Building control approval for higher-risk buildings

Publication Year

2026

Document Status

Current

Abstract

Provides details on applying for building control approval to construct or carry out work on a higher-risk building from the Building Safety Regulator. Covers: role of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR); who must apply for building control approval; when to get building control approval; building work that does not need building control approval; applying to construct a new higher-risk building; applying to carry out building work on an existing higher-risk building; emergency repairs to an existing higher-risk building; after applying; application decisions; expiry of building control approval; managing building work after approval; making changes to the project after approval; completion certificates; and charges.

Document History

Last updated: 1 April 2026 - Added guidance on what to check before applying to carry out building work on an existing higher-risk building, and what the application must include. Also updated Category A building work list to include internal or external remediation work. Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/building-control-approval-for-higher-risk-buildings and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 27 March 2025. Published in conjunction with: Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Publisher Information