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Palm Beach County

Palm Beach County Public Safety Department, Animal Care and Control Division

In short

Palm Beach County Public Safety Department, Animal Care and Control Division issues 3 permits we publish for Palm Beach County, last verified 2026-09-28. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.

What this agency issues

Permits required, with issuing agency, fee, renewal term and the date each record was last verified against its source
Animal Care and Control Animal Establishment/Operational Permitonly if it applies to youPalm Beach County Public Safety Department, Animal Care and Control DivisionOrdinance 98-22 states that the cost of a permit 'shall be established by the Board [of County Commissioners] by resolution' rather than fixing dollar figures in the code text itself, so most animal-establishment, kennel, breeder and license-tag fees are not stated in the ordinance. The one category the ordinance text itself does price is Limited Pet Boarding, at $400.not stated as a fixed period in the ordinance text; confirm the renewal cycle with Animal Care and Control2026-09-28
Rabies Vaccination Tag CompliancePalm Beach County Public Safety Department, Animal Care and Control DivisionNo feenot applicable — an ongoing operational duty rather than a licensed or renewed permit2026-09-28
Veterinary Practice Licensing — State Premises Permit Applies (Palm Beach County)only if it applies to youPalm Beach County Public Safety Department, Animal Care and Control DivisionNo feenot applicable2026-09-28

Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.

About each permit

Animal Care and Control Animal Establishment/Operational Permit

An 'animal establishment' under PBC Code Ch. 4 covers kennels, commercial breeders, pet dealers/shops, grooming parlors (including mobile units, which need their own separate permit), and commercial stables, and each must name a supervising veterinarian on its application. Section 4-23(a)(2) of the ordinance explicitly EXEMPTS veterinary clinic and hospital establishments, humane societies, government shelters, hobby breeders and private stables from this permit requirement — a plain outpatient veterinary practice is affirmatively not required to hold this permit, and that exemption extends to a veterinary practice's own boarding service offered as part of its practice. The ordinance is current and actively maintained, amended repeatedly through 2015 (most recently Ord. 2015-027, adding community-cat and mandatory-tag-for-cats provisions), not a frozen 1998 text. Most fees are set by a separate Board resolution rather than written into the ordinance, except Limited Pet Boarding, priced directly in the ordinance at $400. A salon offering pet grooming, or a retail store dealing in or selling animals, is the kind of business this permit reaches.

Rabies Vaccination Tag Compliance

No fee applies to the veterinary clinic itself for this duty. Every authorized veterinarian and clinic in Palm Beach County must keep county rabies/license tags on hand to issue to pet owners who present proof of rabies vaccination, which makes every PBC veterinary clinic a de facto tag-distribution point under the same Animal Care and Control Ordinance that governs the animal-establishment permit. This is a standing operational duty tied to administering rabies vaccinations, not a separate license the clinic applies for or renews on its own schedule, and it applies countywide regardless of whether the clinic is inside a municipality or the unincorporated area.

Veterinary Practice Licensing — State Premises Permit Applies (Palm Beach County)

Under Fla. Stat. §474.215, every establishment, permanent or mobile, where a licensed veterinarian practices 'must have a premises permit issued by the department', for a fee 'not to exceed $250, as set by rule of the board' — a state Board of Veterinary Medicine function; under that statute there is no county fee for the practice license itself. The county's touchpoints for a veterinary clinic are Animal Care and Control's rabies-tag distribution duty, recorded separately, and the ACC Animal Establishment Permit, from which Sec. 4-23(a)(2) of Ordinance 98-22 exempts veterinary clinics and hospitals, including their own boarding services, so a veterinary practice, with or without boarding as part of its practice, is outside that permit.

Contact

Jurisdiction
Palm Beach County
Phone
Not verified — use the website

Contact details are taken from the agency’s own site or its published fee schedule. Where we have not verified a phone number we leave it blank rather than guess.

Sources

Every fee and term above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown.

  1. Animal Establishment/Operational Permit applicationPalm Beach County Animal Care and Control · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  2. PBC Animal Care and Control Ordinance 98-22, full current text as amended through Ord. 2015-027 (6-23-15) — private nonprofit mirror of the ordinance; no directly renderable official Municode/eLaws copy of this chapter was reachable during researchFlorida's Forgotten Felines (private mirror of the County's Code Ch. 4 text) · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28

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Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.