The fair necessities: Part 2 - UK price transparency rules revamped

On 22 September, the UK government published guidance on its latest round of amendments to the Price Marking Order 2004 (“PMO”), which are due to take effect from 6 April 2026. The proposed updates to the PMO represent yet another set of regulatory reforms targeted at improving price transparency for consumers in the UK, following the commencement of the price transparency aspects of the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act 2024 (“DMCCA”) earlier this year. 

The updated PMO and DMCCA are both directly enforceable by the CMA, meaning businesses will need to familiarise themselves quickly with the new legislation to ensure that their pricing practices and customer journeys are compliant. 

What is price transparency and why is it important?

“Price transparency” is an umbrella term used to refer to the level of pricing information that is made available to consumers when making purchasing decisions and is seen as a critical component of a well-functioning market. When businesses fail to display their prices accurately, or leave out essential information, consumers can end up spending more than they intend, fostering distrust when they realise the true, inflated cost of their purchases. A lack of price transparency can also harm fair dealing businesses, who may be prevented from competing on a level playing field with those that engage in misleading pricing practices.

The CMA has made price transparency a particular priority in recent years, conducting several investigations (including into sectors such as grocery retailers), and intensifying its scrutiny of practices such as drip pricing, partitioned pricing and dynamic pricing (see, e.g., our blog on the CMA's recent enforcement action against Ticketmaster). 

Price transparency under the DMCCA

As we’ve reflected on previously, the DMCCA introduced long-anticipated reforms to the UK consumer protection landscape, including a fortified set of rules targeted at improving price transparency for consumers. 

Whilst misleading pricing practices have long been unlawful in the UK, compliance with the price transparency requirements under the DMCCA is no longer subject to a transactional decision test. Instead, material pricing information must be provided in all invitations to purchase. Failure to do so will be treated as unfair regardless of whether the omission is likely to cause the average consumer to take a different transactional decision. 

To help businesses understand their obligations, the CMA has published draft guidance on the price transparency provisions of the DMCCA in the context of invitations to purchase (complementing its wider guidance on unfair commercial practices that was published earlier this year). The draft guidance (which is expected to be finalised this Autumn) covers a number of topics such as when the price transparency rules apply, what pricing information must be provided to consumers, and what fees or charges need to be included in the “total price” of a product. It also offers case studies on how specific types of charges should be presented, such as delivery charges, per-transaction charges (e.g. booking fees) and periodic charges (e.g. monthly gym memberships).

Ensuring that consumers receive key information early on in the transactional process is also a focus for the government, which is currently consulting on what information should be considered “material” for buyers in property listings.

Whilst the CMA has confirmed that it will delay enforcement action on certain aspects of pricing transparency until it issues its final guidance, other more egregious breaches (such as adding unexpected mandatory charges at the end of the consumer journey) are and will continue to be a priority. 

Updates to the PMO 

The DMCCA is not the only piece of legislation that businesses need to think about in this space, however. The government’s latest amendments to the PMO represent another wave of enhancements to the UK’s price transparency rules that businesses need to be aware of. 

The PMO was originally enacted in July 2004 to transpose EU pricing transparency rules into UK law. It introduced general requirements on the indication of prices for goods sold online and in-store in business-to-consumer transactions, with the aim of helping consumers to assess and compare product prices more effectively. 

In recent years, the PMO has faced increased scrutiny, particularly against the backdrop of the UK cost of living crisis which has seen consumers grow increasingly focussed on unit pricing to make economical purchasing decisions. 

Following its review of unit pricing practices by in-store and online grocery retailers in 2023, the CMA called for reforms to the PMO, which it found left too much room for inconsistent interpretation, to the detriment of consumers. In response, the government has introduced amendments to the PMO through the Price Marking (Amendment) Orders 2024 (SI 2024/1055) and 2025 (SI 2025/592), which are due take effect from 6 April 2026. These amendments include enhanced legibility requirements for display prices, standardised metric unit pricing for products which are sold by “unit price” (e.g. £3.00 per kilogram), as well as an expanded scope of products requiring unit pricing. 

Similar to the CMA’s approach with the DMCCA, the government has published guidance to accompany its latest PMO amendments to help businesses understand their obligations and illustrate how they expect the updated legislation to apply in practice.

The PMO is also listed in the DMCCA, meaning that the CMA can enforce the PMO directly with the same sanctions (including fines of up to 10% of a company’s global turnover) as would be available for breach of the consumer protection aspects of the DMCCA itself. Businesses will therefore need to review their pricing practices and customer journeys in light of both the DMCCA and PMO (and related guidance) in order to ensure compliance, or otherwise risk facing potentially significant fines through the CMA’s enhanced enforcement powers.