Scotland EPC fees rise as 2025 rules delayed to 2028
Scotland has made a technical-looking change that will matter to people who work with property, even if most readers will never open the regulation itself. The Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2026 were made by the Scottish Ministers on 28 October 2026. They apply only in Scotland, and they do two main things: they raise the fee for putting EPC data onto the official register, and they push back the full start date of the 2025 EPC reforms. Most of the amendment came into force on 30 October 2026, with the specific fee and register change in regulation 2 following on 31 October 2026. That may sound administrative, but EPC rules sit in the background of everyday decisions. If you are selling a home, letting a flat, managing a commercial unit or working as an energy assessor, these dates and fees shape how the system runs.
An EPC, or Energy Performance Certificate, is the document that tells you how energy efficient a building is and usually suggests ways to improve it. In practice, it is one of the first bits of paperwork many people see when a property is marketed. The related recommendations report is the more practical companion piece, setting out measures that could improve performance. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, the Scottish rules also depend on a formal register of energy performance data. That register is not just a filing cabinet. It is the database from which the certificate and recommendations report can be produced, checked and stored.
The clearest immediate change is the fee increase. For data relating to a dwelling, the register fee rises from £2.60 to £6.00. For data relating to a building or building unit other than a dwelling, the fee rises from £12.10 to £15.50. The explanatory note says the 2008 regulations are being restated so that this increase can happen. **What it means for you:** this is a fee for entering data onto the register, not a simple headline price for the whole EPC service. The regulation says a register keeper may charge these amounts where that keeper is a Scottish public authority. In real life, administrative fee changes can feed into the total cost charged by providers, but the law here is narrowly about registration of the data itself.
The amendment also rewrites the rules on how the register works. There can be one or more registers, each maintained by a keeper, and different registers can exist for different purposes or different types of buildings. Before an EPC or recommendations report is issued, a member of an approved organisation must make sure the relevant energy data has been sent to the correct register. Once entered, the data must be given a unique reference and, as a general rule, it cannot later be altered. The main exception mentioned is updated Green Deal information. The data must also stay on the register for at least 10 years from the date it is entered. That is a long retention period, and it tells you the system is designed for traceability as well as compliance.
The second big change is about timing. The Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2025 were due to come fully into force on 31 October 2026. This amendment moves that full commencement date to 30 April 2028. The shift is not limited to one line on a calendar. The legislation also moves a string of linked transitional dates so the timetable still fits together. Dates that had been set at 30 or 31 October 2026 are pushed to late April 2028, dates that had been set at 31 October 2027 are pushed to 30 April 2029, and one long-stop date moves from 31 October 2031 to 30 April 2033.
**What it means in practice:** the 2025 reform package has not been scrapped, but it has been delayed by about 18 months. That means the older framework stays in place for longer, while the handover to the newer rules happens later than many assessors, landlords and property professionals may have expected. If you had October 2026 in your head as the moment the new Scottish EPC regime would be fully live, that timetable is now wrong. The new date to remember is 30 April 2028. Transitional arrangements for approved organisations, accreditation schemes and related saving provisions move with it, which effectively gives the sector more time to keep using the current set-up before the 2025 framework takes over in full.
One important thing to notice is what the regulation does not do. It does not give a long policy speech about why the later 2025 reforms are being postponed. Instead, as often happens with statutory instruments, it quietly changes the legal machinery and leaves readers to piece together the practical effect from the dates. For media literacy, that is a useful reminder: short legal amendments can carry big real-world consequences. For most people, the takeaway is straightforward. EPCs are still part of the Scottish property system, the registration fee for EPC data has gone up from the end of October 2026, and the newer 2025 regime will not be fully in force until 30 April 2028. If you work in housing, lettings, surveying or property compliance, this is the sort of small-print change that is very easy to miss and surprisingly costly to misunderstand.