How long to keep an EICR, and who needs a copy

"How long do I keep this?" sounds like it should have one answer. It has at least five, depending on whether you're the landlord, the owner or the person who wrote the report — and which side of the border the property is on.

The inspection duty itself — every five years for rented homes, and what the codes mean — is covered in what an EICR costs and the C1, C2, C3 and FI guide. This one is about the paper: who has to hold it, who has to be given it, and for how long.

Landlords in England

Keep it until the next one is both due and done. This changed on 1 November 2025. The original 2020 rule was to keep the report until the next inspection was due. The amended regulations now say you keep it until the later of the date the next inspection is due and the date it's actually carried out, unless a more recent report replaces it.

The difference matters exactly when things have gone wrong. If an inspection is overdue, the old report is still the one you're required to hold.

Who else gets a copy. The tenant timescales — existing tenants within 28 days of the inspection, new tenants before they move in — are in the cost guide. The ones people tend to forget are:

• The council, within 7 days of a written request.
• Whoever does the next inspection.
• Tenants and the council, after remedial work, which is the one that's easy to miss: once the work is finished, written confirmation that it's been done goes to the tenants and to the council within 28 days, along with the report. The council gets that without asking for it.

Failing to supply a copy is a breach in its own right. The maximum penalty is £40,000, and it applies to the copy duties as well as the inspection. The "all reasonable steps" defence in the regulations covers the inspection duties, not the copies.

Three more things that apply now or soon:

• Social housing is in. The same regulations were extended to social landlords from November 2025, with older social tenancies coming in from May 2026.
• The tenant's written statement mentions it. Under the Renters' Rights Act rules in force from May 2026, the written statement has to tell the tenant that the landlord must supply a copy of the report.
• A landlord database is on the way. Draft regulations would require a copy of the EICR to be uploaded, rolling out region by region from December 2026. They're a draft, not law, but it's another reason to have the file somewhere you can find it.

HMOs now follow the same rules. The separate HMO duty to produce the certificate to the council was removed in England when the 2020 regulations came in.

One gap worth knowing about: the regulations don't say what form a copy has to take. Emailing a PDF is what almost everyone does, but since the regulations are silent, keep a record of when you sent it and to whom.

Landlords in Scotland

Six years, and it's in the Act. Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, the record of each electrical safety inspection must be given to the landlord and kept by the landlord for six years. The Scottish Government's statutory guidance repeats it, and adds that the appliance test records should be attached to the EICR — so in practice you're keeping both.

Copies to tenants. A copy of the most recent record before the tenancy starts, and a copy of any inspection carried out during it. Unlike England, no number of days is set.

It also comes up at registration. Landlord registration applicants have to confirm they've given the tenant a copy of the report.

HMOs. The national licensing guidance suggests licence holders should hold a currently valid EICR, but each council sets its own conditions, so check your licence.

Landlords in Wales

Copies within 14 days. Under the Welsh fitness for habitation regulations, the landlord has 14 days from the occupation date to give the contract-holder the latest report, and 14 days from any inspection during the occupation to hand over that one. Written confirmation of remedial work follows the same 14-day pattern.

No retention period is set — but because a valid report is required throughout, and missing the deadline can leave the home treated as unfit for human habitation, keeping the current report and proof of when you supplied it is the practical minimum.

HMOs in Wales are different from England: the older HMO rule still applies there, so the certificate has to be supplied to the council within 7 days of a written request.

Owners: no duty, but you'll be asked for it

If you own the home you live in, nothing obliges you to keep an EICR, and you don't need one to sell.

You will be asked, though. The Law Society's TA6 property information form — the questionnaire sellers fill in during a sale in England and Wales, now on its 6th edition — asks whether there's been electrical installation work, whether there are certificates for it, and whether the property has an EICR, with copies requested. "I think we had one done" is a slower answer than a PDF.

Keep any Building Regulations compliance certificate. For notifiable electrical work in England and Wales, the installer registered with a competent person scheme has to give the occupier a certificate showing the work was notified. The regulations say within 30 days of completion; GOV.UK's guidance page says eight weeks, so don't panic in week five. These are the documents a buyer's solicitor most wants, and if one's lost, the schemes offer a duplicate service — though NICEIC's warns it may not hold notifications more than six years old.

In Scotland the property questionnaire asks about building warrants and completion certificates for work done, and about guarantees for electrical work, rather than about an EICR.

Electricians: a lot longer than five years

The report says when the next inspection is due. It says nothing about how long the person who wrote it should keep a copy.

What the forms and schemes say. The IET's model forms expect the customer to keep the original and the person issuing it to keep a duplicate, without setting a period. NICEIC's scheme rules are more specific: members keep records, certificates included, for at least six years, and have to show that at assessment. NAPIT's published installer rules don't state a retention period for certificates, but do require a six-year warranty on notified work.

What the law of claims says. This is where six years starts to look short.

• England and Wales. Ordinary contract and negligence claims run for six years. Negligence that causes damage nobody could have spotted at the time can be brought later, up to a 15-year long-stop. And since 28 June 2022, anyone doing work on a home in the course of their business owes a duty under the Defective Premises Act, with claims possible for 15 years from when the work was completed.
• Scotland. Claims generally have to be made within five years of when the person became aware — or could reasonably have become aware — of the loss and who caused it, with a 20-year long-stop whose current form took effect in February 2025.
• Personal injury runs on its own shorter clock from when the injury is known about, but without a long-stop, in all three.

None of that obliges you to keep anything. But if a claim arrived in year twelve about a board change you certified, the certificate is your record of what you found and what you did.

Data protection pulls the other way, but less than people fear. The ICO's guidance says not to keep personal data for longer than you need it — but also that keeping it to defend possible future legal claims is a legitimate reason, as long as it's deleted once such a claim could no longer arise. It also says a small business doing occasional, low-risk processing may not need a written retention policy at all.

So there's no single right number. The honest version is to decide yours with those periods in mind, write it down, and apply it consistently.

If it's been lost

An EICR: ask the electrician or firm who did the inspection. The schemes don't reissue EICRs, but the issuer should hold a duplicate, and NICEIC firms have to keep records for at least six years. If there's genuinely no copy anywhere, the answer is a new inspection — and for a landlord, not being able to produce the report during the period you're meant to keep it is a compliance problem in itself.

A Building Regulations compliance certificate: the scheme the installer was registered with can usually provide a duplicate.

Where grafter.ly fits

grafter.ly isn't certificate software, and it doesn't store certificates — the files you can attach to a job are photos. Keep your reports wherever your certificate software keeps them.

What it can hold is the date. Put a five-year repeat on a landlord customer, at the rental's address, and the next inspection appears in your jobs list and on your dashboard a little ahead of its due date. Nothing is emailed to you or to the landlord. The cycle after that counts from the day the job is done — when you invoice it or mark it completed, whichever comes first. You can try it free for 30 days, no card to start.

The short version

• Landlords in England: keep it until the next inspection is due and done. Copies to tenants, the council within 7 days of asking, and the next inspector.
• Landlords in Scotland: keep the record for six years. Copies to new tenants before they move in, and after any inspection during a tenancy.
• Landlords in Wales: copies within 14 days of occupation or inspection. No set retention period, but you need a valid report throughout.
• Owners: no duty, but you'll be asked for certificates when you sell.
• Electricians: at least six years if you're with NICEIC, and think about the 15- and 20-year claim periods before you delete anything.

---

Sources. England: the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, including regulation 11 on penalties and regulation 14 on HMOs, as amended by SI 2025/1043; GOV.UK guidance for private and social landlords; the written statement regulations under the Renters' Rights Act; and the draft Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026. Scotland: the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, sections 19A and 19B; the Scottish Government's repairing standard statutory guidance; the landlord registration regulations; and the HMO licensing statutory guidance. Wales: the Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022 and the Welsh HMO management regulations. Selling: the Law Society's TA6 Property Information Form, 6th edition, and the Scottish property questionnaire regulations. Building Regulations: regulation 20 of the Building Regulations 2010, GOV.UK on competent person schemes, and NICEIC's duplicate certificate service. Electricians: the IET's model forms; NICEIC's Domestic Installer Scheme rules; NAPIT's installer scheme rules; the Limitation Act 1980, sections 2, 4B, 5 and 14B; the Defective Premises Act 1972, section 2A; the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, sections 6, 7 and 11; and the ICO's guidance on storage limitation. All checked 16 September 2026.

This is general information, not legal advice about your own records or tenancies.