Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations

The Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations (the levy) were made on 19 November 2025 and come into force on 1 October 2026.

These regulations bring about a new tax on residential development – new housing and certain types of student accommodation – which will be payable to HM Government to support the remediation of buildings with historic building safety risks following the Grenfell Tower tragedy in June 2017.

The levy only applies in England and does not, as yet, extend into Wales. Welsh Government (WG) have indicated that there are no plans to have a similar levy system in Wales – although it’s noted that the legislation is in place that might allow a levy to be created in Wales if the WG wishes to create a levy.

There is legislation in Scotland for a building safety levy. However, this levy is independent of the English system.

Local authorities in England have been prescribed as the agents to collect the levy on behalf of HM Government and are referred to as the Collecting Authority (CA).

The levy is directly linked to the Building Regulations process at the application, commencement, and completion stages and impacts upon applications made to local authorities, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), and Registered Building Control Approvers (RBCA) alike.

Measures are in place to allow full plans approval applications, or Initial Notices to be rejected by the local authority where levy information is not provided for the CA to determine levy liability notices or notices of no charge and the BSR can reject a building control approval application for Higher Risk Building (HRB) work etc.

Similarly, local authorities, the BSR and RBCA’s can reject commencement notices, and local authorities can refuse to give a Completion Certificate and can reject Final Certificates from RBCA’s. Likewise, the BSR can reject a building control approval application for a Completion Certificate.

The levy is also linked to the planning process insofar as the following might apply –

Planning permission
Section 33 of the Town and Country Planning Act
Prior Approval
Previously developed sites (aka Brownfield or Greyfield development)
Affordable housing

HM Government has not prescribed which service(s) in a local authority should carry out the administrative duty of the Collection Authority service, however, LABC recognises that the role might be performed by:

Building Control teams – as an adjunct to the building control process; or
Planning section 106 or Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) teams – due to the close similarities between the two processes; or
LA Finance teams – because of the need to collect, retain, transfer and report on the monies gathered under the levy regulations; or
A hybrid working model of the above.

LABC recognises that its members in local authority building control teams may require support and signposting on this important and complex regulatory regime; as well as developers and homebuilders navigating the new levy. This dedicated webpage has been created for matters relating to the levy system.