The Working Upholsterer’s Bible · Tools
The Furniture & Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations, turned into plain questions, for domestic work and for contract seating. What your job needs on covers, fillings, interliners and records — and a printable compliance record for your files.
Working on contract seating? Skip to the BS 7176 checker for pubs, hotels, care homes and offices →
This is the United Kingdom page. It covers the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 as amended, and BS 7176 for contract seating. The rules elsewhere are genuinely different — the US federal standard tests smoulder resistance only, with no match test, and Canada has no upholstery fire standard at all. See fire regulations by country.
Regulations under reform — last reviewed 5 July 2026
This tool describes the law as it stands: the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, as amended in 1989, 1993, 2010 and 2025. A government consultation on a wider new regime (including a smoulder-based test) closed on 23 June 2026; the response and transition timetable are expected later in 2026. Until new regulations take effect, the 1988 Regulations as amended remain the law. We update this page as the position changes.
Answer the questions and the checker sets out, in plain English, what the regulations require of that job — and where the recognised grey areas are. It is guidance from a working upholsterer’s point of view, not legal advice: the authoritative sources are linked under every result.
For re-upholstery jobs: fill this in, print it, staple one copy to the job sheet and give one to the customer. It is a record of the materials you supplied — the thing Trading Standards, your insurer, and future-you will all want to see. (It is not a statutory label; new furniture’s permanent label is a separate requirement for first suppliers.)
The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (as amended) require upholstery supplied in business to use ignition-resistant fillings such as CMHR foam and cover fabrics that pass the match test — or covers of at least 75% natural fibre fitted over a fire-resistant interliner — plus cigarette resistance for the composite, a permanent label on new furniture, and five years of compliance records.
Stripped to the bones, the current Regulations contain five working obligations. Fillings — every filling material (foam, wadding, fibre) supplied in furniture or re-upholstery must meet the specified ignition requirements; in practice this means buying CMHR / combustion-modified foam and compliant waddings from a supplier who can certify them. Covers — cover fabric must resist the match test, with the main alternative route being a cover of at least 75% natural fibre fitted over a compliant fire-resistant interliner. Cigarette resistance — the upholstery composite must resist a smouldering cigarette. Labelling — new furniture placed on the market carries a permanent label (mattresses and bed bases excepted); since October 2025 a display label is no longer required. Records — the first supplier of new furniture keeps compliance records for five years; for re-upholstery, keeping equivalent records is the recognised good practice this page’s record card exists for.
Yes — for customer-supplied fabric of unknown compliance, fitting a compliant Schedule 3 fire-resistant interliner beneath it is the recognised safe trade practice, together with telling the customer in writing and keeping a record of the materials. The alternative is to decline the fabric; fitting it silently is not defensible.
Customer-supplied fabric of unknown compliance is the trade’s permanent headache. The Regulations attach to what you supply in the course of business; a fabric the customer hands you was not supplied by you — but the finished, filled article leaves your workshop under your name. The recognised safe practice, and what we do at the bench: fit a compliant FR interliner beneath the customer’s fabric, tell them in writing what you’ve done and why, and keep the record. Some workshops simply decline unknown fabric; that is also a defensible policy. What is not defensible is fitting it silently and hoping. The reform now in progress is expected to clarify exactly this area — one reason this page carries a review date.
Always keep the supplier’s compliance certificate for anything you fit — the link is only compliant if the paperwork says so.
The checker above covers domestic work, where the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 apply. Seating destined for a pub, hotel, care home, office or any other non-domestic premises is a different regime: BS 7176, which sorts seating into four hazard categories according to where it is going. Answer four questions and you get the category, the tests it calls for, and a specification record for the job file.
This records what you supplied and to which standard. It is not a compliance certificate for the premises — under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 that duty sits with the responsible person for the building, through their fire risk assessment. Print two: one for the job sheet, one for the client.
The rules elsewhere are genuinely different, and not always stricter. The United States tests smoulder resistance only, with no match test. Canada has no upholstery fire standard at all since the last provincial scheme was repealed in 2021. Australia and New Zealand have a standard, but it is voluntary. Ireland has its own Order and its own Irish Standard, separate from the British regulations.
Each has its own page now, covering domestic and commercial work separately, with sources and the date it was last checked: fire regulations by country.
One rule holds everywhere. On commercial and contract work the requirement belongs to the building rather than to the furniture — so get the standard and test level in writing from whoever is responsible for the premises, before you cut anything.
From the workshop
This is general information for the upholstery trade, not legal, regulatory or fire-safety advice, and no professional relationship is created by your use of it. It is written by a working upholsterer, not by a lawyer, a fire engineer or a testing house.
Fire safety law and the standards beneath it change, are amended, and are interpreted by courts and enforcing authorities in ways this page cannot anticipate. The UK Regulations are under active reform at the time of writing. Standards including BS 7176, BS 7177 and BS 5852 are copyright documents that are revised periodically; the summaries here are plain-English orientation and are not a substitute for reading the current standard or for the advice of an accredited testing house.
Every job is different. The checkers on this page cannot see your materials, your client’s premises, their fire risk assessment or their contract. Nothing here determines what any particular job legally requires. The categories suggested are starting points for a conversation with the person who holds the duty — not findings you can rely on.
The records this page generates are your own documents. They record what you say you supplied. They are not certificates, they are not test evidence, they carry no accreditation, and they do not certify that any premises complies with anything. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 responsibility for the fire safety of premises rests with the responsible person for those premises.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Greenwood Upholstery and the author accept no liability for any loss, damage, cost, penalty or claim arising from reliance on this page, including where the information is incomplete, out of date or wrong. If you need a decision you can rely on, take it from your local Trading Standards service, an accredited testing house, the specifier for the job, or a suitably qualified professional.
Spotted something inaccurate? Tell us and it will be corrected.