UK Trade Certificates and Records to Track in 2026
A practical guide to the main certificates and records a UK trade business is likely to issue or track in 2026, including gas, electrical, PAT, F-Gas and oil-heating work, with who needs each one, how often it is checked, and how long the record has to survive.
UK Trade Certificates and Records to Track in 2026
A UK trade business may need to issue or keep different gas, electrical, PAT, F-Gas and oil-heating records. The right document, review interval and retention period depend on the work, equipment and customer; this guide sets out the common records and the rules that apply to each.[1][3][5][6]
A side-by-side guide to the certificates a UK trade business is likely to issue or track in 2026, covering who needs each one, how often it is checked, and how long the record has to survive.
By Daniel Sedgwick, Founder and Managing Director of Checker
Last updated: 10 September 2026
We built Checker, a UK job-management and compliance app from Gassoft Limited, to keep those records together with the job, customer and invoice that produced them.
A multi-trade engineer rarely deals with one compliance certificate type for long. A gas engineer who also does PAT testing on the side, or an electrical firm that picks up the odd F-Gas job, ends up juggling renewal dates that do not share a calendar, a retention period, or even a governing body.
Miss one and the exposure is not just an awkward conversation with a customer. It is an expired legal document sitting in a job file, or worse, not sitting anywhere at all.
What is a Gas Safety Record (CP12) and how often does it need renewing?
A Gas Safety Record, still widely called a CP12 from its old form number, is the written confirmation from a Gas Safe registered engineer that a property’s gas appliances, fittings, flues and pipework have been checked and were safe at the time of the visit. Landlords are the group with the clearest legal duty here.
Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, a landlord must have each appliance and flue checked within 12 months of installation and at intervals of no more than 12 months after that. The record has to be kept for at least two years, and existing tenants get a copy within 28 days of the check.[1][2]
There is no grace period once the 12 months are up. For a gas engineer running the checks, the practical job is keeping every customer’s next-due date visible well before it lapses, not on the day it does.
Our Gas Safety Record form follows the same layout a Gas Safe engineer already fills in on paper, so switching to a digital version does not change what a landlord, letting agent or tenant sees on the finished record.
Our comparison of software for Gas Safety Records and certificates looks at how different platforms handle the renewal side of this specifically.
What is an Electrical Installation Certificate under BS 7671, and when do you need one?
An Electrical Installation Certificate applies to new electrical work: a new installation, a new circuit, or a major alteration. It confirms the work was designed, installed, inspected and tested to BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations. It is a one-off document tied to that specific job, not something on a renewal cycle.
That is different from an Electrical Installation Condition Report, or EICR, which reassesses wiring that is already in place. In the private rented sector in England, the law sets a maximum interval of five years between EICR inspections. Where no valid report exists yet, the first inspection must be carried out before a new specified tenancy commences. Where a report less than five years old is already in place and does not flag further investigative or remedial work, it carries over to the new tenancy, and the landlord must give the new tenant a copy.[3][10]
A competent inspector can set a shorter interval than five years if the condition of the installation calls for it. Outside the rented sector there is no equivalent statutory interval.[3]
Our Electrical Installation Certificate and EICR forms are both built to the current BS 7671 model layout, so the fields an inspector completes on site match what a landlord, letting agent or insurer already expects to see.[4]
Electricians juggling EICR renewal dates across a customer base, on top of new-installation certificates, are usually the ones asking what software actually tracks this well. Our EICR and electrician software comparison goes into that specifically.
When do you need a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate instead of a full EICR?
A Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate covers additions or alterations to an existing circuit that do not add a new circuit: an extra socket, a relocated light switch, a swapped accessory or luminaire. It is not valid for a new circuit, or for a consumer unit or distribution board replacement. Like the Electrical Installation Certificate, it is issued per job rather than renewed on a schedule.
The practical difference for record keeping is volume. A business doing frequent small electrical alterations can generate many Minor Works Certificates, so the record system needs to handle a high number of short, one-off documents as cleanly as the periodic ones.
Complete a Minor Works Certificate with us and you fill in a form built to the current BS 7671 model layout, on whatever device is already in your hand, rather than a paper pad kept in the van.[4]
How often should PAT testing records be updated?
Portable Appliance Testing, or PAT testing, checks that portable electrical equipment is safe to use. The Health and Safety Executive is explicit that there is no fixed legal interval and testing itself is not compulsory by law. The relevant regulations require equipment to be maintained in a safe condition, without specifying a method or a frequency.[5]
How often a business tests, and whether it tests formally at all, is a risk-based decision that depends on the type of equipment and the environment it is used in. That flexibility is exactly why records matter more here, not less.
Without a fixed legal interval to fall back on, a business has to be able to show its own reasoning and its own testing history if that decision is ever questioned. A dated, retrievable record of every test carried out is the evidence that a risk-based approach was actually followed, not just claimed.
A PAT record you log with us is timestamped automatically the moment the test is entered, which matters precisely because there is no fixed interval to point to instead. Our PAT testing software and apps comparison looks at how that record-keeping side works in practice.
What F-Gas records do refrigeration and air conditioning engineers need to keep?
Stationary refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump systems holding 5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent or more of F-gas need regular leak checks. The schedule is set by the size of the charge: at least every 12 months for 5 to under 50 tonnes CO2 equivalent, every 6 months for 50 to under 500 tonnes, and every 3 months for the largest systems.[6]
Automatic leak detection, where fitted, can double the interval between checks. Whoever operates or services that equipment must also keep a logbook covering the gas quantity and type at installation, every leak check date and result, and every addition or recovery of refrigerant.[6][7]
The logbook also needs the name, address and certificate number of every company used to install, service or decommission the equipment, kept for five years and open to inspection by the Environment Agency.[7]
Our F-Gas logbook keeps the company details, gas quantity and every leak check result together against the equipment record, so an Environment Agency inspection does not mean reconstructing five years of paperwork from separate files.
A refrigeration or AC engineer maintaining several client systems is effectively running five years of overlapping logbooks at once. Our F-Gas compliance software comparison covers how different tools handle that overlap.
How often should an OFTEC oil heating service be recorded?
Oil-fired boilers should be serviced at least once a year, with the tank checked over at the same visit, the interval OFTEC’s own guidance for households on liquid fuel heating recommends, and that work should be carried out by an OFTEC registered technician rather than an unregistered installer. OFTEC operates the UK’s competent persons scheme for oil, solid fuel and related heating technologies.[11][9]
Its own technician search only lists currently registered businesses, which is the quickest way for a customer or a letting agent to check a technician’s status. An annual service produces a service record the customer can point to if a heating system is ever queried by a landlord, an insurer or a new buyer’s surveyor.
An OFTEC service record you log with us sits against that customer’s file automatically, so it is already there the next time a landlord, insurer or surveyor asks for it.
For an oil heating engineer, the record-keeping challenge looks a lot like the gas engineer’s: one clear annual date per customer, with a paper trail that survives long after the visit. Our OFTEC oil heating software comparison looks at the tools built around that specific cycle.
The six certificate types at a glance for 2026
The OFTEC oil heating service record above is not in this table. It is a service record rather than a certificate, so it has no certificate class of its own, but it belongs in the same customer file.
| Certificate | Who typically needs it | Check or renewal cadence | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gas Safety Record (CP12) | Landlords, via a Gas Safe registered engineer | Every 12 months | At least 2 years |
| Electrical Installation Certificate | New installations, new circuits, major alterations | One-off per job | No statutory period; recommended for the life of the installation |
| Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) | Existing installations, private rented sector | At least every 5 years | No statutory period; recommended until the next report |
| Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate | Small additions or alterations to an existing circuit | One-off per job | No statutory period; recommended for the life of the installation |
| PAT testing record | Portable appliances in a workplace | Risk-based, no fixed legal interval | No statutory period; recommended while the equipment is in use |
| F-Gas equipment log | Refrigeration, AC and heat pump systems 5 tonnes CO2e or more | Every 3, 6 or 12 months by charge size | 5 years |
How does Checker help you track every certificate type in one place?
We built Checker so a multi-trade business is not stitching together a gas certificate app, an electrical certificate app and a spreadsheet for everything else. A Gas Safety Record, an Electrical Installation Certificate, a Minor Works Certificate or an OFTEC service record all sit in the same customer file, filled in on site and synced once a connection is available.
What you get back is a signed PDF you can hand to a landlord, an insurer or a letting agent the moment the job is finished, pulled from any device rather than dug out of a drawer.
Records and reports, including every certificate above, are unlimited on all three plans, from LITE at £10.99 a month to PRO at £19.99 and PRO+ at £25.99, all plus VAT, so which certificate types you need is never what decides which plan to pick.
Our Annual Service Reminder fires 11 months after a customer record is created, prompting a booking for the boiler safety, OFTEC or landlord gas checks that customer is likely due for. That reminder does the nudging, not the job itself.
It does not carry out an inspection, issue a certificate, or make a customer compliant on its own. The actual check still needs a qualified engineer, on site, doing the work. We do not submit anything directly to the Gas Safe Register or any other registry.
The signed PDF a customer receives is accepted by the relevant third parties who ask for it, which is the part that actually matters for day-to-day compliance.
What should you track first?
Trying to bring every certificate type under one system at once is the wrong place to start. Pick whichever certificate is currently causing the most missed renewals or the most manual chasing, usually the Gas Safety Record for a gas-and-heating business, or the EICR for an electrical one.
Get that one trade’s records into a single place first. Everything else follows the same pattern once the first one is running cleanly.
Frequently asked questions
Do digital certificate records count as valid, or do I need paper originals?
Digital certificates count as valid. Signed digital PDFs satisfy the relevant third party once they carry what a paper form would: engineer details, registration number, date, and the safety or test result. Every form we build matches its own certificate’s standard layout, so what a landlord, letting agent or insurer would check for on paper is exactly what appears on screen.
How long do I need to keep gas, electrical, PAT and F-Gas records?
Retention periods differ by certificate: a Gas Safety Record must be kept for at least two years, and F-Gas equipment records for systems holding 5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent or more must be kept for five years. Electrical and PAT records have no single fixed retention period in law, so we recommend keeping every certificate for the life of the installation or equipment it covers.
Can one app track certificates across gas, electrical, PAT, F-Gas and oil heating?
Yes, we store digital forms for every one of these trades in a single customer record, rather than splitting gas certificates into one app and electrical certificates into another. A multi-trade business, or a subcontractor working across several of these areas, can keep one record per customer instead of stitching together exports from separate tools.
Does a reminder mean the compliance job is already done?
No. Our reminder only tells you when to book the visit, not that the visit happened. The certificate only exists once a qualified engineer has been on site, carried out the gas safety check, electrical test or F-Gas leak check, and recorded the result.
What happens if a certificate lapses before the next visit is booked?
The underlying legal obligation does not pause because a reminder was missed, and a landlord letting a property without a valid, in-date Gas Safety Record is in breach of the Gas Safety Regulations from the day the old certificate expires, regardless of when the next appointment gets booked. Setting reminder timing ahead of the actual deadline, rather than on it, gives a customer room to book before a certificate lapses.
Authoritative sources
- Gas Safety Record, Landlords’ responsibility for gas safety, Health and Safety Executive
- The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, Regulation 36, legislation.gov.uk
- Electrical safety standards in the private and social rented sectors: guidance, GOV.UK
- BS 7671 model forms for certification and reporting, IET
- Frequently asked questions: Portable appliance testing, Health and Safety Executive
- Checking F gas equipment for leaks, GOV.UK / Environment Agency
- Record F gas in equipment you own or service, GOV.UK / Environment Agency
- Domestic oil installation and boiler servicing, nidirect.gov.uk
- Registered technician search, OFTEC Competent Persons Scheme, OFTEC
- The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, Regulation 3, legislation.gov.uk
- Your home guide to liquid fuel heating, OFTEC
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