What Is a Fire Risk Assessment for a Commercial Property?
A commercial fire risk assessment is a legally required review, carried out to PAS 79-1, that identifies fire hazards in your premises and sets out the actions needed to protect staff, visitors, and the building itself.
It applies to virtually any non-domestic building — offices, shops, warehouses, workshops, and mixed-use premises — and is a legal duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, not an optional extra. The law requires the assessment to be “suitable and sufficient” for your specific building and how it is actually used. That means a generic checklist, downloaded from the internet or copied from a similar-looking building, will not hold up if it is ever tested by an enforcing authority or an insurer following an incident. The assessment has to reflect the layout, occupancy, storage, and use of your particular premises.
Under the legislation, the “responsible person” is whoever has control of the premises — typically the employer, the building owner, or the occupier — and it is this person who carries the legal duty to ensure the assessment exists, is acted upon, and is kept up to date. Where a building has multiple occupiers, such as a serviced office block or a parade of shops with a shared rear access, there can be more than one responsible person, each accountable for the parts of the building they control.
In practice, a fire risk assessment produces two things: a written record of the hazards found, and a prioritised action plan setting out what needs fixing immediately, in the short term, and in the longer term.
The Fire Risk Assessment Process — What to Expect
If your building falls into one of our more specialist sectors, see the dedicated pages below for sector-specific detail: Office & Retail, Schools & Sports Centres, Clubs, Pubs & Restaurants, Hotels, Hostels & Airbnbs, Doctors, Dentists, Hospitals & Vets, Fire Risk Assessment for Care Homes, and Factories & Warehouses.
Not every commercial building need is met by a fire risk assessment alone. If you’re developing a new building, carrying out a major refurbishment, or need to demonstrate fire safety design principles for a planning or building control submission, you may need a Fire Strategy Report instead of, or alongside, a fire risk assessment. The two documents do different jobs: a fire risk assessment reviews an occupied building’s ongoing fire safety management, while a fire strategy report sets out how a building’s design achieves fire safety in the first place.
What a Commercial Fire Risk Assessment Covers
Which Standard Applies — PAS 79-1 or BS 9792:2025?
Commercial premises are assessed to PAS 79-1, the recognised methodology for general fire risk assessment across offices, retail, industrial, and mixed-use buildings. This is different from BS 9792:2025, which is a residential-blocks-specific standard used for purpose-built blocks of flats — see our dedicated Flats page for that. HMOs sit under their own specific considerations too, covered on our HMO Landlords page. Using the right standard for the right building type matters: an assessment that cites the wrong standard is a warning sign that it may have been adapted from a template rather than genuinely carried out for your premises.
How Often Should It Be Reviewed?
PAS 79-1 recommends review at least annually, and immediately after any significant change to the building, occupancy, or use — consistent with your ongoing duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to keep the assessment current. Common triggers for an earlier review include a change of use, a refurbishment or extension, a fire or near-miss incident, a significant change in the number of people using the building, or new fire safety legislation coming into effect.
Who Enforces Compliance?
Your local Fire and Rescue Service is responsible for enforcing the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and has the power to inspect commercial premises, issue enforcement or prohibition notices, and prosecute where a responsible person has failed to comply. Insurers also routinely request a copy of the current fire risk assessment when handling a claim following a fire — a missing or clearly inadequate assessment is one of the most common reasons a claim is disputed or reduced, regardless of how the fire actually started.
Choose Us for Your Commercial Fire Risk Assessment
Fire risk assessments are only as good as the person carrying them out and the methodology they’re assessed against.
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