Music licence for business UK: what TheMusicLicence covers and where it stops
A UK business that plays music to staff or customers usually needs TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS. What it covers, what a four-chair barber pays under the 2026 tariffs, and why a studio's Commercial track licence is a different right.
A barber in Leeds with four chairs plays a streaming app through one speaker from nine until six. In the UK that is a public performance, and the business usually needs a music licence for it. Since 2018 that licence has been a single one, TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS, which GOV.UK describes as replacing the separate licences that used to come from PRS for Music and PPL. It covers the music being played in the room. It does not cover putting a track under the shop's own reel, and a track licence bought from a studio like ours does not cover the room. The two rights sit side by side, and most of the confusion I see in our inbox comes from treating them as one.
What does a music licence for a business in the UK actually cover?
Two sets of people are paid when a recorded song is played in a shop. The songwriter and publisher own the composition. The record label and performers own the recording. In the UK, PRS for Music collects for the first group and PPL for the second, and since 2018 the two have sold one combined public performance licence through their joint company, PPL PRS Ltd.
The licence is tied to the premises and the way music is used there. GOV.UK lists the kinds of places that usually need one: shops, offices, hairdressers, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, pubs, sports grounds, gyms, churches and public transport. PPL PRS is blunt about the staff-only case: music played outside a domestic setting is classed as a public performance "even if the music can only be heard by employees".
The legal root is section 19 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Subsection 3 makes "the playing or showing of the work in public" an act restricted by the copyright in a sound recording. A personal streaming subscription, a CD or a download is permission to listen at home. The PPL PRS page "Do I need TheMusicLicence?" says as much: purchased music "permits you to listen to it at home for your personal use", and playing it outside the home usually needs TheMusicLicence.
TheMusicLicence pays for the room. A track licence pays for the video. Neither one does the other's job.
How much does a music licence for a small business cost?
PPL PRS does not publish a single price. The fee is built from tariffs, one per sector, and each tariff measures something different: audible floor area for a shop, staff numbers for an office, chairs for a salon, seats for a cafe. The company's own cost examples, updated in February 2026, give the scale:
| Business (PPL PRS example, Feb 2026) | Annual fee, plus VAT |
|---|---|
| Office, 4 or fewer staff | £168.71 |
| Hair and beauty, radio, 5 or fewer seats | £238.33 |
| Shop, single radio or small TV, 50 sqm or less | £235.50 |
| Restaurant or cafe, radio, up to 30 seats | £400.81 |
| Pub or bar, radio, 400 sqm or less | £364.62 |
The tariffs underneath are public. The PRS for Music Hair & Beauty tariff for 2026, effective 1 February 2026 to 31 January 2027, charges £125.00 a year for up to five stylist or treatment chairs and £164.90 for six to ten. The Shops and Stores tariff, Tariff RS, charges £246.80 a year for a background music audible area of up to 100 square metres, with a minimum of £133.40 per shop. Both tariffs carry the same penalty clause: where music was played before the licence was obtained, the first year is charged at the higher rate, "calculated at 50% more than the standard royalty rate".
Back to the Leeds barber. Four chairs falls in the up-to-five band, so the composition side is £125.00. The combined PPL PRS example for the same shape of business, radio and five or fewer seats, is £238.33 plus VAT, so the recording side is the remainder. If the speaker had been running for a year before anyone asked, the PRS line alone becomes £187.50 for that first year. Those are the mechanics; whether a given shop fits a given band is a question for PPL PRS, which quotes each business individually.
What are the requirements, and when does a business not need one?
The requirement is simple to state: if music from the commercial repertoire is audible in a place of business, to customers or to staff, the business holds the licence. PPL PRS operates two discretionary carve-outs, and both are narrow. It does not charge homeworkers "within a private residence working on their own", nor "workplaces with only one worker, where music is not made available to any visitors/customers". Charities and community groups may apply for a discount on events, not an exemption.
The other exit is the one GOV.UK states in one line: "You do not need a licence to play royalty-free music." PPL PRS phrases it more carefully. TheMusicLicence covers "virtually all commercially released music", and where a business has chosen not to use that music there are circumstances where it may not be needed. The weight sits on the word chosen. A playlist that is mostly chart music with one royalty-free track is a chart playlist. A room where every track is owned by someone outside the PPL and PRS repertoires, and that owner has granted the venue the right to play it, is the case the exemption describes.
Where does a Commercial track licence from a studio fit?
Our Commercial tier is $9.99 per track and its wording is "Ads, client work, film, games, unlimited views. Non-exclusive." That is a production licence. The barber can put "Warm Wind" from the Sunset Tribe channel under a fade-cut reel and post it on the shop's Instagram, and that use is settled by the receipt. What the wording does not say is "play this over the speakers to customers". We are the owner of the recording and the composition, so we are the only party who could grant that, and the tier as sold does not.
So the barber's two music uses resolve differently. The reel is covered by the track licence. The room is covered by TheMusicLicence, as long as the room is playing the commercial repertoire, which a streaming app is. If he ever wanted the room to run only on tracks we own, that is a separate conversation with us by email, and until it has happened in writing the Commercial receipt does not stretch to the speaker.
I wrote about the same split for cafes, gyms and salons in general terms. The UK is the clearest version of it, because one body sells one licence for the room and publishes the tariff, so the two rights can be read side by side on paper. A shop that knows which of the two it is paying for has already answered most of the question.
Sources
- Get a licence to play live or recorded music · GOV.UK
- Do I need TheMusicLicence? · PPL PRS Ltd
- How is the cost calculated? (cost examples updated February 2026) · PPL PRS Ltd
- PRS for Music Hair & Beauty tariff for 2026 (H&B 2026.02, effective 1 February 2026 to 31 January 2027) · PRS for Music (tariff PDF hosted by PPL PRS Ltd)
- PRS for Music Shops and Stores tariff, Tariff RS (2026.01) · PRS for Music (tariff PDF hosted by PPL PRS Ltd)
- Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 19 · legislation.gov.uk
- Licences (Personal, Commercial, Exclusive buyout) · ONE36TY Sounds, one36ty.com/sound