An Electrical Installation Condition Report is a periodic assessment of an existing electrical installation against the current wiring regulations, recorded as a set of coded observations. It is not a certificate for new work, and it does not fix anything. Remedial work is quoted and charged separately.
What it costs
Which? Trusted Traders, surveying nineteen traders in November 2025, gives £100 to £330 excluding VAT for a standard three-bed semi, taking four to eight hours.
Checkatrade publishes three different figures across its own electrical guides, all excluding VAT: £100 to £250 with an average of £200 on the dedicated safety check guide, £125 for a one-bed rising to £300 and above for a five-bed on the hourly-rate guide, and £150 to £375 by property size on the rewire guide.
The sources converge on duration, and duration is the most reliable number in this topic. A small flat takes two to four hours, an average house around half a day, and a large or older property a full day. Which? independently reports four to eight hours. When two publishers built on different methods land in the same place, that is the figure to trust.
One caution on the dedicated safety check guide: its cost table is dated September 2024 while the page presents as a 2026 guide, which is also why it still prints the superseded £30,000 landlord penalty maximum rather than the £40,000 that replaced it on 1 November 2025.
What drives the price is the number of circuits, the age of the wiring, how complex the consumer unit is, how accessible hidden wiring is, and the inspector's qualifications. The useful framing is that it works like an MOT for the electrics: it identifies problems, it does not repair them.
The codes, and where they come from
The codes are defined in IET Guidance Note 3, Table 3.5. They are not defined in BS 7671, and a page citing BS 7671 for them has made a checkable error.
C1 means danger is present, with immediate risk of shock, burn or fire. It cannot be left in place: the electrician must make it safe during the visit.
C2 means potentially dangerous. Not an immediate risk, but capable of becoming one, and it requires remedial work.
C3 means improvement recommended. It marks a departure from the current standard where no danger exists, and it is advisory only.
FI means further investigation is required. It is not a danger rating at all: it records that there was not enough information to judge.
The pass rule almost everybody gets wrong
Any C1, C2 or FI makes the report Unsatisfactory. C3 items alone do not. A report carrying only C3 observations is Satisfactory.
Both halves of that matter. The commonly published version says a report is satisfactory only if no C1 or C2 issues are present, which omits FI. An FI is not a fault; it is an admission that something could not be assessed, and it still renders the report Unsatisfactory until resolved.
The other half is the one that costs landlords money. C3 items are advisory. An installation full of C3 observations has passed. Being told that C3s must be remedied before a report can be issued as satisfactory is either a misunderstanding or an upsell, and it is worth pushing back on with the code definitions in hand.
Who can carry one out
The scope matters more here than on any other electrical job, because a condition report is a professional judgement rather than a physical installation.
Under the NICEIC scheme, installation condition reporting sits within the Approved Contractor tier, which requires £250,000 of professional indemnity cover where periodic inspection is carried out. The Domestic Installer tier is scoped for domestic notifiable work and carries no professional indemnity requirement. NAPIT handles the same distinction through separate electrical inspector and electrical certifier scopes on its member search.
So ask specifically whether the person is registered for condition reporting, and check it on the register rather than accepting the badge.
What landlords have to do
Rented property in England is covered by the Electrical Safety Standards regulations, which require inspection and testing at intervals of no more than five years, or sooner if the report specifies a shorter interval.
The report must go to each existing tenant within 28 days, to any new tenant before occupation, and to prospective tenants within 28 days of a written request. Where remedial work is identified, it must be carried out within 28 days.
Local councils may impose a financial penalty of up to £40,000, raised from the previous maximum of £30,000 on 1 November 2025, and more than one penalty can be imposed for a continuing failure. The superseded £30,000 figure survives in cost guides and legal summaries for a reason worth knowing: the "made" version of the 2020 regulations on legislation.gov.uk shows the text as originally enacted rather than the consolidated version now in force, so a source quoting £30,000 has read the 2020 wording rather than the current one.
The rules bite on anyone letting a property as a tenant's only or main residence for rent, including an owner-occupier letting out their own home. Lodgers sharing with the landlord are outside them, as are student halls, hostels, care homes and caravans.
What owner-occupiers need
Nothing, legally. No law compels an owner-occupier to have a condition report at all.
The commonly given recommendation is around ten years, or on a change of occupancy, and that is a recommendation rather than a rule. It is also the sensible way to answer the question of whether a house needs rewiring, because a report tells you what needs doing rather than leaving you guessing from the age of the building.
A report is only as good as the inspector behind it.