Skin piercing treatments

• About skin piercing treatments
• Byelaws
• How to apply for registration
• Making a complaint about a premises
• Public register of licences

About skin piercing treatments

Your business must be registered to provide any skin-piercing treatments, unless you are a registered medical practitioner or dentist.

This is to ensure that basic health and safety standards are maintained in any premises where these activities are carried out.

Skin piercing treatments include:

• acupuncture
• cosmetic piercing
• electrolysis
• semi-permanent skin colouring
• tattooing

See also:

• Tattooing and body piercing guidance toolkit - on the CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) website

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Byelaws

The councils have adopted byelaws to regulate the conditions of operators and their premises in relation to hygiene and infection control. It is compulsory to register both the premises and the operator under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982.

• Adur byelaws
• Worthing byelaws

Byelaws in Adur:

Current byelaws:

• Byelaw for acupuncture, tattooing, semi-permanent skin-colouring, cosmetic piercing and electrolysis (Adur) (4,216KB)

Byelaws in Worthing:

Current byelaws:

• Byelaw for Acupuncture, Tattooing etc (Worthing) (151KB)

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Public register of licences

You may also be interested in our public register of licences:

This link below takes you to our public registers online portal:

• select 'Licence Register'
• then in the 'Licence Description' field
• then select 'Skin piercing'
• then click 'search'
• then scroll down the page to see the list:

View our public register of licences

Please note: The councils' public register data is in the public domain. It is the user's responsibility to ensure they are compliant with any relevant legislation when sharing or using data.

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How to apply for registration

When making your enquiry to us via our online portal:

• After clicking the link you will need to register in order to submit your enquiry.
• Once registered please click on 'Licensing' - then 'Apply for a Licence'.

Apply for a Licence

Licence fees:

For details of the charges please see:

• Environmental Health Fees & Charges 2025/26 - Adur & Worthing Councils (123KB)

Making a complaint about a premises

If you would like to make a complaint or have a query regarding a premises where skin piercing takes place, this can be done via our online portal:

• After clicking the link you will need to register in order to make a complaint.
• Once in the portal, select 'Requests for Service or Complaints' and then select 'Health and Safety at Work complaint/enquiry'.

Make a complaint or enquiry

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