Guide
Food hygiene rating display rules, nation by nation
Updated
The most common assumption about the green sticker is that the rules are the same everywhere. They are not, and the difference between two of the nations and the other two is the difference between an offence and a preference.
Who runs it
The Food Standards Agency runs the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in partnership with local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland is outside it, with its own arrangements under Food Standards Scotland.
So the sticker you recognise covers three of the four nations, and the law behind it differs between those three.
Wales: a statutory duty
The Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) Act 2013 imposes a requirement to display food hygiene rating stickers at section 7, and covers requests for information about ratings at section 8.
It also builds the enforcement: offences at section 9, penalties at section 20 and fixed penalties at section 21. That combination is what makes display a compliance matter in Wales rather than a marketing decision.
Northern Ireland: its own Act
The Food Hygiene Rating Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 puts Northern Ireland in the same position in principle: display is a requirement rather than a choice.
It is separate legislation, so its detail on placement and on timescales is its own. A business operating in both Wales and Northern Ireland should read the applicable Act rather than generalising from one to the other.
England: voluntary, and increasingly academic
There is no duty to display in England. The rating is still assessed, still published on the Food Standards Agency's ratings service and still released as open data.
So the practical effect of not displaying is that the customer looks it up on their phone instead of reading it at the door. Where the rating is good, not displaying achieves nothing. Where it is poor, not displaying does not hide it.