In short
- The target is EPC C by 1 October 2030. Until a property has to meet it, the minimum stays EPC E, where it has been since 2020.
- Nobody can tell you your exact pass mark yet. The new certificates score two things separately and the band boundaries haven’t been set.
- Landlords will have to spend up to £10,000 per property trying to achieve a C if they’re not there already, and spending from 1 October 2025 already counts towards that.
- The average expected spend is £5,400, not the full £10,000 cap.
- Insulation is the safe thing to do first, whatever the final numbers turn out to be.
Boilers tend to get replaced in October, because that’s when they get asked to do something for the first time in months and fail. If you’re arranging one this autumn, or new windows, or loft insulation, or anything else on the EPC recommendations list, the money is already doing two jobs. It’s fixing the immediate problem, and it’s counting towards a bill that falls due in 2030.
That second part started on 1 October 2025, and it’s worth knowing about if you own a rental in Newcastle.
What standard does the property actually have to reach?
EPC C, by 1 October 2030, for every private tenancy in England and Wales. One date. The government considered an earlier deadline for new tenancies and decided against it, so a property let next spring is on the same timetable as one let in 2029. Until then the existing minimum of EPC E still applies, unchanged since 2020.
The exact pass mark doesn’t exist yet.
The certificate itself is being rebuilt. Instead of one letter, a property gets scored on separate metrics, and a rented home will have to meet a fabric performance standard (how well the building holds heat) plus one of two others, heating system or smart readiness, with the landlord choosing which. Fabric is the primary test either way.
What none of those has yet is a number. The band boundaries are being worked out through the Home Energy Model, which is still in consultation, and the government’s own words are that it will confirm “the score against each of the metrics that will constitute a C-grade” once that work is finished. It then goes into secondary legislation, expected to come into force in 2027, with the new certificates due from October 2026.
So the honest position for a landlord in September 2026 is that the deadline is fixed, the target is fixed, and the pass mark is not. That matters if someone is quoting you a precise score to work towards.
That sounds like a reason to wait. It isn’t, and the reason is the next section.
What counts towards the £10,000, and when did it start?
Landlords will be required to invest up to £10,000 per property on relevant improvements. That’s a ceiling across both tests combined, not £10,000 each. The government’s own impact assessment puts the average expected spend at £5,400, so most properties won’t need the full amount.
The part worth acting on: spending on relevant measures recommended on the property’s EPC counts towards that cap from 1 October 2025 onwards. Work already done since last October may be sitting there unclaimed, and work you do this autumn lands inside the window rather than outside it.
Two things follow, and both are administrative rather than expensive:
- Get a current EPC before the work, not after. The spend counts where the measure is recommended on the certificate. An improvement made without that paper trail is money spent that may not count.
- Keep the invoices. In 2030 the question will be what you spent and on what, and a compliance position or an exemption is only as good as the evidence behind it.
None of that changes what the work costs. It changes whether it counts.
And this is why the missing pass mark isn’t a reason to wait. Fabric is the primary standard whatever number it eventually carries. Insulation, draughtproofing and glazing all count towards the cap today, reduce the tenant’s bills today, and will still be the right work when the boundaries are published. Waiting for the number mostly means spending the same money later without it counting.
What if the property can’t get there for £10,000?
Then you don’t spend more than £10,000. The cap is a cap, and there’s a registered exemption for properties that reach it without meeting the standard.
There are others alongside it, including one for solid wall insulation, where a landlord can decide not to install it and record that decision, and a property value adjustment exemption for cases where a flat cap sits badly against what the property is actually worth. That last one exists because a great many consultation responses made the same point: £10,000 is a very different proposition against a £600,000 property than against a £150,000 one, and retrofit costs don’t fall just because values do.
The cost-cap, property value adjustment and negative impacts exemptions run for ten years once registered. Most of the others run for five. All of them go on the PRS Exemptions Register, and an exemption you haven’t registered isn’t an exemption at all.
For completeness rather than as a threat: local authorities will be able to fine up to £30,000 per property per breach. It isn’t the reason to do any of this.
Does this land differently on Newcastle stock?
In places, yes, and it’s mostly about walls.
A good deal of what’s let across Heaton, Wallsend, Byker and the older parts of Gosforth is pre-1919 and solid-walled. Tyneside flats in particular were built without a cavity to fill, which removes the cheapest single improvement most landlords elsewhere reach for first. Internal or external wall insulation is a much bigger job, and the government’s response acknowledges directly that retrofit costs more on heritage buildings and properties off the gas grid.
That’s the reason to look at your worst-performing property now rather than in 2029. Not because the deadline is close, because it’s four years away, but because if a property is heading for the cap or an exemption, that’s a decision with a survey and a specification behind it. It’s a much better decision made across four winters than in one.
Newer stock is a different conversation entirely. A 2005 flat with a decent boiler is likely close already, and the honest answer there is that this will cost you very little.
Is it worth doing more than the minimum?
This is where it stops being a compliance question.
A property that holds its heat is cheaper to run, and tenants notice a bill more than they notice a certificate. Warm, dry properties get fewer damp complaints and fewer winter callouts, and they hold a good tenant for longer. A tenancy that runs for years rather than months does more for your return than most things you could change.
There’s also the version of this nobody enjoys. The sector’s stock is going to split. By 2031 a tenant comparing two similar flats will be able to see which one costs less to heat, because the new certificate will say so in a way the current one doesn’t. The properties that get the work done well will let against the ones that scraped a minimum, and they’ll let for more.
So the standard is the floor. The reason to do it properly isn’t the fine. It’s that a property somebody would happily live in themselves is the one that rents fastest, to the best tenant, with the least going wrong. That has always been true. The 2030 date just puts a deadline on it.
What we’d suggest doing this year
Nothing dramatic, and nothing that only makes sense because of the regulation:
- Know where each property sits today. If an EPC is older than a couple of years, it predates the point at which spending starts counting and won’t reflect anything you’ve done since.
- Do the work you were going to do anyway, fabric first. It’s the primary test, it’s the part that actually reduces bills, and it’s the least likely to be wasted when the band boundaries land.
- Look hardest at the oldest property in the portfolio, and get a specification for it. That’s the one where the answer might be an exemption, and you’d rather know that in 2027 than in 2030.
- Keep the paperwork: certificate, quotes and invoices, in one place per property.
If you’d like a view on where a particular property sits, we’ll go through the current certificate, what the likely fabric position is, and what the realistic spend looks like against the cap. You’ll come away knowing whether it’s a small job, a big one, or an exemption. That’s a useful thing to know four years out rather than four months out.
Source: Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes: government response, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, updated 21 January 2026.