birds, including back yard flocks.

Members without internet access can ask a friend or relative to do it on their behalf, or can post in a completed form.

Follow this link to register via the gov.uk website

Download the form to register up to 50 birds

Download the form to register a Pigeon Racing Establishment for racing from the continent  

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15/08/24: During the recent outbreaks of Avian Flu, local councils had to send their environmental officers out to locate bird keepers to ensure the birds were kept safely under cover, to prevent further outbreaks. As you can imagine, this was a very difficult and very costly exercise. Defra looked for a solution and decided that registering all bird keepers with a County, Parish and Holding number, known as a CPH number, would allow them to send an email or letter directly to bird keepers, to ensure high biosecurity measures were upheld during the outbreak in the area.

Some have imagined this would bring upon themselves a hoard of Defra officials clothed in white overalls, gloves and breathing apparatus, wandering around their garden to view the birds. This would only occur if your birds had contracted Avian Flu, and in such a case, public health has to take priority.

Please be assured that it is no way the same requirements we must comply with to race from France; the yearly vet visit and declaration is an EU requirement. This is purely a requirement for all bird keepers to register for a county parish and holding number.

The information below will direct you to the relevant government directives:

Subject: New measures to help protect keepers, their birds and the general public from notifiable avian diseases

As you may be aware, a GB-wide consultation took place in 2023, facilitated by Defra on behalf of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the UK Government, regarding the registration of kept birds in GB. The joint-government response and summary of responses to the poultry registration consultation was published on gov.uk.

As a result, all GB administrations have laid legislation that requires all bird keepers – even those who keep only a single bird – to officially register their bird location(s). Currently, only those who keep 50 or more poultry must do so, limiting the effectiveness of our national disease control measures. In Scotland, this legislation is the Avian Influenza (Preventive Measures) (Scotland) Amendment order 2024.

In Scotland, keepers have between 1 September and 1 December 2024 to register the location of their birds on the new Scottish Kept Bird Register (SKBR). Those previously registered on the GB Poultry Register will be required to re-register on the SKBR between these dates.

In England and Wales, keepers are encouraged to register their birds ahead of the legal deadline on 1 October 2024.

The new requirements apply to owners of commercial and backyard flocks, birds of prey, pigeon fanciers, and all other captive birds (including pets), but do not apply to birds on premises that belong to the order psittaciformes (parrot family, including budgerigars) or passeriformes (perching birds, including jays and finches), which have no outdoor access and are housed within a fully enclosed structure.

By registering their birds, keepers will ensure they receive important updates relevant to them, such as on any local avian disease outbreaks and important information on biosecurity rules to help protect themselves and their flocks.

This will help to manage potential disease outbreaks, such as avian influenza and Newcastle disease, and limit any spread. The information on the register will be used to identify all bird keepers in disease control zones, allowing for more effective surveillance, so that zones can be lifted at the earliest possible opportunity, freeing keepers from disease control restrictions.

These changes come following the UK’s worst ever outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), with more than 360 cases across Great Britain since late October 2021, including in a significant number of backyard flocks. We have also seen a change in the epidemiology of the disease. Prior to 2021, HPAI in the UK was seasonal, and outbreaks would start when wild waterfowl migrated into GB in autumn, and would end when these wild waterfowl departed in summer. During the last three years, the circulating strain of HPAI H5N1 was detected in a wider range of wild bird species, with maintenance of the virus in different native UK wild bird species throughout the summer months. We have also observed spill-over of infection into a broad range of mammalian hosts globally, highlighting the potential for viral adaptation and a resultant increased zoonotic risk (risk of disease transmitting from animals to humans).

The SKBR will be launched on 1 September 2024 and will provide a one-stop-shop registration portal for all keepers with birds in Scotland, taking less than 10 minutes to register. The system will allow Scottish keepers to populate, access and amend their information at any time, whilst also prompting keepers to refresh their information on a 12-month rolling basis (in line with legislation). The aim of this online system is to encourage registration through provision of a simple, user friendly tool, whilst significantly increasing the scope and accuracy of the information that is available to the Animal and Plant Health Agency during an outbreak scenario.

Further information on the registration of birds can be found on gov.scot, gov.uk and gov.wales.

Please share this information with any of your organisation members, friends or family as appropriate. To download this article in .pdf format, click here.