USDA Animal Welfare Act Licensing: Exhibitors, Breeders, and Exemptions

A USDA Animal Welfare Act license is issued by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to anyone who commercially breeds, deals in, or exhibits regulated warm-blooded animals. It costs $120 for a three-year term, requires you to pass an on-site inspection before it is issued, and comes with ongoing obligations for veterinary care, recordkeeping, and emergency planning that APHIS verifies through unannounced visits.¹

Which License Class Applies to You

APHIS sorts every licensee into one of three classes based on what the business does with animals. The class determines what activities you are authorized to conduct, and the definitions come from 9 CFR 1.1.²

Class A (breeder). Dealers whose animals are bred and raised on their own premises in a closed colony. If you maintain a breeding operation and sell the offspring to research facilities, other dealers, exhibitors, or pet buyers, you fall here.
Class B (dealer). Anyone who buys and resells animals rather than breeding them, including brokers and middlemen. Class B dealers are prohibited from selling dogs or cats acquired from random sources for use in research.
Class C (exhibitor). Anyone who shows or displays animals to the public, for profit or not. Zoos, circuses, petting farms, free-flighted bird shows, animal acts in television or advertising, and educational exhibits all fall here.

Businesses that only transport or handle regulated animals without buying, selling, or exhibiting them do not get a dealer or exhibitor license. They register separately with APHIS under a Class H or Class T designation.³

The Act covers warm-blooded animals used for research, exhibition, or the pet trade. Dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits are specifically named. Birds are excluded entirely, as are purpose-bred rats of the genus Rattus and mice of the genus Mus. Farm animals used for food, fiber, or agricultural improvement are not covered, and horses are excluded unless used in research.¹

When You Do Not Need a License

Several categories of activity fall outside APHIS licensing entirely, and it is worth checking these first before you file an application.⁴

Small-Scale Breeders

You do not need a license if you maintain four or fewer breeding females and sell only offspring born and raised on your own premises for pets or exhibition. The four-female cap applies across species and across everyone in the same household. Two people living together who each keep three breeding females have exceeded the limit collectively, and both need to be licensed. The same rule reaches anyone acting in concert with others to maintain more than four breeding females on the same property.

Retail Pet Stores

A retail pet store is exempt only if every sale involves the buyer, the seller, and the animal all physically present so the buyer can observe the animal before purchase. The buyer has to be the person who actually takes custody. If you complete sales online, by phone, or by mail and ship the animal to the buyer, you do not qualify as a retail pet store and must be licensed.⁵

Other Carve-Outs

Purebred dog and cat shows, livestock exhibitions, and state or county fairs are not regulated exhibitions. People who sell fewer than 25 dogs or cats per year from their own premises specifically to research facilities are exempt, though selling any animal not born and raised on the premises for research triggers licensing. Individuals who transport animals solely for breeding, boarding, grooming, or medical treatment, with no commercial dealing, are also excluded.

How to Apply

Applications start with APHIS Form 7003A, available through the APHIS website or a regional Animal Care office.³ The form asks for your legal business name, the physical address where animals are housed (including any secondary sites), your federal tax identification number or Social Security number, and a full inventory of every regulated animal on the premises listed by species and count.

The fee is a flat $120, nonrefundable, covering a three-year term. This replaced an older tiered structure that varied by gross sales or animal count. If your application is denied or your license is revoked before the three years are up, APHIS keeps the $120.⁶ APHIS encourages online submission through DocuSign, but printable forms can be mailed to the regional office that serves your state.

The Pre-Licensing Inspection

No license is issued until an APHIS inspector visits your facility and confirms it meets federal standards. After your application is processed, it is assigned to an inspector who contacts you to schedule the visit. The inspector evaluates enclosures, housing conditions, sanitation, and overall animal care practices against the standards in 9 CFR Part 3.⁷

You get up to three attempts to pass, and all three must happen within 60 days of the first inspection. After each failed attempt the inspector gives you a written report identifying the specific problems and how to fix them. Fail the third, and you forfeit the $120 fee and must wait at least six months before submitting a new application.⁸

This is where most applicants run into trouble. The 60-day clock starts from your first inspection, not from when you applied. If you need to build new enclosures or redesign your facility layout, that window is short. Getting your facility fully compliant before you submit the application saves both time and money.

What You Need in Place Before the Inspector Arrives

Attending Veterinarian and Written Program

Every licensee must have an attending veterinarian with the authority to oversee animal health across the facility. If the vet works part-time or on a consulting basis, you need a written Program of Veterinary Care documenting what the vet has instructed and what your facility agrees to do.⁹

For dogs, the written program must address annual physical exams, vaccination schedules for rabies, distemper, and parvovirus, parasite treatment plans covering heartworm, fleas, and intestinal parasites, and preventive care for coat, nails, eyes, ears, skin, and teeth. For other species, the program should still cover vaccinations, parasite control, euthanasia procedures, quarantine protocols, and nutrition guidance appropriate to that species.

Someone must observe all animals daily to check their health and well-being. That person does not have to be the vet, but there must be a system for reporting problems to the attending veterinarian promptly.¹⁰

Contingency Plan

Since July 2022, every licensee has been required to develop and maintain a written plan for handling animals during emergencies. The plan must identify the types of emergencies that could reasonably affect the facility, such as fires, floods, severe storms, or power failures, and lay out specific steps for evacuating or sheltering in place.¹¹

Staff must be trained on the plan within 60 days of its adoption. Employees hired more than 30 days after the plan is already in place must complete training within 30 days of their start date. The plan must be reviewed at least annually, and significant changes require follow-up training within 30 days. You do not submit the plan to USDA. Inspectors verify it exists during facility visits.

Keeping the License

Dealers must document every animal acquisition and disposition, and exhibitors must track their animal inventories. All records must be kept for at least three years and made available for inspection at any reasonable time.¹²

For dogs and cats, medical records must include identification numbers, breed, sex, age, and the names and dates of all vaccines and preventive medications administered. Cage cards can serve as group medical records for litters receiving the same routine treatments, but they still need the required details for each individual animal. Records must be kept for as long as the animal is in your possession and for at least one year after it leaves through sale, transfer, or death.¹³

Licenses run for three years. To renew, submit a new application and the $120 fee at least 90 days before your current license expires. If your most recent license term had no documented compliance violations, the Deputy Administrator may issue a temporary 120-day license to bridge any gap while the renewal is processed.¹⁴ APHIS also conducts unannounced inspections throughout the license term, and your facility must be ready for one at any time. Inspection reports are publicly available through the APHIS Animal Care Public Search Tool, where anyone can look up a specific licensee’s compliance history.¹⁵

If You Are Denied

If you fail your third pre-licensing inspection, you can appeal within seven days of receiving the third inspection report. The appeal goes to the Deputy Administrator of Animal Care, who must issue a decision within seven days. For new applicants, that decision is final. No further administrative review is available.¹⁶

The seven-day window is easy to miss, and once it closes, your only option is to wait six months and start over with a new application and another $120 fee. If you believe the inspector misidentified a deficiency, gather photographs, veterinary records, and equipment receipts before submitting your appeal. A well-documented written submission carries more weight than a general disagreement with the findings.

Penalties for Operating Out of Compliance

APHIS enforces the Act through a graduated system that starts with warning letters and can escalate to formal complaints filed by the USDA Office of General Counsel, with hearings before a USDA Administrative Law Judge.¹⁷

The statute authorizes civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, with each day of a continuing violation counting as a separate offense.¹⁸ After inflation adjustments, the effective maximum is $14,575 per violation as of the most recent published adjustment. Knowingly ignoring a cease-and-desist order carries a separate penalty of $2,185 per day.¹⁹ The Secretary considers the size of the business, the seriousness of the violation, the licensee’s good faith, and any history of past violations when setting the actual amount.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 U.S.C. Chapter 54 – Transportation, Sale, and Handling of Certain Animals
2
eCFR. 9 CFR 1.1 – Definitions
3
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Apply for an Animal Welfare License or Registration
4
eCFR. 9 CFR 2.1 – Requirements and Application
5
Federal Register. Animal Welfare – Retail Pet Stores and Licensing Exemptions
6
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Licensing Rule
7
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Transcript – Preparing for a Prelicense Inspection at Your Facility
8
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Licensing Rule Overview
9
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The Written Program of Veterinary Care
10
eCFR. 9 CFR 2.33 – Attending Veterinarian and Adequate Veterinary Care
11
Federal Register. Handling of Animals – Contingency Plans
12
eCFR. 9 CFR 2.35 – Recordkeeping Requirements
13
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Care Tech Note – Identification and Recordkeeping Requirements for Dogs and Cats
14
eCFR. 9 CFR 2.5 – Duration of License and Termination of License
15
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Care Public Search Tool User Guide
16
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Care Tech Note – Inspection Report Appeals Process
17
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Welfare Act Enforcement
18
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 U.S.C. 2149 – Violations by Licensees
19
Federal Register. Civil Monetary Penalty Inflation Adjustments for 2025