Your legal responsibilities

This chapter is about the rules you must follow. Do not try to do it all at once. Read it, tick off what applies to you, and start the slow ones early. Some licences can take up to a year to come through.

Do you need a licence?

In Scotland, your local council is in charge of most business licences. They tell you what you need, take your application, and set the timescales. The GOV.UK licence finder works for Scotland too — but the Scottish results are different from England’s, because Scotland has its own rules.

Food businesses

If you make meat, fish, egg or dairy products to sell to other businesses, you may need full approval, not just registration. Running premises that need approval without it is a criminal offence. Scotland has its own food regulator, Food Standards Scotland (not the FSA), which publishes a starting-a-food-business checklist.

Selling alcohol

Scotland has its own alcohol law — the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 — which is different from England’s.

Renting out short-term lets

Other common licences and rules

Depending on your trade, you may also need to think about:

• Street or market trading, taxis, HMOs, public entertainment, late-night food, tattoo and piercing, and animal businesses — check your council’s licensing pages.
• Playing music in a shop, café or workplace — you need TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS.
• Waste. In Scotland the regulator is SEPA, not England’s Environment Agency. If you carry your own or others’ waste, you generally need to register as a waste carrier. You must also use a licensed contractor for business waste and keep transfer notes.
• Fire safety. You must do a fire risk assessment under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005.
• Asbestos. In older buildings there is a duty to manage it.

Health and safety is covered fully in Running it properly.

Insurance

Some insurance is a legal must. The rest protects you from claims that could sink the business.

Other cover to consider:

• Public liability — for claims if a customer is hurt or their property is damaged. Not required by law, but essential for most businesses that deal with the public, and often demanded by contracts.
• Professional indemnity — if you give advice or professional work (design, consulting). Some professions and clients require it.
• Product liability — if you make or sell products.
• Motor insurance with business-use cover for any vehicle used for work.
• Buildings, stock, and business interruption cover — based on your risks.

Data protection

If you hold any personal details — customers, suppliers, staff, a mailing list, or CCTV — data protection law applies to you. In the UK this is the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, watched over by the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office).

Your main duties are simple to state:

• Have a clear reason (“lawful basis”) for holding people’s data.
• Have a privacy notice telling people what you do with their data.
• Keep the data safe.
• Report serious data breaches within 72 hours.
• Let people see or delete the data you hold about them.
• From 19 June 2026, have a proper way for people to complain, and reply within 30 days.

Protecting your ideas

Your business name and logo do not protect themselves. If your ideas, brand or designs matter, look into:

• Trade marks — protect your brand name and logo (through the UK Intellectual Property Office).
• Registered designs — protect the look of a product.
• Patents — protect a genuine invention.
• Copyright — automatic, and covers things you write, design, photograph or record.