Fire Risk Assessment for Small Businesses in the UK

If you run a business from non-domestic premises in England, the law requires you to carry out a fire risk assessment. That covers shops, pubs, salons, offices and village halls. You can do it yourself if the premises are simple and you are competent to do so. If you are not, you must bring in someone who is. Either way, you stay responsible for acting on what it finds.

This guide explains what the assessment is, who is responsible, how to do it, how often to review it and which records are worth keeping. It also covers the routine checks that sit underneath it, because that is where most small businesses slip.

TL;DR

• If you run a business from commercial premises in England, you must carry out a fire risk assessment. The duty falls on the employer or whoever controls the premises.
• There is no fixed legal frequency, but you must review the assessment regularly and after significant changes. An annual review is good practice for simple premises.
• Use a professional if you do not feel competent. Hiring one does not hand the responsibility over: you must still act on the findings.
• The assessment is only as good as the checks that follow it: alarm tests, exit checks, extinguishers and first-aid kits, all recorded.
• Penalties for breaching fire safety rules range from fines up to £5,000 for minor breaches to unlimited fines and up to two years in prison for major ones.

Table of Contents

• What a fire risk assessment is
• Who needs one and who is responsible
• How to carry out the assessment
• How often you need to review it
• When to use a professional
• What records to keep
• The checks that keep the assessment honest
• Keeping the paperwork under control
• How Gribit helps with the recurring checks
• Perspective: the assessment is the easy part
• What happens if you get it wrong
• A simple plan for this month
• FAQ
• Sources

What a fire risk assessment is

A fire risk assessment is a structured look at your premises and how you use them. The aim is to identify what could start a fire, who could be harmed, and whether your precautions are enough. According to the government’s guide for small non-domestic premises, it involves inspecting the premises to identify potential fire hazards and making sure there are adequate measures to prevent fires and protect people.

It is not a one-off certificate you hang on the wall. It is a working document: a record of what you found, what you decided to do about it, and when you reviewed it.

Who needs one and who is responsible

The government’s guidance for small businesses is plain: if you operate a business from commercial or non-domestic premises in England, you are legally required to carry out a fire risk assessment to identify fire risks to people on the premises.

The legal basis is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, as amended. It places a general duty of fire safety care on employers and on anyone in control of the premises, covering both employees and visitors, as set out in the 2024 guide for small non-domestic premises.

In practice, the responsible person is usually:

• The employer, if you run a shop, salon or office with staff.
• The person in control of the premises, such as a pub manager or the committee member who administers a village hall.
• The landlord or managing agent for shared areas, where they keep control of them. If you rent, check your lease and agree in writing who covers what.

The guidance quoted here applies to England. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own fire safety legislation, so if you trade there, check the guidance from your own fire and rescue service or government.

Do very small businesses count?

Yes. There is no exemption for having one employee, or none. The duty attaches to the non-domestic premises and the people who use them. What changes with size is the record keeping, covered below, and how detailed the assessment needs to be.

How to carry out the assessment

The government’s workplace fire risk assessment page sets out the process. In short: identify the fire hazards and the people at risk, evaluate and then remove or reduce the risks, record your findings, prepare an emergency plan and provide training. Here is how that looks on a small site.

1. Identify fire hazards

Walk the premises and look for three things: sources of ignition (heaters, electrical equipment, cooking appliances, naked flames, smoking areas), sources of fuel (stock, packaging, waste, furniture, hairdressing products) and sources of oxygen (ventilation, and any oxygen supplies).

Pubs will spend time on kitchens, cellars and bin storage. Salons need to think about aerosols, dryers and chemical products. Offices tend to find overloaded sockets and blocked corridors. Village halls often have a kitchen, a stage, stacked chairs and a mixed set of users.

2. Identify who is at risk

Think about everyone who could be in the building: staff, customers, contractors, hall hirers, children, people who work alone or at night, and anyone with reduced mobility, hearing or sight. Note anyone who would need help to leave. The record should include details of anyone especially at risk.

3. Evaluate, remove or reduce the risk

For each hazard, ask whether you can remove it. If not, reduce it. Then check your protection measures. The government lists what small businesses should consider: emergency routes and exits, fire detection and warning systems, fire-fighting equipment, safe storage of dangerous substances and staff training, all in the same guidance.

A simple way to test your exits: stand at the furthest point from the door and ask whether a stranger could get out in the dark, with smoke in the room, without using a key. Fire doors wedged open, locked final exits and stock in corridors are the failures that matter most.

4. Record, plan and train

Write down the significant findings and what you will do about them. Prepare an emergency plan, including what happens when the alarm sounds and who calls 999. Then make sure people know it. You are also required to consult employees: the Home Office guidance for small and medium places of assembly says staff must be consulted about fire safety, including nominating people for specific roles and proposals to improve precautions.

5. Review

The assessment is not finished when it is written. See the next section.

How often you need to review it

People often ask for the legal frequency. There isn’t one. The Home Office guide says there is no set interval, but assessments must be reviewed regularly, and an annual review is recognised as good practice for small and simple premises.

You must also review it when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, or when something significant changes in the premises or the activities carried out in them, according to the 2024 small premises guide.

The Home Office lists what counts as significant: changes to the building layout, substantial changes to furniture or fixings, more hazardous substances stored, or a significant increase in the number of people present.

Typical triggers on a small site:

When to use a professional

You can do the assessment yourself if you are competent to. The 2024 guide says that if you do not feel competent, you should engage a professional, and the identity of the person who completed it must be recorded.

Consider a professional if you have sleeping accommodation (a pub with letting rooms, for instance), a complex layout over several floors, significant hazardous substances, or large numbers of vulnerable people. Ask any assessor about their competence and qualifications before you hire them, and ask for the written report.

Two points are easy to miss:

• Your local fire and rescue service enforces the law. Many offer advice to small businesses, but they cannot carry out the assessment for you.
• Using an assessor does not pass on your duty. The Home Office advises that the responsible person must still ensure that significant findings are acted on within the period set.

What records to keep

What you must write down depends on your size. The Home Office guidance says that if you employ five or more people, your premises are licensed, or an alterations notice requiring it is in force, you must record the significant findings, the actions to be taken and details of anyone especially at risk. A pub with a premises licence therefore needs a written record whatever its headcount.

Below that threshold the same guidance says the record can be quite basic: for simple premises, a simple list of significant findings or a few sheets in a health and safety folder is enough. Even so, writing it down is sensible, because it is how you show what you did if anyone asks.

The 2024 small premises guide says the record should include an action plan within the assessment, and it must be available for inspection by enforcing authorities, such as the local fire and rescue service.

A useful record set for a small business includes:

• The assessment itself, with its date, the name of the person who did it and the next review date.
• The action plan: each issue, who owns it, the deadline and the date it was closed.
• Logs of routine checks: alarm tests, emergency lighting, extinguisher checks, exit and fire door checks.
• Servicing certificates and engineer reports for the alarm, lighting and extinguishers.
• Training and drill records, and names of nominated fire wardens.

The checks that keep the assessment honest

The assessment says what should be in place. The routine checks prove it still is. This is where small businesses most often come unstuck: the assessment is done in a burst of effort, then the weekly alarm test is missed for a month, an extinguisher is found out of date, and nobody can say when the emergency lights were last tested.

From the measures the government lists, the recurring jobs are usually:

The right intervals depend on your premises and your assessment, so ask your assessor or alarm engineer to set them for you. The point is to choose them and keep to them.

Keeping the paperwork under control

Paper logbooks work until they don’t. They go missing, get filled in with the same tick every week, and are hard to hand over when a manager leaves. Spreadsheets are better but depend on someone remembering to open them.

Whatever you use, it needs to do five things: show what is due, record who did the check and what they found, track the follow-up until it is fixed, keep certificates in one place, and be easy to show an inspector.

How Gribit helps with the recurring checks

We built Gribit for exactly this part of fire safety. It is a digital logbook for small businesses: you schedule recurring checks such as fire alarm tests and first-aid kit inspections, record the results, track follow-up actions and store certificates and documents together. Reminders are automated, staff can be given their own access, and you can organise checks by site, item or location and export the records when you need them.

It costs £49 per site per year. If you run a shop, pub, salon, office or village hall, you can set up a site logbook and have your checks in one place. Gribit does not carry out your fire risk assessment, and it does not replace a competent assessor. It keeps the routine that follows the assessment visible and recorded.

Perspective: the assessment is the easy part

We talk to people who run pubs, salons, offices and village halls, and the pattern is consistent. Almost everyone understands why they need a fire risk assessment. Far fewer can say, at a moment’s notice, when the alarm was last tested, who did it and what happened to the fault they noticed.

That gap matters more than it looks. An assessment is a snapshot. The safety of your building is the sum of dozens of small recurring jobs, done by different people on different days. When a manager changes or a volunteer steps down, the knowledge of what is checked and when often walks out the door with them.

Our view is that a good fire safety routine should be boring and automatic. The reminder arrives, the check takes two minutes, the result is logged, and anything that fails becomes an action with an owner, rather than a line in a notebook. Time spent on paperwork is time not spent fixing the faulty door closer.

If you take one thing from this guide, make it this: put your review date and your routine checks somewhere that will nag you when they are due.

— Jon

What happens if you get it wrong

The government’s guidance warns that failing to follow fire safety regulations can lead to penalties: minor ones up to £5,000, and major ones with unlimited fines and up to two years in prison. Enforcement sits with your local fire and rescue service, which can inspect your premises and ask to see your assessment and records.

Most small businesses are never prosecuted. The more realistic risks are a failed inspection, an insurer asking awkward questions after a claim, or, worst of all, someone getting hurt because an exit was blocked.

A simple plan for this month

1. Confirm who the responsible person is for your premises, in writing if you rent.
2. Check whether you have a current assessment. If not, do one, or hire a competent person.
3. Walk the building and fix any obvious problems: blocked exits, wedged doors, overloaded sockets.
4. List your recurring checks and decide how often each will be done.
5. Set a review date within 12 months, and a reminder for significant changes.
6. Tell staff who the nominated fire wardens are, and what the plan is.

FAQ

How often does a fire risk assessment need to be done in the UK?

There is no fixed legal interval. You must review it regularly and whenever something significant changes, such as the layout, the number of people or the hazardous substances you store. For small, simple premises an annual review is regarded as good practice.

Do I need a professional to do my fire risk assessment?

Not necessarily. If you are competent and your premises are simple, you can do it yourself. If you do not feel competent, you should engage a professional, and the assessment must record who completed it. Your local fire and rescue service can advise but cannot do the assessment for you.

Do I have to write the assessment down?

If you employ five or more people, your premises are licensed, or an alterations notice requires it, you must record the significant findings and actions. Smaller businesses with simple premises can keep a short list of findings, but a written record is the easiest way to show you have done it.

Who is responsible for fire safety in a rented unit or village hall?

The duty falls on the employer and on whoever has control of the premises. In a rented unit that may be shared with the landlord, and in a village hall it is usually the committee or the person who manages the building. Agree in writing who handles what.

Sources

• Fire safety for small businesses operating from commercial premises, GOV.UK
• A guide to making your small non-domestic premises safe from fire, 2024
• Fire safety risk assessment: small and medium places of assembly
• Home Office guide for persons with duties under the Fire Safety Order (14.310)
• Fire safety in the workplace: fire risk assessments, GOV.UK