Check your gas safety duties

If you let a property with gas appliances, you have a legal duty to have them checked every year and to give the record to your tenant. This checker works through the duties in the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and tells you which apply to you, where the gaps are, and what to do about them.

Warning:

If you smell gas or suspect carbon monoxide, do not use this tool. Open the windows, leave the property, and call the Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999.

How it works

Tell us your situation — landlord, business, or homeowner, and where the property is
Answer questions about the gas at the property — appliances, last check, records, alarms
Get your findings — every duty checked, ranked by priority, with a specific next step for each

What you'll learn

Whether the annual check requirement applies to you at all
Which appliances your duty actually covers when a tenant owns some of them
Whether your gas safety record has been served correctly, and why 28 days matters
What carbon monoxide alarm rules apply where you are — they differ across the UK
What to do when a tenant will not let the engineer in
The difference between a safety check and a service, and why you probably need both

Key Point

Having the check done is only half the duty. A copy of the gas safety record must reach existing tenants within 28 days, and any new tenant before they move in. Failing to serve it used to block a Section 21 notice, but Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026 — the duty and its penalties remain, the possession consequence does not.

Who this is for

The annual check duty under Regulation 36 applies to landlords of residential property. Businesses with gas appliances have a broader duty to maintain them in a safe condition under the same regulations and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which in practice means much the same annual inspection.

Owner-occupiers have no legal duty to have an annual check. The checker will tell you so plainly rather than imply otherwise — though carbon monoxide does not care who owns the property.

Registration is a legal requirement, not a quality mark

Only a Gas Safe registered engineer may work on gas fittings. Work by anyone else is illegal, and a gas safety record signed by an unregistered person leaves you in breach.

Registration is also category-specific. An engineer qualified for domestic boilers is not thereby qualified for commercial catering equipment or LPG. The ID card lists the categories on the back — that is the part worth reading.

Note:

You can check any engineer at gassaferegister.co.uk, or ask to see their ID card. It takes a minute, and it is the single most useful check a landlord can make.

Carbon monoxide alarms differ across the UK

The rules are not the same in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and they have changed relatively recently in several of them. The checker applies the rules for the nation you select rather than giving a general answer.

Before you start

Have to hand, if you can:

The date of the last gas safety check
Which gas appliances are at the property, and who owns them
Whether the record was given to the tenant, and when
Whether carbon monoxide alarms are fitted, and where

You do not need any of this to get useful results. "I don't know" is a valid answer throughout, and for several questions it is itself the finding.