EICR, EIC or Minor Works: Which Electrical Certificate Do You Issue?

Short answer: New circuit, or a whole new installation — issue an EIC. Change to an existing circuit with no new circuit created — issue a Minor Works Certificate. Assessing the condition of an installation somebody else's work created — issue an EICR. The first two certify work you did; the third reports on what you found.

The three documents

BS 7671 gives you three model forms, and they are not interchangeable. Each one carries a different declaration, which is why using the wrong one is a professional problem rather than an administrative one.

The test that decides between EIC and Minor Works

Ask one question: did this work create a new circuit?

A new circuit means a new protective device in the consumer unit feeding new conductors. If yes, it is an EIC — always, even if the circuit is one socket in a garage.

If you extended, altered or repaired an existing circuit and did not add a new one, it is Minor Works. Typical examples: adding a socket to a ring, moving a light switch, replacing a damaged accessory, adding a spur.

Two things that catch people out:

• A consumer unit change is an EIC. You are re-certifying every circuit connected to it, and the certificate needs a full schedule of test results for all of them. It is not minor works, however routine it feels.
• One Minor Works Certificate covers one circuit. Three unrelated alterations on three circuits are three certificates, not one with three lines.

Reading an EICR: the codes

The classification codes are where EICRs are misunderstood by clients, landlords and occasionally by the people writing them.

• C1 — Danger present. Risk of injury exists now. Immediate action required. Exposed live parts, a broken accessory with conductors accessible. You make it safe before you leave, and record what you did.
• C2 — Potentially dangerous. Not dangerous right now, but would become so under a fault condition or foreseeable use. No earthing to an accessible metal part is the classic example.
• C3 — Improvement recommended. The installation does not meet the current standard, but is not unsafe. No RCD protection on a circuit that would require it under today's rules, in an installation that complied when built.
• FI — Further investigation required. Something needs opening up or testing beyond the scope of the inspection before it can be coded.

A report is unsatisfactory if it carries any C1, C2 or FI. C3 codes alone leave the report satisfactory.

That single sentence resolves most of the arguments. A landlord who has been told their property "failed" because of three C3 items has been told something incorrect, and the report itself says so on its face.

Where EICRs go wrong

The most common quality problem is over-coding: recording C2 where the honest code is C3, usually for the absence of RCD protection on circuits that were compliant when installed. It generates remedial work that the regulations did not require, and it damages trust in the report.

The second is under-recording the extent and limitations. An EICR is sampled, and the form has a section for exactly that: what proportion was inspected, what could not be accessed, what was agreed with the client. An EICR without limitations recorded implies you inspected everything.

Inspection intervals

Intervals are recommendations under IET guidance, except where legislation or an insurer sets them:

The recommended interval also goes on the certificate you issue for new work, which is a small detail routinely left blank.

Landlord duties: where a report becomes a legal clock

For privately rented properties in England, the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 turn the EICR into a statutory obligation with deadlines attached:

• Inspection and testing at intervals of no more than five years.
• The report supplied to existing tenants within 28 days, and to new tenants before occupation.
• Supplied to the local housing authority within 7 days of a request.
• Where the report is unsatisfactory, remedial or further investigative work completed within 28 days — or sooner where the report specifies — with written confirmation obtained from the electrician and supplied to the tenant and, where relevant, the authority.

This is why the quality of coding matters commercially. An unnecessary C2 starts a 28-day clock and a bill for work that was never required. A missed C2 leaves a landlord exposed and you holding the report that failed to find it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run separate regimes; check the requirement for the nation the property sits in rather than assuming the England rules travel.

Part P, in one paragraph

Part P of the Building Regulations applies to domestic electrical work in England and Wales. Notifiable work must either be notified to building control before it starts, or carried out by an installer registered with a competent person scheme who self-certifies and notifies afterwards. A BS 7671 certificate is not a Part P notification — they are separate obligations, and doing the first does not discharge the second. Scotland's building standards system handles this differently again.

Certificates are only useful if they survive

The practical failure in most electrical businesses is not the coding. It is that the certificate exists as a PDF on somebody's phone, a photograph of a paper pad, or a file in a folder nobody can search when the landlord rings two years later asking for a copy.

What a defensible record looks like:

• Issued from site, at the time. Test results transcribed that evening are test results transcribed from memory.
• Tied to the property and the client, not to a job number that means nothing to anyone else.
• Working with no signal. Meter cupboards, basements and plant rooms are exactly where reception fails, which is exactly where the readings are taken. A form that needs connectivity to save is a form that loses data.
• Re-issuable. The single most common admin request an electrical contractor receives is "can you send me that certificate again".

ScopeKit's field app lets electricians create, complete and issue EICR, EIC and Minor Works certificates from a phone, with the whole flow working offline and syncing when signal returns — and the issued certificate staying attached to the property and customer record, so re-issuing it later is a search rather than an excavation.

Related reading

• CSCS card requirements — the other card and certificate regime worth keeping current.
• RAMS template guide — the paperwork that goes in front of the work rather than after it.
• Software for electricians — certification tracking, quoting and job management in one place.
• The ScopeKit field app — forms, certificates and timesheets that keep working without signal.