Fire Safety Regulations

Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988/1989, 1993 and 2010

Fire safety regulations play an essential role in hospitality and commercial furniture projects. They protect guests, staff, and property while reducing operational risk. Hotels, restaurants, and public spaces must use furniture that meets strict fire resistance standards. However, these requirements vary by country and project type. Therefore, designers and procurement teams must understand compliance rules before sourcing furniture.

The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988, amended in 1989, 1993, and 2010, define fire resistance standards for domestic upholstered furniture and related products. These regulations outline the responsibilities of companies involved in manufacturing, importing, and supplying upholstered furniture in the UK. However, this page provides only a general overview and does not replace the official legal text. Because legislation can be complex, industry bodies have published guidance to support suppliers. For detailed and authoritative information, suppliers should consult the official Regulations and the FIRA Guide to the UK Regulations.

Summary

The Trading Standards Department enforces these Regulations in the UK. Businesses can contact their local Trading Standards office for advice or clarification. Local councils manage these offices and provide guidance through websites, telephone services, or in-person consultations. The official guides and statutory instruments provide further clarification on regulatory requirements. Suppliers can download these documents to gain a deeper understanding of compliance obligations and testing standards. The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988, amended in 1989, 1993, and 2010, form part of UK law. These regulations ensure that upholstery materials and composite components used in furniture supplied in the UK meet specific ignition resistance standards and carry appropriate labels. The Regulations focus on six key compliance requirements:

• Filling materials must meet defined ignition resistance requirements.
• Upholstery composites must resist ignition from a smoldering cigarette.
• Furniture covers must be match resistant, with limited exceptions outlined in Section 8.2 and Appendix A5.
• Manufacturers must attach a permanent label to each new furniture item, except mattresses and bed bases.
• Retailers must display a fire safety label at the point of sale, except for mattresses, bed bases, pillows, scatter cushions, seat pads, loose covers sold separately, and stretch covers.
• The first supplier of domestic upholstered furniture in the UK must keep compliance records for five years.

Suppliers who may be affected

The Regulations apply to all businesses involved in the furniture supply chain. This includes the supply of materials, the manufacture of furniture, and the delivery of finished products. In addition, the Regulations cover re-upholstery and re-covering services.

• The following suppliers must comply with the Regulations:
  • Furniture manufacturers
  • Retailers and importers
  • Suppliers of filling materials and upholstery fabrics
  • Re-upholstery and re-covering service providers
  • Businesses that sell second-hand furniture, including auctioneers and charities

The Regulations also apply to businesses that hire out furniture. This includes furnished accommodation such as holiday homes, residential lettings, flats, and bedsits. Therefore, landlords, estate agents, and letting agents must ensure that supplied furniture meets compliance requirements.

Responsibility for compliance rests with the first supplier of domestic upholstered furniture in the UK. This role may fall to a manufacturer, importer, or retailer, depending on how the product enters the UK market. For this reason, understanding the definition of the first supplier is essential. Additional responsibilities apply to specific sectors. These include charities, holiday accommodation providers, care homes, sheltered housing, student accommodation, caravan suppliers, and operators of canal boats and pleasure craft. Businesses that supply furniture as part of a statutory function must also comply. The FIRA Guide explains all compliance responsibilities in detail and provides practical guidance for affected suppliers.

The Regulations cover six main product groups, identified as categories A to F. These groups include all types of upholstered seating, such as chairs, settees, padded stools, ottomans, sofa beds, futons, bean bags, floor cushions, and children’s furniture. They also apply to nursery furniture, upholstered items designed for infants or small children, self-assembly upholstered furniture supplied in kit form, second-hand upholstered furniture, and upholstered headboards, footboards, and bed side rails.

In addition, the Regulations cover outdoor and garden furniture suitable for use in dwellings, including homes and caravans. Upholstered furniture used in caravans, excluding vehicles and boats, also falls within scope. Cane furniture that contains upholstery is included as well.

The Regulations also apply to certain bedding components when considering filling materials only. These include divans, bed bases, mattresses, pillows, mattress toppers, scatter cushions, and seat pads. Furthermore, permanent furniture covers made from textiles, coated fabrics, or leather must comply, along with loose and stretch covers and covers used on non-visible parts of furniture. Both foam and non-foam filling materials used in upholstered furniture are also covered.

All furniture and materials within these product groups must comply with the Regulations. However, the FIRA Guide explains specific requirements and exceptions for each category in greater detail.

The Regulations do not apply to furniture manufactured before 1950 or furniture produced specifically for export. They also exclude sleeping bags, bedclothes such as duvets, mattress protectors, pillowcases, curtains, and carpets. However, these products remain subject to the General Product Safety Regulations 2005.

Testing

Manufacturers, importers and retailers in the UK need to ensure that:

• Furniture is not supplied which contains foam fillings (block or crumb polyurethane or latex rubber) that do not meet the requirements outlined in Schedule 1 of the Regulations
• Furniture is not supplied which contains non-foam fillings that do not meet the requirements outlined in Schedule 2 of the Regulations.
• Composite fillings consisting of more than one filling material comply either by each individual filling separately complying or by the total composite being tested. In either case, any foam incorporated in the composite must comply with Schedule 1 of the Regulations.
• Furniture is not supplied with upholstery composites that do not pass the cigarette test as outlined in Schedule 4 of the Regulations.
• Furniture is not supplied with permanent, loose or stretch covers which do not pass the match test as outlined in Schedule 5 of the Regulations.

The testing requirements for items are more fully explained in the FIRA guide.

Labelling

Display labelling

Display labelling is required to indicate the ignition resistance of each item of furniture and needs to be attached to all new furniture at the point of sale, with the exception of mattresses, bed-bases, pillows, scatter cushions, seat pads, loose covers (sold separately from the furniture) and stretch covers.

Furniture sold as a collection of items, such as three piece suites or a set of dining chairs must carry the appropriate display label on each individual item. In all cases the display label must be attached to the furniture in a prominent position so that the label will be clearly visible to a potential purchaser of the furniture and the wording on both sides can be read with reasonable ease.

Appropriate to new furniture which meets the filling requirements and is cigarette resistant. This applies to the likes of baby nests and the word “product” may be substituted for the word “furniture” on the second side of this label.

Appropriate to new furniture with a limited range of cover fabrics. The cover fabric is not match resistant, but the furniture has an interliner which passes the specified test. The furniture meets the filling requirements and is cigarette resistant.

Appropriate to new furniture which meets the filling requirements and is both cigarette and match resistant.

Permanent labelling

Permanent labelling on furniture is intended to assist enforcement officers and show compliance with the specific ignition requirements for covers and fillings. The prime objective of the permanent label is for enforcement officers to examine a label on a piece of furniture and obtain relevant information which will enable them to find out and confirm that the materials used in the item do comply with the Regulations. They will also be able to complete a cross check of the claims being made on the label with the manufacturers records. Permanent labels need to be carried on all items of furniture with the exception of mattresses divans and bed bases. The labelling specifications for mattresses, divans and bed-bases are covered separately by BS 7177.

There are two versions of permanent labels that manufacturers and importers can choose from.
These are:

• A label giving full information about the furniture
• A shorter label giving only the minimum information about the furniture.

A full description of what must be included in these labels is given in Parts 2 and 3, respectively, of Schedule 7 of the Regulations. It is important to emphasise that the actual design of the permanent label is left entirely to the manufacturer or importer. However, the requirements regarding the information that appears on the labels, the minimum size of letters and position and durability of the label must be followed.

Record keeping

All manufacturers, importers and retailers are required to keep records to ensure traceability and compliance of all items of upholstered furniture. Such information must include:

• Statements from suppliers
• The results of any relevant test that have been carried out on the furniture and its components
• The correlation of test results to specific items of furniture
• The correlation of records to labels, batch numbers or marks attached to the furniture.

Manufacturers and importers need to retain the information for a period of five years from the date on which the furniture is supplied to the retailer.

Retailers

If a piece of furniture is supplied which carries only the short permanent label, then the retailer needs to ensure that the manufacturer or importer (or any intermediary supplier) provides the details of the
following:

• Name and postal code of the address of the first supplier in the UK (i.e. manufacturer or importer)
• Date on which the article was manufactured or imported
• Description of all the filling materials included in the article
• Description of all the covering materials included in the article.

It is strongly advised that retailers obtain a Certificate of Compliance to the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988 from the manufacturer or supplier/importer.