Most people asking what an EICR costs have already been given three different answers. That is not because electricians are being evasive. It is because an Electrical Installation Condition Report is a survey of a specific installation, and the amount of work inside it varies enormously between a studio conversion off Praed Street and a five-bedroom mansion flat with three consumer units and a hundred years of accumulated alterations behind the skirtings.
What we charge
So here is the answer first, because it is the reason you are on this page. Our EICR prices are published and set by the number of bedrooms:
- One bedroom — £150
- Two bedrooms — £170
- Three bedrooms — £190
- Four bedrooms and above — £210
All prices exclude VAT. That figure covers the inspection, the testing and the report. It is not an estimate that firms up once somebody has stood in your hallway, and it is not a low number that grows on the day. Bedroom count is used because it is the one thing you already know without opening anything, and because across Central London stock it tracks the size of the installation closely enough to price against honestly.
What that price does not include is remedial work, and it cannot, because nobody knows what the remedials are until the inspection has happened. That is dealt with properly further down this page, and it is where the real money in electrical compliance sits. The rest of our electrical work starts from £80 excluding VAT, and anything with a defined scope is fixed-quoted before we begin rather than left on an hourly meter in your hallway.
The remainder of this page explains what sits behind the number: what is actually being done for it, what makes one installation slower to inspect than another, and what an inspection tends to find in this stock. That is worth knowing before you book, because the moment a report comes back unsatisfactory, the inspection fee stops being the interesting figure.
What you are actually buying
An EICR is not a certificate in the sense of a rubber stamp. It is an inspection and testing exercise carried out against BS 7671, the wiring regulations, and it produces a report on the condition of the fixed electrical installation: the consumer unit, the circuits, the accessories, the earthing and bonding. It does not cover your kettle or your table lamps. It covers the parts of the installation that belong to the building.
The report states whether the installation is satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and it lists observations. The industry model report classifies those observations with codes — broadly, danger present, potentially dangerous, improvement recommended, and further investigation required — and a good electrician walks you through every one of them rather than emailing a PDF and leaving you to interpret it. Anything classed as dangerous or potentially dangerous is what makes a report unsatisfactory, and that is what turns a compliance exercise into a job with a second stage.
For rented homes in England, an EICR is required at least every five years under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020. If you are a landlord, the reason you are reading a cost page is usually that deadline. Our companion guide on EICR landlord requirements in London covers the duty itself; this page is about the work and why the number moves.
What makes one flat a bigger job than another
The bedroom-count price holds. But it is worth understanding what it is absorbing, because these are the features that decide whether an inspection is a comfortable morning or a long day, and they are the same features that decide how much remedial work lands at the end of it.
How many circuits there are
This is the single biggest driver, and the one most people never think about. Testing is done circuit by circuit. A one-bedroom flat might have six or seven ways in the board. A large Marylebone or Mayfair apartment that has been extended, subdivided or knocked through can easily have double that, plus a second board feeding a kitchen, plus a separate supply to a terrace. Every additional circuit is more dead testing, more live testing, more recording. Floor area is a rough proxy for this, but only a proxy — the board is the truth.
The age and type of the consumer unit
Central London stock is full of old boards. Rewireable fuse carriers, plastic enclosures, boards with no RCD protection at all, boards that have been added to three times by three different people. An older installation takes longer to test because more of it is unfamiliar, less of it is labelled, and more of it throws up findings that need chasing back to their source. It is also far more likely to produce an unsatisfactory result, which means the inspection is the beginning of the conversation rather than the end of it.
Where the board is, and whether anyone can reach it
In period conversions the consumer unit is very often somewhere inconvenient: inside a cupboard behind a boiler, above a wardrobe, in a hall ceiling void, or boxed in behind joinery that someone fitted beautifully years ago and never expected to open again. If a board has to be exposed before it can be worked on, that is time. If the incoming supply and meter sit in a communal cupboard controlled by the building rather than in the flat, access has to be arranged with the porter or the managing agent — before the visit, not during it.
Whether the flat is occupied
Testing requires the power off, circuit by circuit and sometimes altogether. In a vacant flat between tenancies that is trivial. In an occupied flat it is a negotiation: someone is working from home, there is a fridge freezer full of food, there is a sleeping baby. Work slows down, and it slows down in ways that are impossible to predict from an email. If the property is empty, say so — it is the easiest single way to make a visit efficient.
How accessible the installation is
Inspection involves sampling — lifting accessories, opening junctions, checking terminations. Where floors are finished in solid timber, stone or resin, where circuits disappear into a chased wall in a listed building, or where a previous refurbishment buried junction boxes under a screed, the electrician cannot see what they need to see without either damage or a limitation recorded on the report. That is why flooring and electrics are more connected than they look, and why sequencing on any refurbishment matters.
What the building imposes
A mansion block in St John's Wood or Little Venice is not a house. There may be restricted working hours. There may be a lift to book. There may be a rule that contractors sign in with the porter and use a service entrance. None of this is difficult, but all of it is time, and it is time that has to be planned rather than discovered on the morning.
The part nobody quotes for: remedial work
An EICR is a diagnostic. It tells you what is there. If the report comes back unsatisfactory you then have a second, separate piece of work — the remedials — and that is where the real money in electrical compliance usually sits.
Nobody can honestly price remedials before the inspection, because nobody knows what the inspection will find. Any quote that bundles "EICR plus any fixes" into one figure is either padded to cover the worst case or will be revised upwards when reality arrives. The honest structure is: price the inspection, carry out the inspection, then price the findings itemised, so you can see what is required and what is merely recommended. Those are different categories and you are entitled to be told which is which.
Common findings in this stock are predictable: no RCD protection, missing or undersized main bonding to gas and water services, damaged accessories, borrowed neutrals left over from old lighting alterations, and circuits extended by whoever fitted the last kitchen. Some of these are a morning's work. Some of them mean a rewire. The report should tell you which conversation you are in, and our guide to landlord electrical safety standards explains how those judgements are framed.
Why a set price plus a fixed quote is the right structure
We publish set prices because the alternative — everyone guessing, then adjusting — is how clients end up feeling stitched up. The inspection is the bedroom-count figure above: £150, £170, £190 or £210 excluding VAT for one, two, three, or four-plus bedrooms. The rest of our electrical work starts from £80 excluding VAT, and where a job runs into wiring and first and second fix work, that is priced by quotation against a written scope — because there is no honest standard unit for it, and pretending otherwise is how a price becomes a negotiation later.
Two questions are still worth answering when you book, and neither of them changes the inspection price: how old is the consumer unit, and is the flat occupied. They change how long we need to be there and what we bring with us. The reason we ask is so the visit succeeds the first time rather than becoming two.
If you would rather not answer questions by email, send a photograph of the consumer unit with the cover on through the quote form or on WhatsApp. A picture of the board tells an electrician more in two seconds than a paragraph of description, and it tells us in advance whether you are likely to be reading a satisfactory report or starting a second conversation.
What to ask before you book anyone
- Is the price for the inspection only, and are remedials quoted separately and itemised afterwards?
- Does it include the full report, or is the certificate itself charged as an extra?
- How many circuits is the price based on, and what happens if there turn out to be more?
- Will the observations be explained to you, or only emailed?
- If the report is unsatisfactory, can the same firm carry out the remedials and reissue?
- Who arranges access to any communal intake cupboard — you, the agent, or them?
That last one catches people out constantly in Bayswater and Paddington conversions, where the meters live in a shared cupboard and the only person with a key is a porter who works mornings.
Landlords, agents and portfolios
If you manage several flats the economics change. Four EICRs in one building on one day is a fundamentally different job from four separate visits across four postcodes, and it should be priced as such. Agents running blocks in Maida Vale or Fitzrovia generally want a predictable calendar and one point of contact rather than the cheapest possible individual visit, and that is the arrangement we are set up for — see our page for estate agents and managing agents. Bundling EICRs with the annual gas safety check, which is a published £85 excluding VAT, and routine maintenance attendance into one planned visit removes most of the access pain from the year — and gives you two compliance dates handled on one booking with one porter and one tenant conversation instead of three.
How we handle it
One electrician, one visit, a report that is explained rather than dumped, and remedials priced as a separate itemised quote you can accept or decline in parts. If we find something dangerous we tell you on the day, not in an attachment. If the flat needs more than an EICR — because the board is at the end of its life, or because you are about to start a bathroom refurbishment anyway and the electrics should be done once, in the right order — we say so, even though it is a longer conversation than you wanted to have.
Requirements and standards change over time. Nothing here is legal advice, and if you are relying on an EICR to discharge a duty as a landlord you should confirm the current position for your specific property and tenancy.