How to ask for a food hygiene rating revisit: cost, timings and your right to appeal

If your business got less than a 5, you can ask your council for a revisit (the FSA calls it a re-rating inspection) once you've accepted the rating and made every improvement the officer asked for. In England some councils charge for it and some don't, and in Wales every council charges. Most revisits happen within three months of the request, and the new rating can go down as well as up.

When you can ask for a revisit

The FSA's guidance sets two conditions. You must have accepted the rating, and you must have made "all the necessary hygiene improvements" the officer recommended at your last planned inspection.

There's no deadline. You can ask any time after the work is done, but you can't choose when the officer comes.

In Wales the conditions are in law (Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) Act 2013, s.12). Any appeal must be settled first, your current sticker must be on display, and you must agree to let the officer in to inspect.

How to request it

Put the request in writing to the officer who inspected you. In England you can use the FSA's form, a letter or an email. In Wales you use the prescribed form.

The part that decides whether you get a visit is the evidence. The FSA says to explain what you've done about each issue raised and include "supporting evidence, for example, receipts or photographs". The council can refuse a request without it.

Take the Smiths' café, marked down for a cracked prep-room floor, gaps in the cleaning records and no written procedures. A strong request would include:

• the invoice for the floor repair and a photo of the new floor
• the cleaning schedule, with the last four weeks filled in
• the food safety procedures you've put in place, such as a completed SFBB pack
• the training record for the two staff the officer spoke to

If your council charges, send the payment with the request. If a request is refused in England, you'll be told why and what else you need to provide, and you can raise it with the council's lead officer for food.

What a revisit costs

There's no national fee. Your council sets its own.

• England: the FSA says "some local authorities in England charge a fee to recover costs". You'll be told in your rating letter or when you ask.
• Wales: every council charges. The Act says you pay "the reasonable costs of the re-rating", worked out by the council, which must tell you the cost and how it was calculated before the visit.

Whether your council charges also affects how many times you can ask. In England, if your council doesn't charge, you get one revisit between planned inspections. If it does charge, there's no limit, though each one is paid for. In Wales there's no limit on requests either.

How soon the officer will come

In England, a free revisit can come sooner if the only things to fix were structural repairs or equipment. Either way you won't be told the date or time.

On the day

The FSA says the officer looks at "standards generally", beyond the areas you've been working on. Your rating "could well go up, down or remain the same". You'll get the new rating in writing on the day or within 14 days, and you can appeal it or add a right to reply like any other rating.

How the rating is scored is worth reading before the visit, because the confidence in management score is where records and follow-up count most.

Appeal, right to reply, or revisit?

They're for different situations.

Appeal if you think the rating was wrong or unfair at the time. Talk to the officer first. Then appeal in writing within 21 days of being told your rating, weekends and bank holidays included. Someone other than the inspecting officer reviews it, and you get the result within 21 days. In Wales those time limits are in section 5 of the Act. Ratings of 0 to 4 are published 3 to 5 weeks after the inspection to leave room for an appeal.

Right to reply if the rating is fair but you want customers to know what's changed, or that something unusual happened on the day. You send it to the officer, it's published next to your rating, and there's no deadline before your next inspection.

Revisit once the problems are fixed and you want a new rating sooner than your next planned inspection.

This is a general guide, not legal advice: your council's food safety team, or the FSA's guidance for businesses, can tell you how it works where you are.

Where managero fits

managero lets you record the officer's visit, the rating and each action they asked for, then close each action with what was done and when. Its export prints that visit with every action, open ones in red, alongside your dated checks and the photos staff took, each with a time and a name on it.