UK vet pricing index · Pre-launch
Vet Cost Index is the UK’s transparent vet-pricing index, built around the Competition and Markets Authority’s veterinary services price-transparency remedies. We track every UK vet practice’s published prices for the routine services in scope of the CMA mandate, and surface them like-for-like by service, location and ownership group.
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A routine vet consultation in the UK typically costs between £40 and £80, with corporate-owned chain practices (CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, VetPartners, Vets4Pets) generally pricing above local independents. Out-of-hours consultations run roughly two to four times the in-hours fee. Like-for-like national figures will be published here as the CMA’s price-transparency remedies are phased in.
The CMA’s price-transparency requirement covers the routine services consumers buy most often. Vet Cost Index will publish published prices for each, captured directly from each practice’s website.
The Competition and Markets Authority opened a market investigation into UK veterinary services for household pets in May 2024 after a review found that pet owners faced opaque pricing, limited choice, and a market increasingly consolidated under a small number of corporate ownership groups. The investigation’s 2025 final report identified an adverse effect on competition and ordered a package of remedies.
Among those remedies: every regulated UK vet practice will be required to publish standardised price disclosures on its website covering routine services, out-of-hours surcharges, and the dispensing fee charged on prescription medication. The CMA also ordered clearer disclosure of corporate ownership, plain-language explanation of treatment options, and a duty to surface lower-cost alternatives where clinically appropriate.
Reference
The full regulatory timeline from market review to final report to phased-in remedies.
Guides
Plain-English answers to what the CMA found, who owns UK vet practices, and how to read a price-transparency disclosure.
Industry figures and what the CMA price-transparency remedies will publish for each routine service.
Six corporate consolidators together own a substantial share of UK first-opinion practices. The CMA’s price-transparency remedies require every practice to disclose its corporate ownership.
A routine vet consultation in the UK typically costs between £40 and £80 depending on location and ownership group, with London and the South East at the upper end and rural independent practices at the lower end. The Competition and Markets Authority's 2024 final report on UK veterinary services found that consultation fees rose roughly 60% over the previous decade — well above general inflation — and that price transparency was a primary contributor to consumer harm. Out-of-hours consultations typically run two to four times the in-hours fee, and corporate-owned practices (CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, VetPartners, Pets at Home / Vets4Pets) generally price above local independents. Vet Cost Index will publish like-for-like comparison data as soon as the CMA's price-transparency remedies require disclosure.
The Competition and Markets Authority opened a market investigation into UK veterinary services for household pets in May 2024 after its earlier review found that pet owners faced unclear pricing, limited choice, and concentrated corporate ownership. The CMA's final report, published in 2025, identified an adverse effect on competition and proposed a package of remedies including mandatory price-transparency disclosure on every UK vet practice's website, plain-language explanation of treatment options and ownership, and clearer information on out-of-hours and prescription pricing. The remedies are being phased in from 2026 onwards. Vet Cost Index is built to capture and aggregate the resulting price disclosures into a single comparable index.
UK veterinary prices have risen materially faster than general inflation over the last decade. The CMA's 2024 market investigation identified four contributing factors: opaque pricing that prevents consumers comparing options before treatment; the consolidation of UK vet practices under six corporate groups (CVS, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus, Medivet, VetPartners, and Pets at Home's Vets4Pets) which together own a large share of practices; a lack of routine information about prescription medication margins, which the CMA found to be a significant profit centre; and constrained consumer choice when emergency or out-of-hours care is needed. The CMA's price-transparency remedies are designed to address the first of these directly.
Following the CMA's 2025 final report into UK veterinary services, mandatory price-transparency disclosure on every regulated vet practice's website is being phased in through 2026. The exact compliance deadlines are set by the CMA's implementing order. Vet Cost Index begins capturing each practice's published price disclosures as they go live, and will publish a national index of routine consultation fees, vaccinations, dental treatment, neutering, dispensing fees and out-of-hours surcharges as coverage builds.
The CMA's 2024 market investigation found evidence that corporate-owned vet practices in the UK price above local independents on routine services, and that the corporate ownership of a practice is often not made clear to the consumer. The six largest corporate groups in UK veterinary services are CVS Group, IVC Evidensia, Linnaeus (Mars Veterinary Health), Medivet, VetPartners, and Pets at Home's Vets4Pets — together they own a material share of UK first-opinion practices. Vet Cost Index will surface ownership-group affiliation alongside published prices so consumers can compare like-for-like across corporate and independent practices.
Vet Cost Index is independent. We have no commercial relationships with vet practices, corporate ownership groups, or pet insurance providers. Every published price is sourced directly from each practice’s own CMA-mandated price-transparency disclosure with the source URL recorded for audit. Industry figures cited above reference the CMA’s 2024 market investigation final report and the PDSA Animal Wellbeing Report; specific figures will be replaced with live like-for-like data as coverage builds.