Bats: survey or research level 2 licence (CL18)
Register for a licence to survey bats using your hand, artificial light, endoscopes and hand-held nets for scientific, research or educational purposes, including for commissioned surveys in relation to proposed developments - and report actions taken under the licence.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This licence allows you to disturb or capture bats by hand or using:
- endoscopes
- static hand-held nets
- torches
You can disturb but not handle hibernating bats.
You need a:
- level 1 licence if you only need to disturb roosting bats use a torch
- level 3 licence to use mist nets and acoustic lures
- level 4 licence to use harp traps and acoustic lures
For survey, research or conservation work not covered by this licence you must apply for either:
For development work affecting bats, you must apply for a mitigation licence.
You must release all bats at the place where they were captured immediately after they are examined.
If you are registered on the level 2 licence you will not need the level 1 licence because it covers the same methods.
Register with Natural England
You must register with Natural England before you can use this licence.
Natural England will confirm your registration in writing, usually within 30 working days. You must not carry out any licensed activities until you receive written confirmation of your registration.
What you need to pay
It costs £104 to register for a new CL18 licence.
It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.
You must declare the intended use of the licence on your registration form. To continue your registration, you must declare how you used the licence in the past year on your annual survey return. This will determine if you need to pay, such as if you are going to survey bats for development projects.
Natural England will refund unsuccessful applications.
When you do not need to pay
You do not need to pay if the licence is only used for:
- voluntary purposes – any work you do is unpaid and you are registered with an organisation, charity or local recording group as a volunteer
- conservation, science or research purposes and research related to the protected species is carried out by a student or employee of an academic institution or research body
How to pay
You can pay using a bank card. Follow the ֱ Pay link on the or .
Read the terms and conditions for paying for a wildlife licence.
References
You need to complete a reference to support a survey or research licence form when you register for this licence if you:
- have not held a licence for the species or a similar species for the last 3 years
- have a licence but want to add new methods
Report actions taken under the licence
You must report in a bat survey licence return any actions that are taken under this licence.
You must report your actions from 1 November to 31 October, and submit the form by 30 November each year, even if you’ve taken no action or did not find any target species. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk.
You’ll need to provide the names of any accredited agents who carried out the surveys on your behalf.
You must tell us about all the surveys where you or your accredited agents found bats when using the licensable methods. For CL18 these will be surveys where you:
-
captured bats by hand or hand net
-
disturbed roosting bats with a torch or endoscope
For each site where you disturbed or captured bats using the licensable methods, you must record the:
-
location of the site (10 figure Ordnance Survey grid reference and county)
-
start and end date of the period that surveys took place
-
purpose of your surveys
-
total number of each species of bat that were captured or disturbed using each licensable method over the entire survey period
-
peak count of each species of bat recorded roosting on the site in any single survey
You’ll also need to report whether you and any accredited agents followed best practice when using the licence.
You do not need to tell us about surveys:
-
where you did not use the licensable methods, for example, a nocturnal survey where you did not capture or disturb any roosting bats
-
that were carried out under a different licence, such as a bat mitigation licence
-
where you were an accredited agent or assistant on another person’s survey class licence or individual project licence
You must also send your results to the Local Record Centre. You can do this by recording your results on the or contacting the .
Using your licence for another year
By reporting your actions, you can continue to use the licence for the following reporting period. If you will use the licence for surveys to inform development projects, you will need to pay £35 to continue your registration for another year.
Get help
If you need help with registering for a class licence or completing your survey licence return form, contact wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk.
Updates to this page
-
The process for submitting a bat survey licence return has changed and a new online form has been added to the page
-
Updated licence charge.
-
Added a link to the updated 'Apply for a class licence to survey protected species' form.
-
We are currently making improvements to our licensing forms. The register for a class licence form on this page will change to a new format in early March 2025. Once this happens, the current version of the form will no longer be available.
-
Updated this licence to cover the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. Reworded several sections to make the information clearer, including the section on 'Registering to use this licence'.
-
Added that 'If there is a difference between a licence condition and published guidelines, you must follow the licence condition'. Added links to the UK Bat Mitigation Guidelines and Bat Surveys for Professional Ecologists: Good Practice Guidelines (4th edition).
-
Licence has been changed to state that reports of action taken must now be returned by 30 November each year.
-
There is an update to this licence for 1 January 2024.
-
Removed reference to harp traps and mist nets from licence definitions as these are not permitted techniques under CL18.
-
Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2023.
-
Page updated: You should only complete and submit a survey return form between 1 and 30 June. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk
-
Removed 'hand nets' from the list under 'Licence terms and conditions' in the HTML attachment 'Bats: survey or research level 2 licence (CL18)'.
-
Added a new online form - 'Submit a survey return and continue your registration'. From 1 June 2022, you will need to use this new online form to submit your survey return and continue your registration.
-
Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2022.
-
From 1 October 2021, you will need to pay £80 to register for this licence, unless you're exempt.
-
Annual licence update
-
Accessible version added - HTML.
-
Licence has been amended to state that reports of action taken must now be returned by 30 June each year.
-
Reports of action taken must now be returned by 30 June each year (was 30 April).
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2020
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2019
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2018
-
Annual licence update 2017.
-
Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2016.
-
new version of CL18 valid from 1 January to 31 December 2015.
-
First published.