Gas safety certificate: renewal period and what happens if you miss it

Short answer: every 12 months. If your rented property has any gas appliance, pipe or flue that you provide, it needs a gas safety check once a year, carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer.

Or skip the reminders and let the Beige Landlord Renewal Dashboard keep the date for you, nudging you before it is due. The detail is below.

The 12-month check

A Gas Safe engineer inspects the gas appliances and flues you are responsible for, confirms they are safe, and issues a record, often called a CP12 or Landlord Gas Safety Record. You then have to give a copy to your existing tenant within 28 days of the check, hand one to any new tenant before they move in, and keep your own copies for at least two years.

One handy detail: you can have the check done up to two months before the deadline without losing your original renewal date. So booking early costs you nothing, and it buys you breathing room if an engineer is hard to get.

What happens if you miss it

This is not one to let drift. Gas safety sits under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations, and it is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive as a criminal matter, not a tidy fixed fine. A lapsed certificate means the property is being let without a valid safety check, which can lead to prosecution and a substantial penalty, and in the most serious cases the consequences are worse than any fine.

There are knock-on effects too. Many landlord insurance policies are void if the gas check is out of date, so a lapse can quietly cancel your cover. It can also complicate regaining possession, because handing the tenant a current gas record is part of doing things properly at the start of a tenancy.

The safe habit is simple: renew every year, a little early, and keep the records.

For the full list of dates, see our UK landlord compliance deadlines guide, or let the Beige Landlord Renewal Dashboard track it for you.

Last reviewed: July 2026. General information, not legal advice.