Guidance for registration

If you are undertaking any of the following activities within the Colchester City Council area, you will need to register with us, the local authority:

• Tattooing
• Cosmetic piercing
• Acupuncture
• Semi-permanent skin colouring / micro-blading
• Electrolysis

A Premises licence is required if you rent either a premises or a room within another business for your own business; this licence allows both the licence holder and one other to be registered as operators as well.

An Operator licence is required to work for a company/business that holds a skin piercing premises licence. This can be for 1 or 2 operators on the same form.

This is a legal requirement under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, as amended by the Local Government Act 2003. The purpose of the law is to protect the public from diseases that could be passed on when providing these treatments.

Activities such as micro-blading and micro-pigmentation fall within the definition of ‘semi-permanent skin colouring’ and require registration.

Cosmetic piercing includes all legal forms of body piercing, including dermal anchoring/implants, but does not include body modification such as scarification or tongue splitting.

Both the premises where the activity is taking place and the person undertaking the activity are required to register. A separate registration must be made for each premises and each person.

The registration fees are a one-off payment for each premises and each person. They are not renewed annually.

Once you have made your application you will receive a confirmation e-mail. An Environmental Health Officer (EHO) will then contact you to discuss the proposed activities and, where necessary, arrange to visit you.