Burger Van Licence UK: Full Requirements

A burger van needs a street trading licence or consent from every council whose streets you trade on, a one-off food business registration with the council where the van is kept overnight, food hygiene training for anyone serving, a documented food safety system, gas equipment kept in a safe condition — in practice evidenced by an annual gas safety certificate — and public liability insurance.

If you serve hot food after 11pm — and burger vans more than any other unit do — you also need a premises licence for late night refreshment. That is a separate authorisation under a different Act, and it is the one most burger van operators do not know about until someone tells them.

Everything below assumes England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland run different street trading regimes.

The Late-Night Problem That Is Specific to Burger Vans

Most mobile food units trade lunchtimes and events. Burger vans work the post-pub trade, the night market and the festival that runs to 2am — which puts them inside a licensing regime that daytime traders never meet.

Schedule 2 of the Licensing Act 2003 defines it as supplying hot food or hot drink "at any time between the hours of 11.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. … to members of the public, or a section of the public, on or from any premises, whether for consumption on or off the premises". That is a licensable activity, and carrying it on without authorisation is an offence under section 136 punishable by "imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine, or to both".

Compare that with unlicensed street trading, which under Schedule 4 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 carries "a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale" and no custodial option. The late-night offence is the more serious of the two, and it is the one that gets missed.

There is an exemption for supply "on a vehicle at a time when the vehicle is not permanently or temporarily parked" — but a van parked at a pitch serving a queue is temporarily parked, so it does not help. Some councils have also disapplied the requirement locally for an area or a time band, which is worth one email to find out. Our late night refreshment licence guide covers both points and the application process.

If you only trade late a few times a year, temporary event notices are usually the right instrument rather than a full premises licence.

Street Trading: One Permission Per Council

Under Schedule 4, each council designates its streets as licence streets, consent streets or prohibited streets, and controls them independently. Trade in three council areas and you need three permissions, each with its own fee, form and renewal date.

Which route you are on matters more than the paperwork. On a licence street the council must grant unless it has grounds to refuse, and a refusal can be appealed to a magistrates' court. On a consent street the decision is discretionary and there is generally no appeal. The street trading consent guide explains the difference; the step-by-step application guide covers the process.

Costs range from around £100 a year in a small district to several thousand for a busy urban pitch — see the council-by-council cost breakdown, or estimate your own total with the free licence cost calculator.

Apply to renew before the licence expires and it stays valid while the council decides. Miss that date and you cannot trade until a new licence is granted. Our renewal deadlines guide covers the windows, which are usually tighter than the Act requires.

Food Registration and Hygiene

Register the food business, free, at least 28 days before you start trading, with the council for the place the van is kept overnight — FSA guidance for food businesses on the move states you "must register your food business at the location where it is stored overnight". This is a different system from street trading licensing, which is handled by a different council department. See our food business registration guide for how the registration works if you trade across several council areas.

Food hygiene training for everyone handling food. The law does not name a qualification. Annex II, Chapter XII of retained Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 requires food business operators to ensure "that food handlers are supervised and instructed and/or trained in food hygiene matters commensurate with their work activity", and GOV.UK puts the same duty as: "train all your staff and make sure they follow good personal hygiene practices". In practice a Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate is what councils, event organisers and inspectors expect to see, and it is the cheapest way to evidence the duty — but it is the training that is required, not that specific certificate. It attaches to the person, not the van.

A documented food safety management system. For a burger van the practical route is the FSA's free Safer Food, Better Business pack, adapted for a unit with a water tank rather than plumbing — covered in our guide to SFBB for mobile caterers.

Burger vans attract more scrutiny here than most units, for a straightforward reason: raw minced beef is a high-risk food. Mincing increases the surface area exposed to bacteria and distributes any surface contamination through the product, which is why a burger has to be cooked through in a way a whole steak does not. Expect an environmental health officer to focus on three things:

• Core temperature. Keep a probe thermometer, use it on the first burger of each batch, and record the checks. This is the single most useful record you can keep.
• Raw-to-cooked separation in a very small space — separate boards, separate tongs, a defined prep sequence, and raw meat stored sealed below ready-to-eat food in the fridge.
• Chilled storage stability across the day, including the journey from base to pitch and what happens if the generator stops.

Gas, Electrics and Fire

LPG gas safety. If you run gas appliances — and most burger vans run a griddle and a fryer on LPG — regulation 35 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 puts the duty on you directly: "It shall be the duty of every employer or self-employed person to ensure that any gas appliance, installation pipework or flue installed at any place of work under his control is maintained in a safe condition so as to prevent risk of injury to any person." That is a continuing safe-condition standard: it names no interval, and nothing in those Regulations requires a mobile catering unit to hold a certificate. (The 12-month check in regulation 36 applies to residential landlords.) What sets the annual rhythm is HSE guidance. Catering information sheet CAIS23 says inspection frequency should follow the manufacturer's recommendations but, "as a general rule, annual inspections are a reasonable minimum frequency, with repairs carried out as necessary". Councils and event organisers ask for the certificate before allocating a pitch, and insurers want it current. Gas work must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer, and CAIS23 records the GSIUR requirement that operatives hold "valid certificates of competence relevant to the particular types of gas equipment and gas work they are involved with" — for a burger van, LPG mobile catering. Our LPG gas safety certificate guide covers what the inspection actually checks.

PAT testing for portable electrical equipment and generators.

Fire precautions. A griddle and a fryer in a confined space with LPG cylinders is the highest-risk configuration in mobile catering. Appropriate extinguishers and a fire blanket, cylinders secured and stored in a ventilated compartment, and adequate ventilation and extraction over the cooking line. Event organisers frequently ask for a fire risk assessment as a condition of pitching, and it is worth having one written down whether or not anyone asks.

Insurance

Public liability insurance is not a statutory licence, but no council, market or event organiser will let you trade without the certificate. Cover of £5 million is a common minimum requirement; £10 million is often asked for at larger events.

You will also need appropriate motor insurance for the vehicle, and employers' liability insurance if you employ anyone. Our food truck insurance costs guide covers what to budget.

Where You Can Actually Park

A street trading licence authorises trading; it does not override road traffic law. Waiting and loading restrictions, red routes, bus lanes and zig-zags near crossings all still apply, and serving from the offside into the road is a common enforcement trigger. Our guide to where you can legally park and trade covers how the two interact.

On private land — a pub car park, an industrial estate, a business park — you generally need the landowner's permission instead of a council licence, though some councils read "street" broadly enough to catch land near the highway. See street trading on private land.

Burger Van Setup Checklist

• Street trading licence or consent from every council you trade in
• Late night refreshment premises licence if you serve hot food past 11pm — or TENs for occasional late trading
• Food business registration, once, where the van is kept overnight, 28+ days ahead
• Food hygiene training for everyone handling food — a Level 2 certificate is the usual evidence
• Documented food safety system with core-temperature records
• Gas appliances, pipework and flues maintained in a safe condition (GSIUR 1998 reg 35) — an annual LPG inspection by a Gas Safe engineer competent in mobile catering is HSE's stated minimum benchmark and what councils ask for
• PAT testing for electrical equipment and generators
• Fire extinguishers, fire blanket, secured and ventilated cylinder storage, extraction over the cooking line
• Public liability insurance, £5m minimum, certificate to hand
• Renewal dates diarised per council, with reminders before each window opens

Run the free compliance checker to see what your setup is missing, or build a personalised list with the startup checklist generator. StreetComply is building a dashboard that keeps every licence, certificate and renewal date across every council in one place — join the waitlist.

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This guide covers England and Wales. Scotland operates under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and Northern Ireland under the Street Trading Act (Northern Ireland) 2001. Fees, street designations and local late-night exemptions are set by individual councils — confirm your position with each council's licensing team before trading. This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

• Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, Schedule 4 — Street Trading
• Licensing Act 2003, Schedule 2 — Provision of Late Night Refreshment
• Licensing Act 2003, section 136 — unauthorised licensable activities
• GOV.UK — Register a food business
• Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Annex II Chapter XII — training
• GOV.UK — Food safety: your responsibilities
• Gas Safe Register
• Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 35 — duties of employers and self-employed persons
• HSE Catering Information Sheet No 23 — Gas safety in catering and hospitality
• GOV.UK — Starting a food business (registration is free; register at least 28 days before trading)
• FSA / GOV.UK — Businesses that supply or produce food on the move (register at the location where it is stored overnight)