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5-star licensed animal businesses in Suffolk

78 animal businesses in Suffolk currently hold the maximum 5-star licensing rating, spread across 10 towns and 3 licensing authorities.

A 5-star rating means the operator exceeds the statutory guidance standards and has been trading for more than a year with a low risk score. It is the strongest signal a council register gives — but it is a compliance and risk judgement made at inspection, not a measure of how well your particular animal will be looked after. Treat it as a floor to filter on, not a ranking to choose from.

14 of the 24 Suffolk towns we track have no 5-star rated business at all. In those areas the practical choice is a 4-star operator, a business in a neighbouring town, or a sitter who comes to your home — which is not a licensable activity and so carries no rating either way.

Star ratings are issued by the licensing authority and combine a risk score with a compliance assessment — they are not customer reviews and we never merge them with one. A new business cannot normally receive 5 stars regardless of quality, and a 2- or 3-star business is still fully compliant with the law. Ratings are reproduced exactly as published by the issuing council.

These are businesses licensed to board animals for payment under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018. They are not house sitters. A sitter who stays in your home and cares for your pet there does not need this licence — the licensing regime applies to boarding at the operator's premises, home boarding, day care, breeding, and sale of pets.

Where these figures come from

Basis

Listed asking rates, not transacted prices

• Local authority animal activity licence registers — English local authorities. Factual fields extracted from each council's published public register: trading name, licence number, licensable activity, star rating and expiry date. Where a council redacts an address — as they routinely do for home boarders operating from a residential address — the record is kept without a location and never geolocated by inference. Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. Refreshed 1 August 2026.
• Postcode geography — Office for National Statistics / Ordnance Survey, via postcodes.io. Postcodes already published in council registers are resolved to a parish or ward and coordinates. Only postcodes the council itself published are looked up. Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. Refreshed 1 August 2026.
• Compiled from 3 local authority registers. Each entry links back to its issuing council on that council's page.