The problem is a database problem, not a hardware one. The BVA counts more than 20 separate national microchipping databases in the UK as of October 2026 which, in its words, do not “share data with one another, which we know makes it logistically very difficult for our members to reunite lost or stray pets with owners”.

What the first phase covers

Phase one searches five databases: Chipworks, Identi, MyPet, Petlog and PETtrac, which the Association says represent over 90 per cent of active registrations, citing Defra for the figure. The BVA told members the phase gives practice teams free access to pet and keeper details across all five, with more expected later.

The BVA notice is addressed to vets, but the Association’s own material is broader: the portal is free for all authorised users, including rescue organisations, law enforcement, local authorities, trading standards and animal wardens. Sign-up is gated, because the data is sensitive in ownership disputes, pet theft cases and cases involving people fleeing domestic abuse.

Nor does the notice say who built the portal. Single Point of Search is industry-led, developed by the Association with Defra and selected suppliers rather than through a government procurement, which it argues avoided a public tender and its cost to the taxpayer. Users reach it online or through practice and animal management software via approved providers, the first being Veterinary Software Solutions Limited and its Scanimal product.

Why the chip cannot hold the owner’s details

A UK pet microchip is a passive low frequency RFID transponder implanted subcutaneously between the shoulder blades. Passive means no battery: it is inert until a handheld scanner’s field energises it, which is why a chip implanted in 2016 still reads in 2026. The carrier frequency for animal identification is 134.2 kHz, low in the LF band, where long wavelengths pass through tissue easily. ISO 11785 defines how the transponder is activated and transfers its data to the reader, ISO 11784 the structure of the identification code. The English regulations name both and go further, requiring a chip that responds to a transceiver operating at 134.2 kHz conforming with the FDX-B protocol. ISO 11785 also covers a half duplex variant, HDX, common in livestock tagging, so the FDX-B requirement is a UK legal choice rather than a limit of the standard.

What the chip stores is the crux. It holds a 15 digit number and nothing else: the first three digits are either a manufacturer code, allocated through ICAR after conformance testing, or an ISO 3166 country code, the remaining 12 the individual animal. There is no name, address or phone number in the implant: government guidance says only that the chip contains a number which shows up whenever the pet is scanned. That is a privacy feature, since a chip read in the street discloses nothing about the household, and it is exactly why a lookup is unavoidable: everything that reunites a pet with its keeper sits in a register elsewhere, and the register has to be found. Our RFID glossary covers the terminology.

The legal position across the four nations

Microchipping has been compulsory for dogs in England since 6 April 2016, under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, revoked and replaced by the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023, made on 25 April 2023. Those regulations extended the duty to cats in England from 10 June 2024. A dog must be chipped and registered by eight weeks of age and a cat by 20 weeks, indoor cats included, and the maximum fine is £500. Scotland brought dogs into scope on the same date under the Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016, Wales under the Microchipping of Dogs (Wales) Regulations 2015. Northern Ireland was first, compulsory for dogs since 2012 under the Dogs (Licensing and Identification) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012, where the record is tied to the dog licence, so an out of date record invalidates it. As of October 2026, cats must be chipped in England only. In each regime the duty is not simply to implant a chip but to register the animal on a compliant database, so the law created the register and the lookup problem with it.

Where Defra’s 2024 commitment fits

The launch follows reforms Defra announced on 29 March 2024, committing to a central portal for approved users including vets, local authorities and police, so they would not have to contact databases individually. The package also required operators to add a field flagging a pet as missing, gave a keeper 28 days to object to a transfer of keepership, and set out to stop duplicate records. Defra put the backdrop at over nine million pet dogs and nine million pet cats in England, and said a microchipped dog is more than twice as likely to be reunited. The portal is the industry’s delivery of that commitment, not a government-run system.

What the portal does not do

The Association is candid here. Single Point of Search is a look-up tool, not a single database. It does not keep keeper details up to date, prevent duplicate registrations, always return details, or allow records to be changed or keepership transferred. Compliant databases must in any case already be interoperable under Defra’s Database Checking Protocol, so check-a-chip.co.uk can still tell a searcher where a number is registered.

Record quality is the larger problem, and the portal cannot touch it. Dogs Trust’s Stray Dog Survey published in 2025 estimates 31,644 dogs handled by UK local authorities in the year to 31 March 2025, of which roughly 38 per cent were reunited with their owners: the lowest share since the survey began in 1997, down from 68 per cent in 2020-21. Around 61 per cent arrived already microchipped, yet of those whose record status was known, only about 31 per cent had correct owner details. A faster search does not fix a chip registered to a phone number from three house moves ago.

The Association has three further databases in the pipeline and 11 database members as of October 2026, but no dated timetable for phase two and no list of which non-member registries will connect, saying only that it will invite all compliant UK databases. More coverage of implanted and attached animal identification is in the Animal Tagging category.

Read more at https://www.bva.co.uk/news-and-blog/news-article/vets-hail-launch-of-centralised-pet-microchip-portal/

This article first appeared on RFID News (rfidnews.co.uk), the independent news site for RFID and NFC. Republication and AI use are welcome with RFID News credited as the source and a link to the original.