Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act), fake reviews are a banned practice in the UK, automatically unfair in all circumstances, for commercial practices from 6 April 2025. The ban covers writing or commissioning fake reviews, reviews that hide an incentive, publishing reviews in a misleading way, and failing to take reasonable steps to stop and remove them.
This isn't just about review farms. It reaches ordinary small business habits, like asking staff to post reviews, rewarding 5-star ratings without saying so, or quietly not publishing the bad ones. And the CMA can now decide for itself whether the law's been broken, without going through the courts.
What the DMCC Act bans on reviews
Banned practice 13 in Schedule 20 of the Act covers 4 things:
- Submitting or commissioning a fake consumer review, or a review that conceals it was incentivised.
- Publishing consumer reviews or review information in a misleading way.
- Publishing reviews without reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent fake reviews, hidden-incentive reviews and false or misleading review information, and to remove them.
- Offering services to traders that submit or commission fake or hidden-incentive reviews, publish reviews misleadingly, or help with any of those.
The third one is the sleeper. If you show reviews on your own website, app or shop, you're a publisher of reviews, and the duty to take reasonable steps applies to you, not just to the big review platforms.
What this looks like in practice
| Habit | Where it lands |
|---|---|
| Asking staff, friends or family to post reviews as if they were customers | Fake consumer review |
| Offering a reward for a review without making that clear in the review | Review that conceals an incentive |
| Only publishing 4 and 5-star reviews on your site | Publishing reviews in a misleading way |
| Showing a star rating that leaves out negative reviews | Misleading review information |
| Hiring a review-writing service | Commissioning fake reviews |
Every row above is drawn from the banned practice wording and the CMA's own cases. None of these depends on whether a customer was misled: banned practices are unfair in all circumstances.
AI makes this easier to get wrong. The CMA's own tips for shoppers now warn about AI-generated reviews that sound fluent, polished and convincing. Using a tool to write reviews in customers' names is still a fake review: if it didn't come from a real customer's experience, it doesn't belong on your page.
What the CMA is investigating
In March 2026 the CMA opened 5 investigations, bringing the number of businesses under review with its new consumer powers to 14. The concerns it named show exactly where it's looking:
- Autotrader and Feefo: whether some 1-star reviews moderated by Feefo weren't published on Autotrader and weren't counted in star ratings.
- Dignity: whether staff were asked to write positive reviews of its crematoria services.
- Just Eat: whether its ratings system inflated some restaurants' and grocers' star ratings.
- Pasta Evangelists: whether customers were offered a reward on future orders for 5-star reviews on delivery apps, without that being disclosed.
The CMA stresses it hasn't reached any conclusions on whether these businesses broke the law. But the list covers every stage it says it's looking at: how reviews are obtained, how they're moderated and displayed, and the star ratings people rely on.
Influencers and gifted products
Reviews aren't the only place hidden incentives bite. The CMA's guidance gives the example of an influencer gifted a free holiday on the expectation they'll post about it, whose content doesn't make it clear it's a commercial arrangement, for instance by labelling it #Ad. That's a separate banned practice on hidden promotion, and it sits alongside the reviews rule. If you send products to creators, make the disclosure part of the brief.
What to do if you collect or show reviews
- Stop any review requests to staff, family or suppliers. Only real customers should review.
- If you offer anything for a review, keep it the same whatever the rating, and make sure the review shows it was incentivised.
- Publish negative reviews on the same terms as positive ones, and calculate any star rating from all of them.
- Write down the steps you take to spot and remove fake reviews, such as checking reviewers were real customers. That's your evidence of reasonable and proportionate steps.
- Reply to bad reviews instead of hiding them. Our guide on how to reply to Google reviews has wording that keeps it calm.
If you need more reviews, the fix is asking more real customers, more often. Our guide to collecting and using customer reviews covers how to do that without crossing the line.
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What's at stake
Since April 2025 the CMA can decide whether consumer law has been infringed and act directly, including through consumer redress and fines, rather than litigating through the courts first. Its first 12 months' priorities named fake reviews as an area where it had already put down a clear marker. Fake reviews are squarely on its list, so this is no longer a theoretical risk.
My advice
Treat your review page like your accounts: honest, complete and something you could explain line by line. A business with honest 4-star reviews and thoughtful replies to the 2-star ones looks far more trustworthy than a wall of perfect fives, and since April 2025 it's the only version that's safe.
Frequently asked questions
When did the UK fake reviews ban start?
The DMCC Act's unfair commercial practices provisions, including the fake reviews ban, apply to commercial practices from 6 April 2025.
Is it illegal to ask employees to leave reviews in the UK?
Asking staff to write reviews as if they were customers risks being a fake consumer review, which is a banned practice under the DMCC Act. One of the CMA's March 2026 investigations concerns whether a business asked staff to write positive reviews.
Can I offer an incentive for a review?
The DMCC Act bans reviews that conceal the fact they've been incentivised. If you offer anything for a review, the review must make that clear.
Should I publish negative reviews?
Publishing reviews or review information in a misleading way is banned, and the CMA is investigating a case about 1-star reviews that weren't published or counted in star ratings. Showing only positive reviews is a clear risk.
Does the fake reviews ban apply to small businesses?
Yes. The rules apply to traders' commercial practices with consumers whatever their size, including any business that publishes reviews on its own website.
