EPC for Business Premises: Shops, Offices, Warehouses and More

If you sell or let business premises of almost any kind, you need a commercial EPC — an Energy Performance Certificate, the official A+ to G energy rating for a non-domestic building, valid for ten years. That much is the same whether you run a corner shop or a distribution warehouse. What isn’t the same is how the rating behaves: the things that drag an office down to an F are different from the things that sink a warehouse, and the fixes are different too.

This page goes through the main types of business premises one by one — what drives the rating for that kind of building, where the risk sits under MEES (the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, which currently make it unlawful to let most commercial property rated below E), and what the assessor will need from you. We assess all of them: accredited assessors, fixed fee, UK-wide.

Request a fixed-fee quote — property type, rough floor area and postcode is all we need to price the job.

Do you need an EPC for your business premises?

Almost certainly yes, if the premises are being sold, let or newly built — the duty applies to any building or self-contained part not used as a private home, and it bites at the point of marketing, not completion. The rating then matters as much as the certificate: under MEES you generally can’t grant or continue a letting below an E. The legal detail lives on our commercial EPC requirements page, the E threshold on the minimum EPC rating for commercial property page, and the small set of exemptions — some listed buildings, temporary structures, certain workshops with very low energy demand — on their own page. Now, building by building.

EPC for an office

What drives the rating: lighting, heating and cooling, in roughly that order of controllability. Offices are lit and occupied all day, so old fluorescent tubes versus LED can move a rating by a full band; air-conditioning and electric heating are scored hard, and a comfort-cooled office generally needs a Level 4 (more involved) assessment rather than the basic Level 3. MEES risk points: 1960s–80s office stock with single glazing, electric panel or storage heating, and original lighting is the classic F/G candidate. A marginal E on an older certificate is worth re-checking before a lease event, because the calculation conventions have tightened over the years. What the assessor needs: floor plans if you have them, access to plant rooms and any roof units, and whatever you know about the heating and cooling systems — makes, models or photos of data plates all help.

EPC for a shop or retail unit

What drives the rating: display lighting and heating. Retail runs long hours under intensive lighting, so the lamp type across the sales floor is often the single biggest lever; heating in smaller units is frequently electric (panel heaters, or an air-curtain over the door), which scores poorly against gas. The big glazed frontage loses heat too, but it’s usually the lighting and heating choices that decide the band. MEES risk points: the older high-street unit with electric heating and halogen spots is the most common sub-E building we see. The good news: a lighting swap to LED is one of the cheapest band-raising works in any building type. What the assessor needs: access to the sales floor, stockroom and any staff areas, plus the heating details. Most single shops are simple Level 3 assessments — quick to survey and at the economical end of our commercial EPC cost scale.

EPC for a warehouse or industrial unit

What drives the rating: the heating question above all. A big-volume steel shed is expensive to heat, so how — gas warm-air blowers, radiant panels, or nothing at all — dominates the calculation, alongside high-bay lighting (old sodium or metal-halide fittings versus LED) and roof insulation. Genuinely unheated spaces, or units whose only heating serves a small office pod, are treated differently: in some very low-energy cases the premises may not need an EPC at all, and where one is needed the unheated zones are modelled accordingly — worth a two-minute check with us before you assume. MEES risk points: older uninsulated sheds with ad-hoc electric heating and original lighting. Because the floor areas are large, the recommendation report’s quick wins (lighting, destratification, door seals) tend to have outsized effects. What the assessor needs: eaves height and floor area (volume matters in the model), the heating type per zone including the office pod, and the lighting fit-out. Tell us if mezzanines have been added — they change the zoning.

EPC for a restaurant, café or pub

What drives the rating: heating, hot water and ventilation. The commercial kitchen itself is less decisive than owners expect — cooking appliances are largely treated as “process” energy outside the rating — but the extract and make-up air systems, air-conditioning in dining areas, and heavy hot-water use all count. Older converted buildings (most pubs) add solid walls and single glazing to the mix. MEES risk points: character conversions with piecemeal heating — a bar area on electric heaters, a function room on something else — and pre-2000 air-conditioning. Listed pubs are not automatically exempt from needing an EPC; see exemptions before relying on the listing. What the assessor needs: access before service is the practical point — surveys go far quicker in a closed kitchen. Details of the extract, air-conditioning and water heating, plus any function rooms or letting rooms upstairs (letting rooms usually keep it one non-domestic assessment; a genuinely self-contained manager’s flat needs its own domestic EPC).

EPC for a hotel or guesthouse

What drives the rating: hot water and heating around the clock. Hotels are the most services-heavy premises on this page — dozens of rooms with individual heating, constant hot-water demand, often a pool or spa, plus kitchen and laundry — so the age and controls of the boilers and any air-conditioning dominate, and most hotels need a Level 4 or 5 assessment. A guesthouse or B&B that is mainly the owner’s home with a couple of letting rooms can fall on the domestic side of the line instead — ask us rather than guessing, because booking the wrong assessment wastes money. MEES risk points: older hotels with original boiler plant, poor heating controls and single-glazed sash windows; room-by-room electric heating in converted guesthouses. What the assessor needs: plant-room access, the room count and layout (a floor plan saves survey time in a corridor building more than anywhere else), and details of pool, spa or laundry facilities if present.

EPC for mixed-use premises

The shop with a flat above, the café with the owner’s maisonette, the offices over a showroom: the rule is that each self-contained part gets its own certificate matched to its use — a non-domestic EPC for the business part, a domestic EPC for a self-contained flat. If the upstairs is only reachable through the business and isn’t self-contained, one non-domestic EPC normally covers everything. The full logic, including which certificate is triggered when, is on our non-domestic EPC page — or send us the layout and we’ll tell you, free.

The same assessment, whatever the building

Whatever the premises, the process is the one described across this site: you send the property type, floor area and postcode; we confirm the assessment level and a fixed fee before any work starts; an accredited assessor surveys the building; and the certificate plus its recommendation report is lodged on the official register (check what’s already there first via our commercial EPC register guide — the search is free, and an in-date E-or-better certificate may mean you don’t need us yet). With letting standards only heading one way — see the proposed commercial EPC regulations 2030 — knowing your building’s rating early is cheap insurance whatever type it is.

Request a fixed-fee quote — tell us what the building is, roughly how big, and where. Fixed price back, usually the same day.