Sooner or later most UK breeders bump into a cat registered with a body they don’t use themselves. You might import a kitten from abroad, sell one to an overseas home, or simply receive a pedigree that looks unfamiliar. The two registries that come up most often in conversations I have as a GCCF Full Judge are the GCCF — the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, the long-established UK registry — and TICA, The International Cat Association, which originated in the United States and now operates worldwide. Their pedigrees can look quite different, and the differences genuinely matter when you’re buying, selling or breeding across the two. Here is what you need to know, in plain English.
Two registries, two philosophies
The GCCF is the oldest cat registry in the UK and, historically, the most widely used here. It tends to be breed-focused and fairly traditional in its structures: each breed sits within a defined framework, with registration policies that govern which colours and crosses are permitted and on which register a cat can sit. TICA, by contrast, grew up as an international, genetics-led association. It is known for being more flexible about new breeds and varieties and for a registration approach that reflects its global, multi-breed outlook. Neither approach is “better” — they’re simply different traditions, and that difference shows up on the paperwork.
How the pedigrees themselves differ
Both registries produce a pedigree that does the same fundamental job — setting out a cat’s ancestry across several generations — but the presentation and conventions vary. A few of the differences a UK breeder is most likely to notice:
- Colour description. The GCCF uses the EMS coding system shorthand familiar to most UK breeders. TICA tends to spell colours and patterns out in words and uses its own breed and colour terminology, so the same cat can be described quite differently on each.
- Titles and abbreviations. Both award show titles, but the title structures and their abbreviations differ. A title you recognise on a GCCF pedigree won’t necessarily map one-to-one onto a TICA one.
- Registration numbers. Each body issues its own number in its own format. A cat moving between registries gains a new number from the new body; the old one doesn’t carry across.
- Layout and depth. The generational layout is broadly similar — sire’s side and dam’s side, generations fanning out — but the styling, headings and the way titles and colours are placed differ between the two.
The practical upshot is that a pedigree which is perfectly correct for one registry is not automatically correct for the other. If you produce a certificate in the GCCF style for a cat you intend to register with TICA, the conventions won’t match what that registry and its breeders expect — and vice versa.
Registration is not the same as a pedigree
It’s worth repeating a point that trips up newcomers to either body: a pedigree certificate records ancestry, but it does not register a cat. Registration is a separate act carried out by the GCCF or TICA, which then issues the official registration document. If you want a cat recognised by a particular registry, you register it with that registry under its rules — producing a smart pedigree certificate doesn’t do that for you. A tool that builds correct certificates is enormously useful, but it is a record-keeping and pedigree tool, not a registering body. Keep those two ideas separate and you’ll avoid the most common misunderstanding in this whole area.
What this means for UK breeders in practice
If you breed solely within the GCCF system and only ever deal with GCCF-registered cats, you may rarely need to think about TICA at all. But more and more UK breeders find themselves working across both, for sensible reasons:
- Imports and exports. A kitten coming from a TICA breeder abroad will arrive with a TICA pedigree; a kitten you sell overseas may need its ancestry presented in a form the buyer’s registry recognises.
- Newer breeds. Some breeds and varieties are recognised or further developed under TICA, so breeders working with them naturally engage with that registry.
- Dual registration. Some breeders choose to register cats with more than one body to keep their options open for showing and selling.
Whenever you cross between the two, accuracy is everything. You need to read an incoming pedigree correctly, translate colours and terminology sensibly, and produce ancestry documents in the right style for whichever registry is involved. Doing that by hand — juggling two sets of conventions, two title systems and two colour vocabularies — is exactly where mistakes creep in.
How Perfect Pedigrees handles both
This dual-registry world is one of the reasons I built Perfect Pedigrees to build both GCCF- and TICA-correct pedigrees. It’s a browser-based system, so there’s nothing to install, and you can switch the style of certificate you produce to suit the registry you’re working with rather than forcing everything into a single house style. You enter each cat once — either by typing the details in, with breed, colour and pattern chosen from proper lists, or by uploading a photo or PDF of an existing pedigree with no typing at all — and the system renders the appropriate output. Behind it sits a curated pool of around 90,000 cats checked by a GCCF judge, which makes building deep, accurate trees far quicker.
Alongside the certificates, you get the tools that matter most when you’re mixing lines from different sources: it calculates coefficient of inbreeding and genetic diversity, and lets you run a trial mating before you commit — useful when you’re weighing an import against your existing cats. The how it works page shows the whole flow, and the certificates page shows the finished output in both styles. As ever, it’s free to build and you only pay when you print, at home or as a posted card. Built to be UK GDPR-compliant, your records stay yours.
The bottom line
GCCF and TICA are two respected registries with different histories, conventions and paperwork. The differences in how their pedigrees describe colour, titles and registration numbers are real, and they matter the moment you buy, sell or breed across the two. Understand that a pedigree records ancestry while registration is a separate step handled by the registry itself, learn to read both styles, and make sure whatever you produce is correct for the body it’s meant for. Get those basics right and working across registries becomes routine rather than daunting.
Breeding across GCCF and TICA? Perfect Pedigrees builds both GCCF- and TICA-correct pedigrees from one record — free to build, pay only when you print. Join the early access programme or see the pricing.
Written by Ross Davies — GCCF Full Judge, breeder and exhibitor of 20+ years, and a qualified feline behaviourist. Perfect Pedigrees is a breeder’s record-keeping and pedigree tool, not a registering body.
