Dog-Friendly Beaches in the UK
Every beach on the British coast, mapped with the one thing you actually need to know before you set off: whether your dog is allowed on the sand today. 1,497 dog friendly beaches and restricted ones alike, across 36 regions, checked against the orders that create the rules rather than the signs that summarise them. Updated for 2026.
Can I take my dog to the beach in the UK?
Yes at 815 of the 1,497 beaches we map, all year round, but 472 more close to dogs for part of the summer
The honest national answer is that most of the British coast is open to dogs most of the time. Only 206 beaches ban dogs outright. The beaches that allow dogs all year are rarely the famous ones: the wide sandy resort beaches with a car park and a cafe are the most heavily restricted stretches in the country. The problem is that restrictions cluster on exactly the beaches people drive to: the wide resort sands with a car park, a cafe and lifeguards. Two seasonal bands do most of the work: 1 July to 31 August, and the longer 15 May to 30 September. Both usually apply only between 10am and 6pm. Walk the same beach at eight in the morning and the order does not apply to you.
£5each, made to print
- Every beach in the county, with its dates, its hours and the stretch the rule actually covers.
- Keep it on your phone. It works where there is no signal, which is exactly where the good beaches are.
- A printable summary for the glovebox. Cornwall and Scilly: 161 beaches in 24 pages. Devon: 133 in 27. Dorset: 57 in 14. Norfolk: 34 in 12.
What the three states mean, and when they apply
Every beach on the map is in one of three states. The colour of the row is the answer and the twelve cells are the year.
Dogs welcome all year
815 of the 1,497 beaches we map
No restriction on any day of the year. Off the lead and under control, wherever the landowner allows it.
Off the beach for part of the summer
472 beaches, on one of two common bands
Most run 1 July to 31 August. A longer band runs 15 May to 30 September. Both are nearly always 10am to 6pm, so early morning and evening are yours.
No dogs at all
206 beaches, all year or most of it
Closed to dogs by a council order, a byelaw, or the landowner’s own policy. Protected wildlife sites, some harbour beaches and some private estates.
How do I find a dog friendly beach near me?
Type a postcode, a town or a beach name into the map below, or tap Near me and it will find the nearest dog friendly beach to where you are standing. Green pins are open to dogs every day of the year, amber pins close for part of the summer, and red pins are closed to dogs. A pin with a ring around it has a full written guide behind it, checked against the order that creates the rule.
Dog-friendly places across the UK
Somewhere to stay with the dog
Dog-friendly escapes
Places to stay where a dog is genuinely welcome rather than merely permitted: enclosed gardens, hard floors, somewhere to rinse sandy paws, and no surcharge waiting on arrival.
See dog-friendly escapes
Our own place · an example
Gwel an Derowen, Townshend
Two bedrooms on a working smallholding at Townshend, in west Cornwall. Enclosed garden, a hot tub. We own this one, and take no commission on it. It is not the nearest place to every beach on this page. It is ours, and we say so.
Which UK beaches allow dogs?
Most of Britain’s coast is open to dogs all year. Of the 1,497 beaches on our map, 815 allow dogs year-round, 472 carry seasonal restrictions and 206 are closed to dogs for part or all of the year. The difficulty is that the rules are set beach by beach, never nationally.
In England and Wales a restriction is created by the local council as a Public Spaces Protection Order, or PSPO. It names the beach, the dates, the hours, and very often the exact stretch of sand rather than the whole beach. Scotland and Northern Ireland use byelaws that do the same job.
The council is also rarely the only landlord. The National Trust, harbour authorities, the Ministry of Defence and private estates all set rules of their own, and a beach can be absent from every council order and still be closed to dogs every day of the year.
That is why a list of dog friendly beaches copied from another list goes out of date without anyone noticing. We read the order for each beach we write up, and we say so plainly where we could not confirm one.
The best beaches for dogs in the UK
The best dog beaches are the ones with no restriction at all, where you can turn up in August at two in the afternoon and nobody minds. There are more than the seasonal-ban headlines suggest: 815 of the beaches we map have dogs allowed every day of the year.
In Cornwall, the county we have finished, the beaches with no council restriction of any kind are Fistral, Watergate Bay, Crantock, Penhale Sands, Par, Daymer Bay, Harlyn Bay, Rock and Mawgan Porth. Each one is checked against Cornwall Council’s own published beach list rather than a sign or another guide.
Outside Cornwall we have started reading the orders one nation at a time. So far we can stand behind these:
- England: Bamburgh, Northumberland. No dog restriction under Northumberland County Council’s order. Druridge Bay is the same.
- Wales: Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire. National Trust land at Stackpole, no seasonal ban, dogs under close control.
- Scotland: Belhaven, East Lothian. No seasonal exclusion under East Lothian Council’s land management rules.
- Northern Ireland: Portstewart Strand. Open to dogs all year on National Trust land, but they must be on a lead. Every council beach on the Causeway Coast closes to dogs from 1 June to 15 September.
A dog safe beach is not the same as a dog friendly one
Permission is only half of it. Rip currents, sand hot enough to hurt paws in August, adders in the dunes, and palm oil washed up after a storm all matter more on the day than any council order does. We flag those on the beach pages wherever we know about them, because the good beaches for dogs are the ones that are both allowed and safe.
Three beaches everyone calls dog friendly that are not
We checked the beaches most often named in “best dog friendly beaches” lists, including our own earlier guide, and the lists were wrong more often than they were right.
Rhossili Bay on the Gower is widely described as having no summer ban. Swansea Council excludes dogs from 1 May to 30 September. Holkham in Norfolk is called dog friendly all year; the estate applies a lead requirement through the spring and summer in named zones. Lyme Regis appears as year-round on the dataset we started from; Dorset Council’s 2024 order bans dogs from Front Beach between 1 May and 30 September.
None of those sites set out to mislead anyone. They copied a summary instead of reading the order, and the summary was old. That is the entire reason this site exists.
Dog friendly beaches by region
Not written up yet? Each region opens the map on that stretch of coastline, so you can still see every beach on it and what the rules are.
Cornwall is the county we have finished. 173 beaches on the map, 103 of them open to dogs every day of the year, and 142 written up in full against the council’s own order. Start with dog friendly beaches in Cornwall, or go straight to the town you are heading for.
Dorset has begun. Our first page there covers dog friendly beaches in Bournemouth, where BCP Council closes seven of the eight named beaches to dogs from 1 May to 30 September and keeps Middle Chine open all year. Next along the coast is dog friendly beaches in Poole, where Lake Pier and Hamworthy Park stay open to dogs all year. And at the eastern end of the bay, dog friendly beaches in Christchurch include Mudeford Sandbank, open to dogs all year. West of the BCP coast, Dorset Council sets the rules, and our page for dog friendly beaches in Weymouth sets out which parts of the town beach close in summer, and our page for dog friendly beaches in Lyme Regis covers the town beaches and Charmouth, and our page for dog friendly beaches in Swanage runs from Durdle Door to Studland, where our page on Studland beach with dogs sets out the National Trust’s summer lead rule, and our page for dog friendly beaches in West Dorset covers West Bay, Seatown, Hive Beach and Cogden.
How we check
Most dog-friendly beach lists copy each other, and the errors copy across with them. We work the other way round: for every beach we write up, we read the council’s own Public Spaces Protection Order, the legal document that creates the restriction, and take the dates, the hours and the wording of the stretch from that. Where the order is silent, we say so rather than guessing.
That process has already caught beaches labelled “seasonal” across the internet that carry no restriction at all, and beaches described as dog-friendly that are closed to dogs every day of the year by a private landowner. It is slower than scraping, which is why we are releasing it county by county rather than all at once. Cornwall is finished, and so is Devon: the county guide is live, with a separate one for the north coast. Dorset has begun too: the Dorset county guide is live, with eight town pages under it.
If you find something wrong, tell us. There is a correction form on every beach page, and we check the order again before changing anything.
Questions people ask
Can I take my dog to the beach in the UK?
Usually, yes. Of the 1,497 beaches we map, 815 allow dogs every day of the year and a further 472 allow them outside a seasonal window. Only 206 are closed to dogs altogether. The catch is that the 472 seasonal beaches are the popular ones, and their rules bite exactly when you want to visit.
Which UK beaches that allow dogs are open all year?
815 of the beaches on our map do, and you can see them on their own by tapping the “Dogs all year” filter. The beaches that allow dogs are not spread evenly: whole stretches of the Welsh and Scottish coast have no restriction at all, while resort beaches in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Kent are the most heavily restricted in the country.
When do beach dog bans usually start and end?
Two bands dominate. The common one runs 1 July to 31 August; the longer one runs from around 15 May to 30 September. Most apply only between 10am and 6pm, which means early mornings and evenings are open even on a restricted beach. Dates are set by each council, not nationally, so neighbouring beaches often differ.
Who actually sets the rules?
In England and Wales, beach dog restrictions are normally made by the local council as a Public Spaces Protection Order under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. An order can run for up to three years before it has to be reviewed. In Scotland councils use local byelaws instead, and in Northern Ireland councils use byelaws and dog control orders, so the wording and the penalties differ.
What happens if you ignore a restriction?
Breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order is a criminal offence under section 67 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which sets the fine on summary conviction at level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000. Section 68 lets a council offer a fixed penalty notice instead, and the Act caps that at £100. Councils set their own figure under that cap; Cornwall’s sealed Dogs on Beaches Order 2026 sets it at the full £100. Enforcement varies between councils, but the beaches with wardens tend to be the busy ones.
Are assistance dogs exempt?
Orders restricting dogs on beaches normally carry an exemption for assistance dogs, and many also exempt people registered blind. The exemption has to be written into the order itself, so it is worth checking the wording for the beach you are visiting rather than assuming.
How often do the rules change?
Every year some do. Orders lapse, get renewed with different dates, or are extended to cover a beach that was previously open. That is why we date every page and re-check the orders each season rather than copying last year’s answer.