White-clawed crayfish: survey or research licence (CL11)
Source: gov.uk (2025-03-31)

Register for a licence to survey white-clawed crayfish for research, conservation or development projects.

This licence allows you to survey white-clawed crayfish (also called Atlantic stream crayfish) by:
- hand
- hand net
- crayfish trap (to operate traps lawfully you will also need permission from the Environment Agency (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/permission-to-trap-crayfish-eels-elvers-salmon-and-sea-trout))
You need a separate licence (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/white-clawed-crayfish-licences) for any other activities.

Register with Natural England

Before you can use this licence, you must register with Natural England using the registration form for a class licence (https://submit-form-to-defra.service.gov.uk/apply-for-a-class-licence-to-survey-protected-species).

What you need to pay

It costs £104 to register for a new CL11 licence.

It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.

You must declare the intended use of the licence on your registration form. This will determine if you need to pay, such as to survey white-clawed crayfish 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 used for:
- voluntary purposes – any work you do is unpaid and you are registered with an organisation or charity as a volunteer
- conservation, science or research purposes, and research related to the protected species is carried out by a student or an employee of an academic institution or research body or an environmental non-government organisation
How to pay

You can pay using a bank card. Follow the GOV.UK Pay link on the registration form or survey return form.

References

You need to complete a reference to support a survey or research licence form (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-to-support-a-protected-species-licence) 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 action taken

You must complete the survey return form (https://defragroup.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0kB1MNwKLq1WXXw) by 31 January each year, even if you’ve taken no action or did not find the target species.

You should only complete and submit a survey return form between 1 and 31 January. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).

You will be asked:
- whether you did any surveys
- what survey methods you used
- for the details of any invasive non-native crayfish found, including the species name, location (name, county and 8 figure OS grid reference), survey dates and estimate of the number found
- for the names of any accredited agents who carried out surveys on your behalf
- if you followed best practice
You must send your results to the Local Record Centre. You can do this by recording your results on the iRecord website (https://www.brc.ac.uk/irecord/) or contacting your Local Record Centre (https://www.alerc.org.uk/contact.html).

Continue your registration

You can use the survey return form (https://defragroup.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0kB1MNwKLq1WXXw) to continue your registration. It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.