Do You Need a Licence for a DJ Night? UK Music Licensing for Bars, Explained

Ask a room of London bar managers whether they need a licence to put a DJ on, and you will get three confident answers that contradict each other. The confusion is understandable, because two completely separate things are both called “a licence”, and only one of them involves your council.

Here is the whole picture, with the actual rules and the actual numbers. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, and borough licensing policies vary, so check your own premises licence before you book anyone.

The two things people mean by “a licence”

1. Entertainment licensing. Permission from your local authority to provide regulated entertainment. For most on-licensed bars putting a DJ on before 11pm, this is not required.
2. TheMusicLicence. The copyright licence from PPL PRS that lets you play recorded music in public at all. This is always required, and it has nothing to do with the council.

Nearly every mistake we see comes from someone confusing the two, either assuming the council licence covers copyright, or assuming that because they hold TheMusicLicence they can run a DJ until 2am.

Part one: the council, and why you probably do not need anything

Playing recorded music to an audience is deregulated in alcohol on-licensed premises. Under section 177A of the Licensing Act 2003, as amended by the Legislative Reform (Entertainment Licensing) Order 2014, you do not need entertainment licensing for a DJ set provided all four of these are true:

• Your premises are licensed for the supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises
• The bar is actually open and serving at the time
• The audience is no more than 500 people
• The music takes place between 8am and 11pm on the same day

That 500 figure is worth pausing on. The Live Music Act 2012 originally set it at 200, and the 2014 order raised it to 500 for alcohol-licensed premises and workplaces. Most London bars are nowhere near the ceiling.

There is a second, better part. During that window, conditions on your premises licence that restrict recorded music are suspended. If your licence says all doors and windows must be closed during regulated entertainment, or that a noise limiter must be in operation, those conditions do not apply to a DJ set before 11pm (gov.uk guidance).

Operators are routinely unaware of this and turn down bookings on the basis of conditions that are not in force.

The four traps

1. Eleven o’clock is a hard line. At 23:00 the exemption stops and your premises licence takes over. If it does not authorise regulated entertainment after 11pm, the DJ stops at 11pm. This is the single most common breach, and it is entirely avoidable by reading your own licence before you advertise the night.

2. The exemption follows the licensed area, not the building. If your beer garden or terrace is not included in the area licensed for on-sales, you cannot rely on the exemption out there, even though the room ten feet away is fine. Check the plan attached to your licence, not your assumption.

3. A dry event breaks it. The exemption requires the premises to be open for the supply of alcohol at the time. Run a genuinely alcohol-free event and, counterintuitively, you lose the protection.

4. The council can take the conditions back. Section 177A explicitly allows a licensing authority, following a review of your premises licence, to reinstate suspended conditions or impose new ones. The exemption is conditional deregulation, not immunity, and the route back is a review triggered by complaints.

Part two: TheMusicLicence, which you always need

This one is copyright, not public safety, and it applies whether the music comes from a radio, a playlist, a jukebox or a DJ. It is issued by PPL PRS, covering both the recording rights and the songwriting rights in one invoice.

Published 2026 examples from PPL PRS: a pub or bar of 400 square metres or less playing music via radio pays £359.95 a year plus VAT. That is your baseline for background music.

A DJ set is charged separately, as Specially Featured Entertainment. Under PPL’s 2026 SFE tariff, effective 1 January 2026, the fee is £1.41 for every hour of the event and for every 1 to 25 people attending, with PRS charging its own element on the same invoice. A four hour set with 100 people in the room works out at £22.56 for the PPL portion.

Playing music in public without this licence is copyright infringement and you can be sued for damages, as gov.uk puts it plainly. In practice, almost every trading bar already holds it. The thing to do before your first DJ night is not to apply from scratch, it is to tell PPL PRS that your music use has changed.

Part three: when you do need a Temporary Event Notice

A TEN is the route for a one-off that falls outside what your licence covers: a DJ running past 11pm when your licence stops there, an event at an unlicensed space, or a bigger one-off than usual.

The rules are national and worth knowing before you plan anything:

• Fee: £21.
• Up to 499 people at any one time, including staff and performers
• Up to 168 hours (seven days) per notice
• Maximum 15 TENs per premises per calendar year, totalling no more than 21 days
• An individual can give 5 a year. A personal licence holder can give 50
• Standard TEN: at least 10 clear working days’ notice. Clear working days exclude the day you submit, the day of the event, weekends and bank holidays
• Late TEN: no later than 5 clear working days. Limited to 2 a year, or 10 for a personal licence holder

The important asymmetry: if the police or environmental health object to a standard TEN, there is a hearing and conditions may be added. If they object to a late TEN, it is automatically rejected with no hearing and no appeal. If a night matters to you, do not run it on a late notice.

Ten clear working days is realistically a fortnight of calendar time. Plan the December programme in October.

What actually goes wrong: noise

In our experience, venues rarely get into trouble over paperwork. They get into trouble over a neighbour.

Any responsible authority, including the council and the police, can apply for a review of your premises licence if the licensing objectives are not being met. The powers available at a review are serious: modify your conditions, remove a licensable activity, remove the designated premises supervisor, suspend the licence for up to three months, or revoke it entirely (Licensing Act 2003, section 52).

Practical things that keep you out of that process:

• Talk to the neighbours before the first night, not after the first complaint. A phone number they can call is worth more than any noise limiter.
• Low frequencies are the problem. Bass travels through structure in a way mid-range does not. If you are going to control one thing, control the sub.
• Manage the pavement. A large share of “music” complaints are actually about people outside at 11pm. Smoking area discipline and a staffed door matter more than the volume knob.
• Keep the DJ inside your window. A resident who knows the night ends at 11pm and winds down at 10:45 is protecting your licence for you.

The short checklist

1. Read your premises licence. Note what it says about regulated entertainment and what time it stops.
2. Finishing by 11pm with under 500 people and the bar open? No entertainment licensing needed, and restrictive music conditions are suspended.
3. Going past 11pm? Either your licence covers it, or you need a TEN at least 10 clear working days out.
4. Confirm your PPL PRS licence reflects that you now run DJ sets, not just background music.
5. Speak to the neighbours first.

None of this is a reason not to run a DJ night. For the overwhelming majority of London bars finishing before 11pm, the honest answer to “do I need a licence for a DJ?” is: you already have everything you need.

We place vetted, genre-matched DJs with bars and pubs across London and Greater London, and part of our job is knowing how your room and your licence actually work before we put anyone in it. See how resident DJ hire works, or tell us about your venue. If you have not already, our breakdown of what a DJ night actually costs a London bar in 2026 covers the money side.