New equality rules for UK shops, gyms and clubs come into force today
Key Points
- The EHRC's updated services Code of Practice takes effect across Britain on 5 August 2026, revoking the 2011 code.
- It covers shops, gyms, hospitals, councils, public bodies and associations with at least 25 members.
- The Code creates no new legal obligations, but courts must take relevant parts into account in Equality Act proceedings.
- It absorbs previous age discrimination guidance and rewrites the guidance on separate and single-sex services.
- Claims must start within six months minus one day of the alleged unlawful act.
A new statutory code explaining how the Equality Act 2010 applies to shops, gyms, hospitals, councils and private clubs takes effect across Britain on Wednesday (5 August), replacing guidance that has stood since 2011.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations runs to 342 pages across 14 chapters and covers Part 3 and Part 7 of the Act.
It applies to anyone providing a service to the public or a section of the public, whether or not the customer pays, to bodies exercising public functions, and to associations with at least 25 members.
The 2011 code ceases to have effect on the same day, an approach the government adopted to avoid any period in which two conflicting codes apply.
The Code does not create new legal obligations and it is not an authoritative statement of the law, a status only the courts and tribunals hold.
The Minister for Women and Equalities approved it and laid it before Parliament, and the 40-day scrutiny period ended on 9 July.
Its practical force comes from evidence: parties can use the Code in proceedings brought under the Act, and courts and tribunals must take into account any part that appears relevant to the questions before them.
“As Britain’s equality regulator, our work doesn’t end upon publication of this guidance,” said Mary-Ann Stephenson, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
She added that the Commission monitors compliance and takes enforcement action where it considers this proportionate and necessary. The EHRC consulted on the updates in 2024 and 2025 and received more than 50,000 responses.
What the Code covers
The Code works through the nine protected characteristics — age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation — and the forms of unlawful conduct that attach to them.
Separate chapters deal with direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, discrimination arising from disability, the duty to make reasonable adjustments, harassment, victimisation and positive action.
Chapter 13 sets out the exceptions that permit conduct which would otherwise breach the Act, including charities, competitive sport, insurance, communal accommodation and separate or single-sex services.
Two changes stand out for readers. The Code now absorbs the Commission’s previously separate technical guidance on age discrimination, which brings concessionary pricing, age-restricted sales and package holidays into the main document.
It also rewrites the guidance on separate and single-sex services to reflect the Supreme Court’s April 2025 judgment in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers.
Anyone who believes a service provider has discriminated against them has six months minus one day from the act to start court proceedings, though a court can extend that period where it considers this just and equitable.
The Commission has published the Code in English and Welsh, and it has not yet updated the parallel statutory code that applies to employers.
