Business and venue closures and restrictions

Businesses to remain closed: 

•  Nightclubs, dance halls, and discotheques 

•  Pubs and bars unless operating as a restaurant. This means serving substantial meals, such as a main lunchtime or evening meal.

Restrictions for businesses that can remain open:

• Hospitality businesses selling food or drink for consumption on their premises must:

• provide table service only, in licensed premises (venues
  that do not serve alcohol may allow someone to order from the counter, but they must still consume their 
  meal while seated if eating in)
• only serve alcohol as part of a substantial 
  meal
• stop taking orders after 10 pm
• close between 11 pm and 5 am (exemptions include:
  hospitality venues in airports, ports, transport services and motorway service areas although these places cannot sell alcohol after 11 pm)

• Businesses selling food or drink for 
consumption off their premises can continue to 
do so after 10 pm through takeaway, delivery, click-and-collect
or drive-thru. After 11 pm, takeaway must cease.

• Casinos, cinemas, theatres, concert halls, museums, bowling alleys, amusement arcades and others must close at 11 pm. Cinemas, theatres and concert halls can continue beyond 11 pm, to finish performances started before 10 pm

• Cinemas, theatres, concert halls and sport 
stadia are exempt from:

• only being able to serve alcohol alongside a substantial meal, as long as this limited to audience members with tickets who intend to consume alcohol drinks whilst seated and watching the event
• Providing table service when alcohol is to be consumed whilst seated in the auditorium or area where the screening/performance is taking place

Business and venues remaining open

• Essential and non-essential retail

• Hotels and other accommodation

• Visitor attractions and entertainment venues (casinos, theatres, museums, bowling alleys, theme parks and others

• Gyms and the wider leisure centre (subject to social contact rules in Tier 2)

• Personal care and close contact services (hairdressers, barbers, beauty salons, tattoo parlours, nail salons, spas and beauty services, massage parlours and tanning salons)

• Conference centres and exhibition halls (capacity limits apply. See “Large Events” section)

• Public buildings (libraries, community centres and halls).

• Allotments, recycling and waste centres, public toilets, car parks

• Essential public services (NHS and medical services, courts, and jobcentre plus sites)

• Early year settings, schools, colleges and universities

• Places of worship (you cannot interact with anyone outside household or bubble in indoor settings)

Activities allowed to continue

Exercise

• Exercise classes, organised sport and physical activity can continue outdoors

• Exercise classes, organised sport and physical activity is only permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with people they do not live with or share a support bubble with. Indoor disability sport, sport for educational purposes, and supervised sport and physical activity for under-18s, can take place with larger groups mixing

Driving Tests

• Theory and driving tests can take place

Large Events

• Sport, live performances and business meetings are allowed to take place indoors (at 50% capacity or 1000 people indoors, whichever is lower) and outdoors (at 50% capacity, or either 2,000 people, whichever is lower)

Weddings, civil partnerships, and funerals

• Weddings, civil partnerships and wedding receptions can take place with restrictions on numbers of attendees (max of 15 people attending)

• Funerals and linked commemorative events (e.g. wakes, stone settings) can take place with restrictions on numbers of attendees (up to 30 and 15 attendees respectively)

Social contact restrictions

You must not:

• meet with anyone outside your household or support bubble in any setting indoors. This includes private homes and any indoor venues likes restaurants (Informal childcare can still be provided through childcare bubbles)
• meet in groups of larger than 6 outdoors (in a garden or other public space). This limit does not apply to meetings of a single household group or support bubble which is more than 6 people 

View Exemptions from gatherings limits.

Visiting relatives/friends in care homes

You can:

• Visit friends or family in care homes with COVID-secure arrangements (i.e. substantial screens, visiting pods, and window visits). Only outdoor/airtight visits are permitted (rollout of rapid testing will enable indoor visits including contact).

Guidance for clinically 
vulnerable individuals

• Full guidance is available on the government website

Guidance for clinically 
extremely vulnerable 
individuals

• Keep the number of different people you meet low

• Work from home where possible (you can still attend work if homeworking is not possible)

• Further guidance is available on the government website

Attending work and travel  

Going to work

• Employees able to work from home should continue to do so. In cases where homeworking is not possible, you can attend your workplace which should be COVID-secure.

Travel

You should:

• Reduce the number of journeys and walk or cycle where possible or plan ahead and avoid busy times and routes on public transport
• Avoid travel to or overnight stays in Tier 3 areas
• Not travel into a Tier 4 area (unless required for work, education, to visit your support bubble, to provide emergency assistance, and to avoid injury or illness, or to escape a risk of harm, to attend hospital, GP and other medical appointments)
• Continue to follow tier 2 rules when you travel to a tier 1 area

View the government’s full guidance on travel 

Face coverings

• You must wear face coverings in all mandated settings.