Fire safety & compliance
The law sets no expiry date. A fire risk assessment is a living document, and the duty is to keep it current, not to renew it on a cycle.
How often should a fire risk assessment be reviewed is one of the most common fire safety questions, and the honest answer surprises people: the law sets no fixed expiry date. A fire risk assessment is not a certificate that lasts a set number of years and then renews. It is a living document, and the duty is to keep it current, which is a more demanding standard than a simple calendar reminder.
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person must carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and keep the findings under review. The legislation deliberately avoids naming a review interval, because a rigid national frequency would be wrong for most buildings: a quiet, unchanged office and a busy commercial kitchen being refitted do not carry the same risk and should not be on the same clock. Instead the law ties review to risk and to change, which means the responsible person has to think rather than simply diarise. That flexibility is not a loophole; an assessment that has been left untouched while the building around it changed is not suitable and sufficient, and the responsible person carries the liability for that.
The two triggers that matter
In practice two rules cover almost every situation. The first is a periodic review as best practice: the widely accepted benchmark is to formally review the assessment at least once a year, confirming that the findings still hold, the risks are unchanged and the control measures are still in place and working. This annual review is not always a full reassessment; it can be a documented check that nothing material has shifted. But it does have to be meaningful, dated and recorded, not a signature on last year document.
The second, and more important, trigger is significant change. Whenever something happens that could materially alter the fire risk, the assessment must be reviewed straight away rather than waiting for the annual date. That includes changes to the building layout or use, new or relocated equipment, a change in the number or type of occupants, alterations to processes or materials, a fire or a near miss, and any change in the law or guidance. In a kitchen, adding a fryer, changing the cookline, or altering the extract system are all significant changes. A fire or near miss is an absolute trigger: it is direct evidence that the existing assessment did not fully capture the risk.
Recording all of this matters as much as doing it. A compliant assessment carries a review history: the dates of each review, a summary of what changed and what action followed. Fire authorities can ask to see the assessment during an inspection or after an incident, and a clear review trail is what demonstrates the document has been kept alive. Assuming a fire risk assessment simply expires after a set number of years is one of the failures enforcing authorities see most often, and it leads to enforcement notices and worse.
Where the duty comes from
The review duty does not stand alone; it is one thread of the wider obligations the Fire Safety Order places on the responsible person, and it makes most sense read in that context. The same law that requires the assessment requires it to be acted on, maintained and kept under review, and understanding that framework, set out plainly in the Fire Safety Order in plain English, is what turns the review from a chore into a coherent part of managing the building. The responsible person can engage a competent assessor to carry out the work, but the underlying legal duty, including the duty to keep the assessment current, cannot be delegated away.
Making review real in a kitchen
For a catering or ductwork operation, the practical value of the review is that it forces attention onto the parts of the building where the risk genuinely moves. The extract system is a prime example: a change in cooking volume, a new appliance or a stretch in the cleaning interval all shift the fire risk, and all should surface at review. A useful review looks hard at the specific, changeable hazards of the premises rather than reciting generic points, which means genuinely examining the fire risks hiding in a commercial kitchen each time. Treat the assessment as a living record, review it every year and immediately whenever something material changes, keep the dated history, and it does the job the law intends rather than sitting in a drawer as a false reassurance.
Questions
No. UK fire safety law sets no fixed expiry date. Under the Fire Safety Order the responsible person must keep the assessment under review and current, which is a more demanding duty than renewing a certificate on a set cycle.
Best practice is a documented review at least once a year, plus an immediate review whenever there is a significant change. The annual review confirms the findings still hold; it need not always be a full reassessment but must be meaningful and recorded.
Anything that could materially alter the fire risk: changes to the building layout or use, new or relocated equipment, a change in occupancy, altered processes or materials, changes in the law, and any fire or near miss. In a kitchen, a new fryer or altered extract counts.
You can engage a competent assessor, and for complex premises you usually should, but the legal duty stays with the responsible person. You cannot delegate the underlying responsibility, only the work of carrying out the assessment.
An out of date assessment is unlikely to be suitable and sufficient, which is a breach of the Fire Safety Order. Fire authorities can serve enforcement notices or prosecute, and an inadequate assessment can also affect insurance cover after a fire.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
A change in cooking or cleaning intervals shifts your fire risk. Talk to Phoenix about cleaning and documenting your ductwork so the evidence supports your assessment.