How much should an EICR cost? Honest numbers, and what moves them

If you've just been quoted for an EICR — or you're a landlord staring at a renewal date — the first question is simple: is the price fair? Here are the honest numbers, and the things that legitimately move them.

The going rates

An EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) is a formal inspection of your home's fixed wiring — the consumer unit, the circuits, the sockets and switches — with a written report at the end. Across the main UK price guides, most domestic EICRs land between £100 and £350:

• 1-bed flat: £100–£150
• 2-bed flat or house: £120–£200
• 3-bed house: £150–£250
• 4-bed house: £250–£350
• 5-bed house and larger: £300–£400+

Where you live shifts the whole scale. London and the South East run roughly 15–40% above these ranges — a 3-bed EICR at £230–£300 in London is normal. Scotland and the North of England tend to come in below the national range.

One thing the fee never includes: fixing anything. The EICR is inspection and report only. Any remedial work gets quoted separately, on top.

What actually drives the price

It's not really about bedrooms — that's just a proxy. What the electrician is pricing is:

• The number of circuits. This is the big one. Each circuit gets tested individually, so a 1-bed flat with 6 circuits is a much smaller job than a 4-bed house with 15. Extensions, outbuildings, EV chargers and electric showers all add circuits.
• The age of the installation. Older wiring takes longer to inspect and tends to produce more observations to investigate and write up.
• Access. A consumer unit buried in a cupboard, wiring under fitted floors, lofts with no boards — anything that slows the inspector down costs time.

A typical 2–3 bed house takes 2–4 hours of actual testing. That matters when you're judging a quote, as we'll get to.

Reading the report: C1, C2, C3 and FI

The report grades everything it finds with an observation code:

• C1 — danger present. Risk of injury; needs immediate action.
• C2 — potentially dangerous. Not an immediate danger, but could become one.
• C3 — improvement recommended. Doesn't meet current standards, but not unsafe.
• FI — further investigation advised. Something needs a closer look before it can be graded. (Amendment 4 changed this wording from "required without delay".)

A C1 or a C2 makes the overall report unsatisfactory. C3 and FI do not — Amendment 4 states that directly and splits them into their own section of the form. A report with only C3s is satisfactory, and the code itself obliges nobody to act, though some are worth doing. What a C3 does not do is override a duty that comes from somewhere else — a Scottish landlord needs a 30mA RCD in the main consumer unit under the Repairing Standard whether that finding was coded C3 or not written up at all.

One thing not to read into that, if you're a landlord in England: the report's verdict and your legal duty come from two different rulebooks. A report can say satisfactory while you still owe a duty to have an FI investigated within 28 days. The codes, and what each one actually means goes through all four with worked examples.

Worth knowing: an installation wired to an older edition of the regulations doesn't fail just for being older. Wiring standards are updated regularly — most recently in April 2026 — and the model form says in terms that an installation designed to an earlier edition is not necessarily unsafe or in need of upgrading. "Not built to the latest edition" is not a code on its own, either: whether something gets a C3, or no code at all, depends on what the specific finding means for safety, not on the age of the installation.

The rules if you're a landlord

All three nations require an inspection at least every 5 years, but the details differ:

• England. The Electrical Safety Standards regulations require an EICR at least every 5 years, remedial work on C1/C2/FI items within 28 days (or sooner if the report says so), and copies to tenants. The timing for that copy depends on who is getting it: an existing tenant within 28 days of the inspection, a new tenant before they move in, and a prospective tenant who asks for it within 28 days of asking. Councils can fine up to £40,000 per breach — raised from £30,000 in November 2025, when the rules were also extended to social housing.
• Scotland. The 5-yearly electrical safety inspection is part of the repairing standard, and it covers landlord-supplied appliances (PAT) as well as the fixed wiring. Enforcement runs through the housing tribunal rather than fixed fines.
• Wales. A valid electrical condition report is required throughout the tenancy, renewed at least every 5 years, with a copy to the contract-holder within 14 days of the occupation date — and, for a report obtained during the occupation, within 14 days of the inspection. Without one, the home can be treated as unfit for human habitation — which puts the rent itself at risk.

If you're an owner-occupier, none of this applies to you. The industry recommendation is an inspection at least every 10 years, and when you buy a place — a survey doesn't test the electrics.

The £60 EICR, and other red flags

EICR pricing has a known failure mode at the bottom of the market, and it's worth naming plainly.

A proper EICR on a whole house takes hours of dead and live testing, circuit by circuit. A full "EICR" priced at £50–£60, or done in under an hour, is usually a visual once-over with a certificate attached — which defeats the point of paying for one at all.

The subtler problem is the incentive at the other end: the inspector who fails the report, then quotes heavily to fix it. Most electricians are straight about this, and a genuine unsatisfactory report is exactly what the inspection is for — but the structure invites abuse, and landlord forums have plenty of stories of a clean report one cycle becoming a dozen C2s the next, with a large remedial quote attached from the same firm.

Sensible protection, without treating anyone as a crook:

• Use someone registered with NICEIC or NAPIT — or in Scotland, a SELECT member firm. Reports from unregistered inspectors may not satisfy your insurer, lender or council anyway.
• Ask for the report, not just the verdict. Every C1 and C2 should name the issue and its location. Vague failures are a warning sign.
• On a heavy remedial quote, get a second opinion before committing. Any competent electrician can price work from another firm's report — a genuine list of faults survives the second look.

A fair EICR price buys you hours of a qualified person's time and a report you can hand to a tenant, a buyer, an insurer or a council. Judged against that, £150–£250 for a 3-bed house is what the job actually costs — and the suspiciously cheap version isn't the same product at all.