NICEIC, NAPIT or SELECT: what registration costs, and whether you need it

Ask three electricians whether you need to be registered and you'll get three answers. You have to be. NICEIC is the proper one. It's about three hundred quid.

None of the three survives a look at the sources. Registration isn't a legal requirement anywhere in the UK. NICEIC and NAPIT have identical standing in law. And no published price for a year at either is under £690 with the VAT on.

Here's what each scheme costs in 2026, what the money buys, and when you can leave it alone.

Nobody makes you register

No UK nation requires an electrician to be registered with a scheme, or with anybody else. What the law asks for is competence. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require it, and since October 2023 the Building Regulations in England say it too. Wales followed in July 2026.

NICEIC puts it plainly about itself: it is a voluntary certification body, not a government regulator.

So why does everyone think otherwise? Partly because the advice aimed at homeowners says so. Electrical Safety First's find-an-electrician page lists "a legal requirement for certain electrical work" among the things a registered electrician is. Approved Document P disagrees. It sets out three ways to certify notifiable work, and two of them don't need the installer to be registered.

What registration does buy, in England and Wales, is one specific thing: the right to certify your own notifiable work in homes. Without it you can still install a new circuit or change a consumer unit. You have to tell building control before you start, and pay its fee.

What it replaces: the building control fee

That fee is the real comparison, so it's worth having actual numbers.

Each council sets its own. In the eight 2026 schedules I checked, putting one notifiable electrical job through building control cost:

• £122.08 in Sandwell
• £290 in Dover
• £305.75 in West Northamptonshire
• £450 in Luton
• £467 in St Albans and Watford
• £543 in Bridgend
• £592.80 in Gwynedd, for a rewire
• £601 in Richmond upon Thames, for wiring up to 12 circuits

Some councils also publish a surcharge where the electrical part of a bigger job isn't certified by a registered installer: £218 in Dover, £330 in Sevenoaks, and £200 + VAT in West Northamptonshire.

Against that, a registered installer at NICEIC pays £4.80 a notification.

Run it on a renewal year at NICEIC, £714 with the VAT on. In seven of those eight councils the scheme is cheaper from the second or third notifiable job of the year. In Sandwell it takes seven. The first year costs £120 more, which moves Sandwell to eight and changes nothing else.

If you're VAT registered you reclaim the VAT on the scheme fee, and the sums tilt further.

What each scheme costs in 2026

Four operators are authorised in law to register people for electrical work in dwellings: NICEIC, NAPIT, Blue Flame Certification and OFTEC. I read every figure below off the scheme's own page on 3 October 2026.

Three things the table can't hold.

NICEIC's direct debit price. Pay the renewal by a single direct debit and it's £575 + VAT rather than £595.

NAPIT's missing columns. Its public pages give the joining price and say that other fees apply for renewal and work notification. Notification prices are sent through the members' portal, and you buy credit in advance. Ask for the renewal price and the notification price in writing before you apply.

Blue Flame's VAT. Its August 2026 fee sheet doesn't say whether the figures include it.

One more number, because it's in circulation. A 2026 comparison guide puts NICEIC's Domestic Installer scheme at "approximately £200–£350" a year. NICEIC's own page says £595 + VAT.

The costs that sit outside the fee

• A second visit. If you can't show enough work on the day, or the assessor has to come back, NICEIC charges £430 + VAT for each additional assessment.
• Certificates. £1.60 + VAT each through NICEIC's online system.
• TrustMark. Extra at both: £145 + VAT a year through NICEIC, £138 including VAT on NAPIT's application form.
• The book. You need access to the current BS 7671, which is £125, and from 15 October 2026 that means Amendment 4.
• Insurance. £2 million of public liability is a condition of every scheme. Insurers only advertise "from" prices, which are what their cheapest tenth of customers pay, so there's no honest typical figure to give you.

NICEIC or NAPIT: the differences that are real

Start with what isn't different. Both are named in Schedule 3 to the Building Regulations, so a certificate through either has the same legal effect. Both assess against the same document, the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification. That means the same qualifications, the same £2 million of cover and the same assessment, normally once a year. Both back domestic work with a guarantee capped at £25,000 for six years, which only applies once the installer has stopped trading. Both list you on their own search and on the single register homeowners are sent to, which is a source of work in its own right.

What does differ:

Inspection work. This is the big one if landlord condition reports are part of your plan. NAPIT's £655 covers any combination of work in dwellings, work in other buildings, condition reports and EV charge points. At NICEIC, the listing as an inspector for rented homes requires Approved Contractor certification. That's £590 + VAT more in the first year and £20 + VAT more each year after. Both want £250,000 of professional indemnity cover for inspection work.

Which NICEIC scheme. Approved Contractor on its own covers "domestic installations (excluding Part P)". For notifiable work in homes you need Domestic Installer, or the combined certification, which costs the same as Approved Contractor alone.

What's published. NICEIC shows what year two costs. NAPIT doesn't.

Other people's work. NAPIT is the only operator of third-party certification, and only in England. As an add-on it's £90 including VAT, and it lets you inspect, test and certify work by installers who aren't registered.

Calibration. The specification asks for records showing your instruments stay accurate, and formal calibration is one of three ways to do that. NICEIC's rules follow that wording. NAPIT's pages ask for an up-to-date calibration certificate for each instrument. What the standard does and doesn't require is its own subject.

Ownership. NICEIC is a trading name of Certsure LLP, owned jointly by the Electrical Contractors' Association and Electrical Safety First. NAPIT is a private group.

Which one customers recognise is the thing nobody can put a figure on. If you want commercial or tender work, ask the clients you're after what they specify.

Getting in

Registration belongs to the business, not the person. A sole trader is both, and is their own qualified supervisor.

That supervisor needs one of three routes behind them. The first is a Level 3 electrotechnical apprenticeship with end-point assessment. The second is an older industry-approved apprenticeship or its equivalent. The third is the Experienced Worker Assessment.

On top go a BS 7671 qualification and an initial verification qualification. So does two years' evidence of being responsible for the technical standard of the work.

Two changes this year that older guides miss:

• The short-course route has closed. The Level 3 Certificate for domestic installers stopped being accepted for new applicants on 1 January 2026.
• EV, solar and battery work needs its own qualification. From 1 October 2026, anyone installing them under a scheme needs the listed Level 3 award.

The assessment itself is an office check and a site check. Insurance, qualifications and instrument records first, then work from the last twelve months, chosen by the assessor. NICEIC says a Domestic Installer assessment generally takes up to three hours.

Amendment 4 doesn't send you back to college. NICEIC says an existing 18th Edition qualification is enough.

Scotland: SELECT is a trade association, and optional

Scotland has no Part P and no notification regime. An ordinary rewire or board change in a house goes to nobody, so there's nothing for a scheme to let you self-certify.

SELECT is the trade association for electrical contractors in Scotland. It costs £325 + VAT to apply. The subscription is a fixed fee plus a levy on turnover. The minimum is £746 + VAT in 2026, for a business turning over less than £125,000. The 2027 minimum is already published, at £768. You need six months' trading behind you and an SJIB Approved Electrician as your qualified supervisor. There's a probationary membership at £200 + VAT for firms that aren't there yet.

The certification scheme people mix this up with is separate. An approved certifier of construction can certify electrical work that's being done under a building warrant, and the council's verifier has to accept that certificate. It is optional, and it only applies where there's a warrant. SELECT runs it for £400 + VAT a year, waived for members. NICEIC runs it too, at no extra cost to a Scottish business, but only for Approved Contractors. The saving on the warrant fee is £25 to £45 on work worth up to £100,000.

Where membership does carry weight is rented housing. The Scottish Government's guidance says a landlord's condition report should come from a member firm of SELECT, NICEIC or NAPIT. The alternative is someone who can complete its checklist, which includes Approved Electrician grade.

In Wales the schemes are the same as in England, but there's no third-party route and more work is notifiable. Northern Ireland's building regulations don't cover electrical installations, so there's nothing to self-certify there either.

Who else asks for it

The law doesn't. Plenty of other people do.

• Chargepoint grants. To become an authorised installer for the government's schemes you supply a competent person scheme number or an ECA membership number.
• Landlords in England. The regulations want a "qualified person", defined as a competent one. The government's guidance sends landlords to the registers to find them.
• TrustMark. Registration goes through a scheme provider.
• Commercial clients. Part P only covers dwellings. On commercial work, registration is whatever the client or the main contractor specifies.

One correction to something we've printed before. Google's Local Services Ads want an electrician to pass a check on the business and to hold public liability insurance. A licence is asked for only where local law demands one. Its public pages don't name a scheme or an amount of cover.

So is it worth it?

Doing new circuits, board changes or bathroom work for homeowners in England or Wales: yes, on arithmetic alone. Two or three notifiable jobs a year cover the fee in most councils, before you count the hours saved not dealing with building control.

Doing only maintenance, like-for-like replacements, and additions to existing circuits away from baths and showers, in England: none of that is notifiable, so nothing forces the decision. A first year at £834 is real money in month one, and it can wait until the work needs it.

Working in Scotland: decide on your customers. The law has no view.

Choosing between the two: don't pick on the first-year price. NAPIT is £40 + VAT cheaper to join and can include inspection work. NICEIC tells you what year two costs. Get NAPIT's renewal and notification prices before you compare.

And it isn't for life. NICEIC takes like-for-like transfers from another accredited body free of charge, subject to its conditions. NAPIT's membership renews automatically where there's a direct debit, and stopping it takes notice at least five working days before it expires.

One thing to watch. The Building Safety Regulator, which now oversees the schemes in England, opened a review of their conditions of authorisation in March 2026. It covers how schemes vet their members and what protection customers get. No outcome has been published that I could find.

Where grafter.ly fits

Nowhere in this decision. grafter.ly isn't a scheme and doesn't issue certificates.

It touches the money side. A scheme fee is an overhead like the van and the insurance, and it belongs in your day rate. £714 across 211 billable days is about £3.40 a day. Working out what to charge covers the rest of that sum, and the day rate calculator does it with your own figures.

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Sources. The law: the Building Regulations 2010, regulation 12 for what is notifiable, regulation 20 for self-certification, Schedule 3 and Schedule 3A for the authorised operators, and regulation 11F on competence; the Welsh regulations that brought the same duty to Wales; the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, regulation 16; Approved Document P; and the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification, June 2026 with its qualifications guide. The schemes, all read on 3 October 2026: NICEIC's Domestic Installer and Approved Contractor with Domestic Installer pages, its scheme list, join page, assessment guide, guarantee terms, transfer page, Amendment 4 page, October 2026 changes and its own description of what it is; NAPIT's membership page, application form, terms, guarantee and third-party certification sheet; Blue Flame's fee sheet; OFTEC's price calculator; and SELECT's fees, criteria, membership questions, probationary scheme and building standards certification page, with NICEIC's equivalent. Building control fees, from each council's 2026 schedule: Sandwell, Dover, West Northamptonshire and its guidance notes, Luton, St Albans and Watford, Richmond upon Thames, Sevenoaks, Bridgend and Gwynedd. Scotland: the Building (Scotland) Act 2003, section 19; the 2026 fees regulations; and the repairing standard guidance. Elsewhere: Electrical Safety First's find-an-electrician page; GOV.UK on chargepoint installers and electrical safety in rented homes; Google's Local Services requirements; the ECA on who owns Certsure; and the Building Safety Regulator's review. All checked 3 October 2026.

Prices change, and each scheme's own page is the one to trust on the day you apply. This is general information, not advice on which scheme suits your business.