How to check an electrician is NICEIC or NAPIT registered (UK)

Last Updated on September 17, 2026

There is no licence to trade as an electrician in England and Wales. Anyone can call themselves one. What you can check, free and in two minutes, is whether a firm is registered with a competent person scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT.

Checked on 11 September 2026.

Registration matters because of the Building Regulations. Certain electrical jobs in homes (called notifiable work) must either be signed off by building control or done by a firm registered with a government-authorised scheme, which can self-certify its own work. That is what NICEIC and NAPIT registration actually is. It is not a licence, and it is not optional paperwork either.

The registers, checked live on 11 September 2026

On 11 September 2026, gov.uk listed these bodies as authorised to run electrical (Part P) competent person schemes in England: BESCA, Blue Flame Certification, Certsure (NICEIC), NAPIT, OFTEC, and APHC for electrical work alongside other registered activities. So NICEIC and NAPIT are the two biggest names, but they are not the only valid answers.

If you only use one link, use the cross-scheme register at electricalcompetentperson.co.uk. It launched in 2014, covers every authorised electrical scheme, and lets you search by company name specifically to check “an electrician you may be considering is listed as registered”. NICEIC’s own site now leads with a job-matching form (describe your job, contractors respond) rather than a simple name lookup, so the cross-scheme register is the faster verification route.

What registration proves

• The firm has been assessed. NICEIC describes registered electricians as “held to trusted standards of competence and safety and subject to regular assessments”. NAPIT members “prove competence” to a UKAS-accredited certification body. Assessment is periodic, not one-off.
• The firm can self-certify notifiable work. The cross-scheme register puts it plainly: registered electricians are “authorised by Government to self-certify that their work is compliant with Building Regulations” in England and Wales. That means no separate building control application for jobs like a new consumer unit or a new circuit in a home.
• There is a complaints route. Both schemes take complaints about registered firms’ work. NAPIT publishes its complaints process at napit.org.uk/Complaints.
• Some cover if the firm disappears. NICEIC’s Platinum Promise is described as a guarantee that “protects consumers if something is not right with an installation undertaken by an NICEIC-certified business that has since ceased trading”. Check the current terms on the scheme’s own site before relying on it.

What registration does not prove

• It is not a licence. No licence exists for electricians in England and Wales. Registration is voluntary in the sense that a firm could instead route every notifiable job through building control (slower and costs the customer more).
• Not every person on site has been individually assessed. Schemes register businesses. The assessed firm is responsible for the work, but the person in your kitchen may be an employee or subcontractor rather than the person who sat the assessment.
• It does not cover every job. Part P and the notifiable-work rules apply to dwellings. A registered firm can still do poor non-notifiable work (like swapping sockets on an existing circuit) that no certificate ever covers.
• It says nothing about price or manner. Registration is a competence and compliance check, not a review score.

The two-minute check, step by step

1. Get the exact trading name and postcode from the quote or the van. Not “Dave the electrician”, the name the business actually trades under.
2. Search the cross-scheme register at electricalcompetentperson.co.uk by company name. No result there, then try the scheme the firm claims (search.napit.org.uk for NAPIT, NICEIC’s tools for NICEIC).
3. Match the name AND the address. A common trading name matching a firm 200 miles away is not a match. If the register entry differs from the name on the quote, ask why before any money moves.
4. Ask one question: “Which scheme is the firm doing my job registered with?” Subcontracting is normal in this trade. The registration that matters is the one held by the business actually certifying your work.
5. Check the paperwork afterwards. Any real electrical installation work should end with an Electrical Installation Certificate or a Minor Works Certificate. For notifiable work, a Building Regulations compliance certificate should follow (the scheme notifies building control and the certificate is issued to you). Without the certificate there is no proof the work was ever notified, and that surfaces when you sell the house.

Red flags

• Logo on the van, no result on the register. Scheme logos are printed by anyone with a vinyl cutter. The register is the check, the sticker is not.
• Registered under a different company name than the one on your quote or invoice. Sometimes innocent (a rebrand), sometimes a firm borrowing a relative’s registration. Ask, and get the answer in writing.
• No certificate offered for notifiable work. A registered firm self-certifying your job has no reason to withhold the paperwork. Reluctance usually means the work will never be notified.
• “We’ll sort building control later.” For notifiable work done by an unregistered firm, building control involvement should be arranged before work starts, not retrofitted. “Later” often means never, and regularising unnotified work afterwards costs the homeowner.
• A quote that names no business at all. You cannot check a register for a first name and a mobile number.

Scotland is different

Part P applies to England and Wales only. In Scotland, electrical work falls under the Scottish building standards system, and bodies such as SELECT and NICEIC operate approved certifier arrangements there. The checks above still make sense in spirit (verify the firm with the body it claims, and get certificates), but the scheme names and the rules differ, so check the Scottish body’s own register rather than the England and Wales ones.

For electricians: publish it before they ask

If you run a registered firm, put your scheme name, registration number, and a link to your register entry on your homepage, your quotes, and your Google Business Profile. Customers who can verify you in ten seconds do not need convincing, and the unregistered firm undercutting you cannot copy a register entry. None of it costs anything.

What this page does not cover

• EICR (condition report) pricing, day rates, or callout fees. This page is about registration only.
• Whether a specific firm’s work is any good. Assessment checks competence on the day, not every job after it.
• Commercial and industrial work, where Part P does not apply.
• Full detail of Scottish building standards.
• Legal advice on disputes over completed work.

Method and limits

Every register and scheme page named above was fetched and checked live on 11 September 2026: the gov.uk competent person schemes guidance, electricalcompetentperson.co.uk, niceic.com’s find-a-tradesperson pages, and napit.org.uk (which directs member checks to search.napit.org.uk). Quoted wording is taken from those pages as published on that date. Scheme rules, guarantee terms, and the list of authorised operators change, so treat the tables here as a snapshot and the schemes’ own sites as the source of truth. Whito is an independent publisher, not a regulator, and a Whito check is not an official verification.

Sources

• gov.uk: Competent person schemes. List of authorised electrical (Part P) scheme operators and what self-certification means.
• Registered Competent Person Electrical. Cross-scheme search by company name or postcode; wording on government authorisation to self-certify.
• NICEIC: Find a Tradesperson. Assessment standards wording and the Platinum Promise description.
• NAPIT. What NAPIT is, its complaints route, and its member search at search.napit.org.uk.

Before you go

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