Fire Risk Assessment Cost: What UK Businesses Pay in 2026

Price is usually the first question we are asked, and it is a fair one. A fire risk assessment is a legal requirement under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for almost every non-domestic premises and for the common parts of residential blocks, so it is a cost you cannot avoid. What you can control is whether you pay once for a report that works, or twice because the first one did not.

Typical UK costs in 2026

As a broad guide, for a straightforward small premises — a shop, salon, office suite or single-storey unit under roughly 1,000 sq ft — expect somewhere in the region of £250 to £450. A mid-sized premises such as a pub, restaurant, nursery or a two or three storey office typically lands between £400 and £750. Larger or higher-risk buildings — care homes, HMOs, student accommodation, hotels, industrial units and residential blocks with multiple cores — commonly run from £750 into the low thousands.

Those bands move with three things: floor area, complexity, and occupancy risk. A building where people sleep is assessed to a higher standard than one where they do not, because the consequences of a delayed evacuation are far more serious.

What actually drives the price

Size and layout. More floors, more compartments and more escape routes mean more time on site and more to record.

Sleeping risk. Hotels, care settings, HMOs and residential blocks always cost more, and should.

Occupancy. Vulnerable occupants, members of the public, or shift patterns that leave few trained staff on site all increase the assessment scope.

Condition of records. If your fire alarm, emergency lighting, extinguisher and fire door records are in order, the assessment is quicker. If we are reconstructing a compliance history from scratch, it takes longer.

Destructive or intrusive inspection. A standard Type 1 assessment is non-destructive. Type 3 and Type 4 assessments, which look inside flats or open up construction, cost considerably more and are only needed in specific circumstances.

What a proper assessment should include

A report worth paying for is not a tick-box PDF. It should identify fire hazards and the people at risk, evaluate the adequacy of your escape routes, detection, alarm, emergency lighting, signage, compartmentation and fire doors, and set out a prioritised, dated action plan with named responsibilities. It should be significant-findings-based, written so a responsible person can act on it, and it should be signed by a competent assessor who will stand behind it.

Ask any assessor two questions before you book: what are your qualifications, and are you listed on a recognised register? Our assessors are IFSM members and listed on the National Register of Fire Risk Assessors, and we are fully insured. That matters most on the day an inspecting officer or an insurer asks who wrote your report.

The cost of getting it wrong

Enforcement fines are not scaled to the size of your business. We recently covered a £33,700 fire safety prosecution at a Somerset B&B where the failings were the sort of thing a competent assessment would have picked up in an afternoon. Set against that, a few hundred pounds is not really a cost at all — it is the cheapest risk transfer available to you.

There is also an insurance angle. A significant number of commercial policies contain a fire safety compliance condition. If a claim follows a fire and you cannot produce a current, suitable and sufficient assessment, the insurer has a route to reduce or reject that claim.

How often do you need to repeat it?

The Order requires the assessment to be kept up to date, and reviewed whenever there is a material change — a refit, a change of use, new tenants, altered layout, or a fire or near-miss. In practice most premises should be reassessed annually, and higher-risk sleeping accommodation may need it more frequently. Under Section 156 of the Building Safety Act, the recording requirements are now stricter and your assessment must be recorded in full regardless of premises size or headcount.

Getting a price that means something

Beware of a quote given without any questions being asked. If nobody has asked you about floor area, number of storeys, sleeping risk and occupancy, they are not pricing your building — they are pricing an average.

We give a fixed price up front, carry out the assessment on an agreed date, and deliver the report with a prioritised action plan you can budget against. Where remedial work is needed we can quote it, but you are never obliged to use us for the fix — a report you can take to any contractor is a more honest report.

If you want a firm number for your premises, see our fire risk assessment service or get in touch with the address, floor area and use of the building and we will price it the same day.