Do I need an EICR, and how often?

In England, landlords of most private rented homes. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 applied to new tenancies from 1 July 2020 and to all existing tenancies from 1 April 2021.

The regulations require a landlord to:

• Ensure national standards for electrical safety — BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations — are met
• Have the installation inspected and tested at intervals of no more than five years by a qualified and competent person
• Obtain a report giving the results and the date of the next inspection
• Supply the report to each existing tenant within 28 days of the inspection
• Supply it to a new tenant before they occupy, and to any prospective tenant within 28 days of a request
• Supply it to the local housing authority within 7 days of a request
• Retain a copy for the next inspection

Rented homes in England: inspection and testing at intervals of no more than five years, with the report to existing tenants within 28 days.

A local housing authority can impose a financial penalty of up to £30,000 for a breach, and can arrange remedial work itself and recover the cost. Scotland has had a five-year requirement for private rented housing since 2015; Wales applies equivalent requirements under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 framework. Requirements for social housing in England have been the subject of government consultation, so if you manage social stock, check the position before assuming the private rented rules do or do not apply to you.

For a home you own and live in, there is no statutory inspection requirement. BS 7671 recommends a maximum interval of ten years for domestic installations, and an inspection at change of occupancy is sensible.

For commercial and industrial premises, the duty is in regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989: electrical systems must be maintained so as to prevent danger, so far as is reasonably practicable. There is no interval in the regulation. Periodic inspection is how you demonstrate compliance, and the interval is set by the inspector based on the installation, its use and its environment.

NoteInsurance policies and mortgage conditions often impose their own inspection intervals. They are contractual, not statutory, but the consequence of ignoring them is a refused claim.

A C1, C2 or FI makes the report unsatisfactory. A C3 on its own does not.

That last point causes a lot of unnecessary spending. A C3 is an observation that the installation does not meet the current edition of BS 7671 but is not unsafe — the absence of RCD protection on a circuit installed to an older edition, for example. You are not required to act on a C3, and a report with C3s only is a satisfactory report.

Under the 2020 Regulations, where a report requires investigative or remedial work, the landlord must complete it within 28 days, or within the shorter period the report specifies. A C1 is not a 28-day item — it must be made safe on the day, and a competent inspector will do that before leaving.

A qualified and competent person. The regulations do not define it exhaustively, but government guidance points landlords to membership of a competent person scheme — NICEIC, NAPIT, ELECSA, STROMA or similar — or to an electrician who can evidence equivalent qualifications, experience and insurance.

What to check before instructing: current scheme registration, that the person doing the work holds the inspection and testing qualification, current calibration of the test instruments, and public liability and professional indemnity insurance. Ask what proportion of circuits will be tested — an EICR is a sampled inspection, and the sample and any limitations must be recorded on the report.

NoteA quote that is dramatically cheaper than the rest is usually a smaller sample with wider limitations recorded on the report. Read the extent and limitations section before you compare prices.

• Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) — issued for a new installation, or an addition or alteration involving a new circuit. Certifies that new work meets BS 7671.
• Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate — for an addition or alteration that does not involve a new circuit, such as adding a socket to an existing radial.
• Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) — a periodic assessment of an existing installation, reporting its condition against BS 7671 with coded observations.

They are not interchangeable, and a landlord who is given an EIC for a consumer unit change has not satisfied the five-yearly EICR duty for the rest of the installation.

Notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations also has to be certified to building control, either through a competent person scheme registration or by a building notice. That is a separate obligation from the certificate you hand to the customer.

Estimark produces EIC, EICR, Minor Works and PAT certificates with typed test results, so readings are captured as data rather than as a photograph of a paper form. Certificates attach to the job and to the property.

For landlords and social housing providers, the Property Compliance module tracks the "Big Six" per property — gas LGSR, EICR, fire risk assessment, legionella, asbestos and lifts — with renewal cycles and an overdue register. It is a £149-a-month bolt-on. It records renewal dates and shows what is overdue; it does not email you before a certificate expires.

See Estimark for electricians, and Awaab’s Law for why electrical hazards move onto a statutory clock for social landlords from 30 November 2026.