BS 9792:2025 — the biggest changes to residential fire risk assessments

The introduction of BS 9792:2025 – Fire Risk Assessment: Housing – Code of Practice marks an important update for anyone involved in residential fire safety. Published in August 2025, it replaces PAS 79-2 and, for the first time, gives housing fire risk assessments a full British Standard rather than a Publicly Available Specification.

While the legal requirement to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment hasn’t changed, BS 9792 establishes the current benchmark for best practice within the housing sector.

Which standard applies to your building

This is the question worth settling first, because PAS 79 is no longer one document and plenty of guidance still online predates the split.

• Housing is now covered by BS 9792:2025. Blocks of flats, HMOs, sheltered and supported housing, student accommodation and specialist living.
• Everything else is still covered by PAS 79-1:2020. Offices, retail, industrial, hospitality, healthcare. That part remains current and was not replaced.

PAS 79 split into two parts in 2020, and only the housing half has been superseded. If you assess a mixed portfolio you are now working to two different documents depending on the building. We go into the non-domestic side in PAS 79 fire risk assessment software: what to look for.

The four assessment types

BS 9792 formalises the Type 1 to Type 4 classification that the sector has used for years. The point of it is simple: the depth of inspection should match the risk and complexity of the building, and the type sets the scope you agreed with the client.

Type 1: common parts only, non-destructive. The baseline assessment for satisfying the Fire Safety Order, the Fire Safety Act and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations. As well as means of escape and the usual common-parts checks, it includes examining at least a sample of flat entrance doors, and considering the separating construction between flats and common parts so far as is reasonably practicable without opening anything up. It does not involve entering flats beyond the entrance door.

Type 2: common parts only, destructive. The same scope and objectives as a Type 1, but with a degree of destructive inspection on a sampling basis. That means a contractor on site to open up construction and make good afterwards.

Type 3: common parts and flats, non-destructive. Everything in a Type 1, plus the arrangements for means of escape and fire detection inside at least a sample of the flats. This goes beyond the scope of the Fire Safety Order, though not beyond the Housing Act. Inspection within the flats is non-destructive, but the fire resistance of doors to rooms is considered.

Type 4: common parts and flats, destructive. The same scope as a Type 3, with destructive inspection sampled across both the common parts and the flats. It usually needs a contractor, and in practice destructive work inside flats can only be carried out in vacant ones.

Getting the type right matters commercially as well as technically. It is the line between what you quoted for and what the client later assumes they bought.

What else changed

A more structured assessment process. Rather than simply recording observations, assessors are expected to demonstrate how they reached their conclusions. The result is more consistent, more defensible assessments, and more of the reasoning written down rather than held in the assessor’s head.

A standardised pro forma. The new standard brings a streamlined, standardised format for documenting an assessment, with less verbose and more direct commentary than the document it replaces.

Clearer reports. Assessments should not only identify deficiencies but communicate the level of risk, the priorities and the recommended actions, so a Responsible Person can act on them without needing the assessor to interpret the report for them.

More focus on residents. Residential buildings are occupied by people with varying needs. BS 9792 expects assessors to consider vulnerable residents, evacuation strategies and the building’s management arrangements, with expanded guidance on people who have specific evacuation needs.

What it means in practice

Most of the work BS 9792 asks for is not new judgement, it is new record-keeping. Showing how you reached a conclusion, tying every action to the finding that raised it, and producing something a client can act on all take longer by hand than they should.

That is the part worth systemising, whether with software or a disciplined template of your own. If you are looking at tools, the things that matter are whether the structure separates hazards, protection and management, whether you can record what you could not inspect and why, and whether the report numbers findings consistently so an action traces back to the question behind it. We wrote up the options honestly, including where ours loses, in our comparison of UK fire risk assessment software.

Assura Safety classifies housing work as BS 9792 Type 1 to 4 on the project itself, and the type description carries through into the report, so the scope of what was assessed is stated rather than assumed.

Final thoughts

BS 9792 is a step forward for consistency in residential fire risk assessment, and the Type 1 to 4 formalisation in particular gives assessors and clients a shared vocabulary for scope.

The practical takeaway is narrower than the headlines suggest. The legal duty has not changed. What has changed is the standard of evidence expected behind your conclusions, and how clearly the result has to be communicated to the person who has to act on it.