Which council rules apply to your pet business
Every guide says check with your local council. This one names it, prices it, and links you straight there.
539
councils read one at a time
205
require a permit or registration
146
publish a fee we could verify
Type a suburb or council name, or start with a capital city.
- Council permit or registration
- No council animal business permit
- Not yet confirmed
Browse all 539 councils
New South Wales (128)
Victoria (79)
Queensland (78)
Western Australia (137)
South Australia (70)
Tasmania (29)
Northern Territory (18)
What is in here
Australian pet businesses are regulated across four separate layers: federal, state and territory, regional, and local council. Each one publishes independently, on its own website, on its own schedule. Nobody publishes the local layer in one place, so we built it. Every council was read on its own website, local laws and fee schedule, and each entry carries the date we last verified it.
297 councils were confirmed to have no animal business permit at all, which is an answer rather than a gap. The remaining 37 are shown as not yet confirmed rather than as having none, because those are two different answers and we do not blur them. A further 17 entries are marked for review, and say so when you open them.
The trap this is built to avoid
The most common mistake is not missing a permit. It is paying for the wrong one. Almost every council publishes a household keeping permit, for a third dog, an excess animal or a non-desexed cat, and it is easy to read that as a business licence. It is not. This directory only records permits that apply to operating a business, so if an entry says no council animal business permit was found, the honest answer is that this council does not licence your business and the planning system is where to look instead.
Before you rely on this
This is general information for Australian pet business owners. It is not legal, accounting, tax or financial advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances.
Everything here is based on publicly available information published by the councils, state and territory governments and federal regulators themselves. Each council entry shows the date we last verified it, and the state layer shows its own date.
We maintain the links, not the underlying rules. We re-check the sources on a schedule, but we do not control what those bodies publish, and rules, thresholds and fees change. Council fees are adopted with each council's annual budget and most changes land on 1 July.
Responsibility for what you do next sits with you. Confirm your position with the relevant authority, your council, or your own accountant or solicitor, and make your own decision before you act. Petboost accepts no responsibility for any action taken on the basis of this resource.
If anything here is inaccurate, tell us and we will correct it promptly. The fastest route is our contact page.
The guides behind the map
The map answers what applies where. These explain why, and carry their own cited sources.
Council permits for a pet business
What the permit is called in each state, and what councils actually assess.
Development approval explained
Which pathway you are on, and how to find out before you sign a lease. One guide per state and territory.
Do you need council approval?
The short answer for a grooming salon or daycare, and what change of use means when you take over a shop.
Victorian Domestic Animal Business registration
The only formal statutory regime of its kind in the country, in full.
Employment costs, state by state
Payroll tax, workers compensation and long service leave, plus the federal award and super.
Pet business licences and permits
The whole national picture, from the ABN up to the state regulator.
Built by the team behind Petboost
We built this directory because our own customers kept asking. The software it came from runs the bookings, payments and records for Australian pet businesses.