Food hygiene ratings in the UK: what 0 to 5 mean and where to check them

The sticker with a number on a cafe door is not decoration and not advertising. It is a score given by an inspector from the local council, and in England the business is free not to display it at all. The rating is published anyway, and checking it from the pavement takes under a minute.

What do the numbers 0 to 5 actually mean?

Five means hygiene standards are very good; zero means urgent improvement is required. The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme scale runs: 5, very good and fully compliant with the law; 4, good; 3, generally satisfactory; 2, improvement necessary; 1, major improvement necessary; 0, urgent improvement required. To be given a 5 a business has to do well in all three inspection elements at once, not in one of them.

Those elements are fixed. The first is how food is handled: preparation, cooking, reheating, cooling and storage. The second is the physical condition of the premises: cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation and pest control. The third is food safety management: the procedures, the staff training and the officer's confidence that standards will hold after the inspection ends. That third element is why a cafe that looks spotless can still come out with a 2.

Which businesses are rated, and which are not?

Everyone who feeds people is rated, not just restaurants. The scheme covers pubs, cafes, takeaways, food vans and stalls, canteens, hotels, supermarkets and food shops, schools, hospitals and care homes, and also businesses selling to other businesses, including manufacturers and wholesalers.

Low-risk businesses are exempt from a published rating: newsagents, chemists and visitor centres selling pre-wrapped goods that do not need refrigeration. They are still inspected, but no score is published. Childminders and people offering caring services at home sit outside the scheme altogether.

Does a restaurant have to display the sticker?

In England, no. In Wales and Northern Ireland, yes, by law. Welsh businesses must display the rating in a prominent place such as the front door, the entrance or a window, and must give the rating verbally if asked in person or by phone. In Northern Ireland the sticker goes at or near every customer entrance, positioned so people can see it before they walk in, and the verbal duty applies there too.

In England display is voluntary: businesses are encouraged to show the rating but cannot be made to. The practical rule follows from that. A missing sticker in an English cafe tells you nothing on its own; a missing sticker in Cardiff or Belfast is already a breach.

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How often are inspections done, and where do you look the rating up?

Local authorities plan inspections yearly on the basis of risk, with intervals running from six months to two years. The highest-risk businesses are seen every six months, lower-risk ones every two years, and some very low-risk premises go longer than that. A new rating is issued after each inspection, but councils use other monitoring methods as well, so the published inspection date does not always match the most recent check.

Look the rating up on the Food Standards Agency site, searching by business name or by the first part of the postcode. Councils upload their data at least every 28 days. For inspections from April 2016 in England and Northern Ireland, and from November 2014 in Wales, the listing shows not only the headline number but a breakdown across the three elements, which is more informative than the score itself.

What if there is no rating to find?

Check how you are searching first. Businesses registered at a private address publish only the first part of the postcode, so searching on a full postcode or a town name will not return them. If there is still nothing, ask staff what rating the business was given at its last inspection, or contact the food safety team at the local council. The full inspection report can be requested from the council under freedom of information rules; the council may refuse, but it has to explain why.

One more detail that rarely occurs to people: a business can appeal its latest rating, and while that appeal is outstanding the number on the sticker and the number online may differ. And where an officer finds an imminent risk to public health, they must act at once, which can mean stopping part of the operation or closing the premises.

The habit of checking has taken hold. In the Food and You 2 survey run by the Food Standards Agency between 19 May and 7 August 2025 among 5,898 adults, 91% had heard of the scheme and 55% had checked a business's rating in the previous twelve months, most often simply by reading the sticker on site. Asked for the lowest rating they would accept, 52% said 4, 25% said 3 and 14% said only a 5 would do.