How Often Should a Fire Risk Assessment Be Reviewed?
One of the most common questions we get from property managers is also one of the most misunderstood:
"how often do we legally need to redo the Fire Risk Assessment?"
The honest answer is that the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 doesn't set a fixed interval. It simply requires the Responsible Person to review the assessment regularly and to keep it up to date. That flexibility is often mistaken for "there's no real requirement" — which is exactly the assumption that leads to enforcement action.
What actually triggers a review
Rather than a calendar date, the law is built around change. A review is required whenever there's reason to believe the existing assessment is no longer valid, including:
A change of use to the building or part of it
Structural alterations, refurbishment, or a new tenant fit-out
Changes to escape routes, fire doors, or compartmentation
A near-miss, fire incident, or a false alarm investigation
New information about a fire safety risk (for example, following a fire door inspection or alarm system fault)
A significant change in the number or type of occupants
If none of these have happened, the FRA doesn't automatically need to be redone — but it does need to be actively reviewed to confirm that's genuinely the case, not just left untouched.
So what's a sensible interval in practice?
Most competent assessors and industry guidance (including PAS 79) work to risk-based benchmarks:
Low-risk premises (e.g. small, simple office units): review every year, or sooner if anything changes
Medium-risk premises (most multi-let commercial and mixed-use buildings): annual review
Higher-risk premises (complex buildings, sleeping risk, higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act): more frequent review, sometimes every 6–12 months, with ongoing monitoring in between
These aren't hard legal thresholds — they're what a competent Responsible Person would be expected to justify if challenged by a Fire and Rescue Authority.
The risk of treating it as a box-ticking exercise
We regularly see FRAs that were technically "reviewed" but essentially just re-dated without any real reassessment of the building. If enforcement officers or insurers ever dig into the detail, a review that doesn't reflect genuine changes on the ground — new fire doors, altered escape routes, different tenants — won't hold up. A proper review should always involve a fresh site walk, not just a desktop sign-off.
A simple way to stay on top of it
The buildings that get caught out are rarely the ones with no FRA at all — they're the ones where an old assessment quietly became outdated after a refurbishment or new tenant moved in, and nobody flagged it for review.
If it's been a while since your last FRA, or your building has changed since it was last assessed, it's worth getting a professional opinion before it becomes a compliance issue. Accura Fire Risk Ltd offers FRA reviews and updates for commercial and mixed-use buildings — Contact us to discuss your building.