What an EICR is, and what the subcontractor signing it is certifying
The maximum financial penalty a local authority in England can impose on a landlord who breaches the electrical safety standards rose from £30,000 to £40,000 under the 2025 extension regulations. That single figure explains why demand for EICRs has held up while other electrical work has softened, and why a self-employed electrician or CIS subcontractor with the right qualification can build a predictable book of compliance work around it.
An Electrical Installation Condition Report is a periodic inspection and test of an existing fixed electrical installation, carried out and reported against BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations. It is not a certificate for new work. An Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) or a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate (MEIWC) covers work you have carried out. An EICR records the condition of an installation that already exists, whoever installed it.
The inspection covers the origin of the supply and the consumer unit, earthing and protective bonding, the condition of cables, accessories and enclosures, the suitability of protective devices, and the presence of RCD protection where the current standard requires it. It combines visual inspection with dead tests (continuity, insulation resistance, polarity) and live tests (earth fault loop impedance, RCD operation), circuit by circuit, and normally requires the supply to be isolated for part of the visit.
One point worth tracking in 2026: BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 was published on 15 April 2026, and the previous version, BS 7671:2018+A2:2022 incorporating A3:2024, is not withdrawn until 15 October 2026. Your report has to state the edition and amendment you inspected against, so check what your certification software is defaulting to.
EICR validity periods and the legal triggers behind your subcontractor workload
There is no universal expiry date on an EICR. The interval depends on the tenure of the property and, where a previous report exists, on what that report recommended. Where a report specifies a shorter interval than the statutory maximum, the shorter interval is the one that applies.
| Where and what | Maximum interval | Source of the duty |
|---|---|---|
| Private rented homes, England | 5 years | Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, in force for new tenancies from 1 July 2020 and all existing tenancies from 1 April 2021 |
| Social rented homes, England | 5 years | 2025 extension regulations, in force 1 November 2025. Tenancies granted before 1 December 2025 need a first inspection by 1 November 2026 |
| Private rented homes, Wales | 5 years | Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 fitness requirements, from 1 December 2022 |
| Private rented homes, Scotland | 5 years | Repairing standard under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 |
| Private rented homes, Northern Ireland | 5 years | Electrical Safety Standards for Private Tenancies Regulations (NI) 2024, in operation 1 April 2025, existing tenancies by 1 December 2025 |
| Owner-occupied homes | No statutory duty | 10 years is the common industry recommendation only |
| Commercial and industrial premises | Typically 3 to 5 years | Duty holder risk assessment under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 |
The English deadline of 1 November 2026 for social housing tenancies granted before 1 December 2025 is the live commercial opportunity as this is written. Registered providers are procuring inspection capacity in volume, often through managing agents and facilities contractors, which is precisely the kind of arrangement where a subcontractor gets paid by a contractor rather than by the end client.
C1, C2, C3 and FI: the codes that decide what the subcontractor reports
The classification codes are where the commercial consequences sit, because they determine whether the report comes back satisfactory and whether the client faces a 28 day remedial clock.
| Code | Meaning | Effect on the report |
|---|---|---|
| C1 | Danger present, risk of injury | Unsatisfactory. Immediate action required and the client must be notified in writing before you leave site |
| C2 | Potentially dangerous | Unsatisfactory. Remedial work required |
| C3 | Improvement recommended | Does not make the report unsatisfactory and does not require remedial work |
| FI | Further investigation required without delay | Unsatisfactory until the investigation is completed |
In England, where a report is unsatisfactory the landlord must complete the remedial work within 28 days, or sooner if the report specifies a shorter period, and obtain written confirmation from a qualified person that the standards are now met. The report must reach an existing tenant within 28 days of the test, a new tenant before occupation, a prospective tenant within 28 days of a request, and the local council within 7 days of a request.
Over-coding is a genuine commercial risk. Recording as C2 what the current Best Practice Guidance treats as C3 generates remedial work the client did not need, and agents notice. Under-coding is worse, because a C1 you did not raise is your professional exposure. Keep your coding defensible against the published industry guidance rather than against what wins you the next job.
What to charge for an EICR: property size, time on site and your expenses
The ranges below are drawn from trade cost guides and comparison sites published during 2026 (Checkatrade, MyJobQuote and similar). They describe what the market is quoting, not what any given electrician should charge, and they are gross of VAT and regional variation. Treat them as a sense-check on your own numbers rather than a rate card.
| Property | Typical circuits | Trade-reported price range (2026) | Realistic time on site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio or 1 bedroom flat | 4 to 6 | £120 to £180 | 1.5 to 2 hours |
| 2 bedroom flat or terrace | 6 to 10 | £150 to £220 | 2 to 3 hours |
| 3 bedroom house | 10 to 15 | £180 to £300 | 2.5 to 4 hours |
| 4 to 5 bedroom house | 15 to 25 | £250 to £400 | 4 to 6 hours |
| HMO or small commercial unit | Varies, single phase | £250 to £500 | Half day to full day |
| Larger commercial, three phase | Multiple boards | £500 upwards, priced per board or per circuit | Full day or longer |
Build your own price from the bottom up rather than matching the local going rate. The inputs are your target recovery per productive hour, the circuit count, the age and accessibility of the installation (a 1970s board with rewireable fuses and no records takes considerably longer than a modern dual-RCD board with a schedule already on file), your travel time and mileage, and your report-writing time. Report writing is the cost most electricians forget: thirty minutes per report at the end of every day is roughly two and a half hours a week you are not billing for.
The recurring expenses behind the rate matter to the arithmetic as well: multifunction tester calibration, certification software, scheme membership, public liability insurance, and mileage at the AMAP rate of 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p thereafter from 6 April 2026. Our guide to allowable expenses for CIS subcontractors sets out how each of those is claimed, and the capital allowances position on test equipment is covered in the guide to vans, tools and capital allowances.
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Qualifications to sign off an EICR, and the 1 October 2026 change for every electrical subcontractor
The regulations across all four nations require the work to be done by a qualified and competent person, without listing a qualification in the statutory text. The substance sits in industry standards instead.
The practical baseline is a current BS 7671 qualification, a Level 3 inspection and testing qualification (City and Guilds 2391-51 for periodic inspection, or 2391-52 covering both initial verification and periodic inspection), calibrated test equipment, and either competent person scheme registration or a signed competence checklist. In England the guidance expressly allows the checklist route, covering qualifications, experience and insurance, as an alternative to scheme membership. In commercial reality, agents and registered providers usually insist on scheme registration.
The change to plan for: under the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification 2024, the route that allowed periodic inspection and testing to be signed off on documented experience alone closes on 1 October 2026. Scheme operators are assessing against individual qualification rather than firm-level competence, which means an electrician on your books without a 2391 series qualification may lose scope for EICR work at that point. This is a scheme requirement rather than a statutory one, so confirm your specific position with your own scheme operator before you commit to a contract that runs past that date. Course fees and the assessment cost are allowable as training that maintains or updates an existing skill.
Is EICR work inside CIS? The inspection and remedial deduction split
This is the part most electricians get wrong on the invoice. HMRC's guidance on commissioning work (CISR14120) treats work that comprises only inspecting an installation, adjusting controls and reporting to the client as being in the nature of a survey, which falls within the exclusion for the professional work of consultants in building and engineering. On that basis a pure inspection and testing engagement, which is exactly what an EICR is, sits outside the Construction Industry Scheme.
Remedial work that follows the report is different. Replacing a consumer unit, upgrading bonding, rewiring a circuit or fitting RCD protection is a construction operation, and where you are paid by a contractor the CIS deduction applies at 20% if you are registered or 30% if you are not, on the labour element only. Materials are excluded from the deduction base. The rates and the labour-only rule are covered in full in our guide to CIS deduction rates, and if you are new to the scheme, start with what the Construction Industry Scheme is.
Two practical consequences follow. First, invoice the inspection fee, the remedial labour and the materials as three separate lines, so the contractor applies the deduction only where it belongs. Our guide to splitting labour and materials on CIS invoices covers the mechanics, and the CIS invoice splitter will work the deduction out on a mixed invoice for you.
Second, most EICR work is instructed directly by a landlord, a letting agent or a managing agent rather than by a contractor, so no deduction arises at all. Note the exception: an agent, housing association or property business spending more than £3 million on construction operations in a rolling twelve month period becomes a deemed contractor and must operate the scheme on the construction operations it pays for, though the inspection element still sits outside. For the landlord-facing side of this market, including what to quote a letting agent and how the certification paperwork is presented to the client, see our guide to landlord electrical safety checks and what to charge.
Worked example: an EICR round, the CIS deduction and what actually lands
Take a sole trader electrician in a month with a mixed book: a block of EICRs for a managing agent, plus remedial work invoiced through a main contractor on a refurbishment.
| Item | Amount | CIS treatment |
|---|---|---|
| 18 domestic EICRs for a managing agent at £185 | £3,330 | Outside CIS (inspection and reporting only), paid gross |
| Remedial labour arising from those reports, billed direct to the agent | £1,450 | Agent is not a contractor, paid gross |
| Remedial labour on a refurbishment, invoiced to a main contractor | £2,600 | Construction operation, 20% deduction applies |
| Materials on that refurbishment work | £900 | Excluded from the deduction base |
| CIS deducted (£2,600 x 20%) | -£520 | Paid to HMRC by the contractor as an advance against your tax |
| Invoiced in the month | £8,280 | |
| Received into the bank | £7,760 |
Only £520 of that month's tax has been paid in advance, against £8,280 of turnover. On a book that was entirely CIS labour, the advance would have been closer to £1,650. That gap is the whole cash flow story of moving into compliance work: the money feels better in month one and considerably worse in the January after the tax year ends. The fix is mechanical rather than clever. Move a fixed percentage of every gross invoice into a separate account as it arrives, and reconcile it against your actual liability at year end.
The recurring-revenue case for EICRs, and the VAT threshold to watch
Almost no other work in the electrical trade comes with a legally mandated repeat date attached. Every satisfactory domestic rented EICR you issue in 2026 is a diarised job in 2031, for a client who is legally required to have it done. Building that diary is worth more than any individual job margin, and the remedial work the reports generate typically carries a better rate than the inspection itself.
Two financial consequences follow from scaling it. The first is VAT. Taxable turnover of £90,000 on a rolling twelve month basis triggers compulsory VAT registration, and EICR fees invoiced gross reach that threshold faster than CIS labour of the same value feels like it should, because nothing is being deducted before the money lands. Once registered, remedial work for VAT-registered and CIS-registered contractors falls under the domestic reverse charge, covered in our guide to the VAT reverse charge in construction. Inspection fees billed to an end user landlord follow normal VAT rules.
The second is Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Sole traders with gross income above £50,000 are in scope from April 2026, dropping to £30,000 from April 2027, and gross income means turnover before any CIS deduction. A growing EICR book counts toward that threshold in full. The practical implications for a construction sole trader are set out in our guide to MTD for Income Tax and CIS.
Whether to keep trading as a sole trader or incorporate is a separate question, and the answer changes once a meaningful share of turnover arrives gross rather than net of deductions. Our comparison of CIS as a sole trader against a limited company works through both positions.
EICRs are the most reliably repeatable job an electrical subcontractor can sell, with statutory five-year cycles across every UK nation's rented sector and a concentrated block of social housing inspections still to complete before 1 November 2026. Price them from your own recovery per hour rather than the local going rate, keep your coding defensible, get the 2391 series qualification in place before the 1 October 2026 scheme deadline, and split inspection income from remedial labour on every invoice so the CIS deduction lands only where it belongs. If you want the tax and cash flow side of a growing compliance book handled properly, our accounting service for electricians covers CIS, expenses and the year-end position together.