What is a private members club? The meaning, types and law

01/ Private members club meaning

Members only, by selection, under rules.

Three features separate a private members’ club from a bar with a door policy.

First, use of the premises is limited to members and their guests. Second, membership is not simply bought at the door: someone applies or is nominated, and the club decides. Third, the club runs under written rules that members accept when they join.

The Equality Act 2010 uses almost the same test for an “association”: at least 25 members, with admission “regulated by the association’s rules” and involving “a process of selection”. It adds that it does not matter whether the association is incorporated or whether it runs for profit (Equality Act 2010, s.107, UK statute).

So a “members club” in everyday speech can be a centuries-old institution owned by its members or a new hospitality business owned by investors. Both are private members’ clubs; they are different kinds of organisation underneath.

02/ Types of private members club

Five kinds of club, one model underneath.

Tap through the five. Each is a type, not a ranking, and the examples are the clubs’ own descriptions.

Gentlemen’s clubs are the original form. The Association of London Clubs notes that clubs have been characterised by their members’ shared interest, from politics and literature to the armed forces, a school or a university (Association of London Clubs, sector body). Many now admit women; each club’s own rules say so.

Modern social clubs are the post-1990s model. Soho House opened its first house on Greek Street in 1995 and by the end of 2023 reported about 259,900 members across its memberships (Soho House & Co Form 10-K, 2023, company’s own annual report).

Sports and country clubs are the form most people meet first: a golf, tennis or cricket club where the committee is elected and the bar exists for members.

Work clubs and wellness clubs keep the members-only model but lead with desks or with health, and are usually run as businesses.

03/ A short history of members’ clubs

From coffee houses to clubland, then reinvention.

Clubs took over the role of the 18th-century London coffee house, and the Association of London Clubs dates the first West End clubs to as early as 1693. By the late 19th century, it says, there were more than 400 (Association of London Clubs, sector body).

Exclusivity was there from the start. Brooks’s traces its own origins to a society set up in 1762 by two men who had been blackballed for membership of White’s; the club proper was founded in March 1764 (Brooks’s, About, club’s own history).

The modern wave reversed some of the old rules: less about class or profession, more about creative work, design and hospitality, and very often owned by a company rather than by the members.

04/ How joining a members club works

Apply, be proposed, wait, then pay.

Each club sets its own process, and many publish it. Traditional clubs lean on proposers and seconders who are already members; modern clubs more often take online applications reviewed by a committee.

One rule is set by law for clubs that hold a club premises certificate: the club’s rules must leave at least two days between someone’s nomination or application and their admission to membership (Licensing Act 2003, s.62, UK statute).

Waiting lists, joining fees and subscriptions vary widely and change often. See private members club membership fees for published fees, and the private members club application process for what clubs ask.

05/ Members’ clubs vs proprietary clubs

Who owns the club changes everything.

Switch between the two. Each row is drawn from the statute or HMRC guidance linked below.

HMRC puts the distinction simply: a members’ club is one where “ownership of the club and its assets rests with the general membership who control the club”, often through an elected committee; in a proprietary club ownership rests with someone else, and profit from supplying members is taxable (HMRC, BIM24210, government guidance).

The licensing law follows the same line. Supplying alcohol by a club to its own members is a “qualifying club activity” (Licensing Act 2003, s.1, UK statute), and a club can do it under a club premises certificate only if, among other things, alcohol is bought and supplied under the management of an elected committee and nobody takes a private profit from the bar (s.64).

A proprietary club fails that test by design, so it needs a premises licence like any other business that sells alcohol (Home Office, Alcohol licensing, government guidance).

This applies to England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own licensing law and are not covered here.

06/ What a private members club is not

Three things often confused with clubs.

The word “club” is used loosely in marketing, so it helps to test any claim against the three features above.

Professional bodies, trade associations and charities are membership organisations too, but most have no premises members use socially. Our guide to the membership organisation covers that wider family.