Vets market investigation: draft Funding Order and Undertakings
Overview
This consultation is closed. It was open from 30 June to 30 July 2026.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published the consultation responses and the final:
- Veterinary Services Market Investigation (Funding) Order 2026 (Funding Order)
- Veterinary Services Market Investigation Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (Funding) Undertakings 2026 (RCVS Funding Undertakings)
In March 2026, we published the final report of our market investigation into the supply of veterinary services for household pets. This found that the current system is not working as well as it should for pet owners, veterinary professionals and the animals they care for.
To address the problems we have found, we will introduce Orders placing requirements on veterinary businesses and anticipate accepting Undertakings from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS).
Additional costs incurred by the RCVS to undertake monitoring of compliance with the remedies and certain other activities (such as collating information for Find a Vet and enhancing its functionality) will be funded by a levy on relevant veterinary businesses in proportion to the number of small animal first opinion practices (FOPs) - which includes for these purposes outsourced out-of-hours service providers - they operate.
The Funding Order and RCVS Funding Undertakings establish this levy and enable the payment of relevant monies to the RCVS by those veterinary businesses.
About the levy
In broad terms, the RCVS Funding Undertakings require the RCVS to:
- provide the CMA with costs estimates, which the CMA would use to set the levy
- to administer the system for collecting the levy
The Funding Order requires relevant veterinary businesses to pay the levy the CMA sets.
The Notice of accepting the RCVS Funding Undertakings sets out the level of the levy payable by veterinary businesses for the period between March 2026 and March 2027 and the basis of its calculation.
As part of the consultation, we invited views on the:
- draft Funding Order
- draft Explanatory Note to the Funding Order
- Funding Order Notice
- draft RCVS Funding Undertakings
- RCVS Funding Undertakings Notice
We sought views on:
- whether the drafting is consistent with the final report
- whether the drafting achieves the aims of the remedies set out in the final report
How we handle responses
In accordance with our policy of openness and transparency, we may publish non-confidential versions of responses on our webpages. If your response contains any information that you regard as sensitive and that you would not wish to be published, please provide at the same time a non-confidential version for publication on our webpages which omits that material and which explains why you regard it as sensitive.
If you are submitting your response on behalf of a veterinary business or organisation, please also let us know if you wish to remain anonymous if your response is published. Responses from individuals will always be made anonymous where the response is published.
Depending on the number of responses received, we may use AI tools to assist us with handling responses.
Interests
- Markets