Open consultation

The fire safety of domestic upholstered furniture

Published 31 March 2026

Consultation information

This consultation seeks your views on important reforms to how we regulate the fire safety of domestic upholstered furniture.

The proposals set out below reflect the policy aim to maintain a high level of fire safety while meaningfully reducing chemical flame retardant use. They reflect the large volume of stakeholder engagement and evidence gathering that has taken place over a number of years. The Government will:

1. Introduce new furniture fire safety requirements based on a smoulder test.
2. Put in place pragmatic testing solutions to facilitate innovation.
3. Make proportionate scope adjustments.

The proposed policy remains subject to review and may change as a result of the evidence and views provided by stakeholders in response to this consultation.

Consultation details

Responsible body: Department for Business and Trade (DBT)

Issued: 31 March 2026

Respond by: 23:59pm on 23 June 2026

How to respond

You can respond to this consultation online.

We encourage responses to be made through this online platform to assist our analysis of the responses.

If you cannot respond online, you may send your response by email to furniturefiresafety@businessandtrade.gov.uk, using the response form on this page.

Written responses can also be sent to:

Furniture Fire Safety Policy Team
Department for Business and Trade
Old Admiralty Building
Admiralty Place
London SW1A 2DY

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The way in which your data is handled varies depending on how you submit your response, but all information submitted to us will be treated in accordance with data protection principles.

You can read the Public consultations privacy notice. We may modify or amend this privacy notice at our discretion at any time. When we make changes to this notice, the last modified date at the top of this page will be updated. Any modification or amendment to this privacy notice will be applied to you and your data as of that revision date. If there are substantive changes to how your personal data is processed, DBT will take reasonable steps to make sure you know.

Information you provide in response to this consultation, including personal information, may be disclosed in accordance with UK legislation (the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).

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You can contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) with any concerns about how we or our services handle your personal information:

Data Protection Officer
Department for Business and Trade
Old Admiralty Building
Admiralty Place
London
SW1A 2DY

Email: data.protection@businessandtrade.gov.uk

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Website: ICO

Tel: 0303 123 1113

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Quality assurance

This consultation has been carried out in accordance with the government’s consultation principles. If you have any complaints about the way this consultation has been conducted, email: enquiries@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

Context and policy objectives

The fire safety of domestic upholstered furniture, and reform of the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (the FFRs), is a longstanding issue considered at length by successive Governments. The FFRs have been the subject of ongoing review and a series of public consultations and represent an issue where achieving clear consensus has not been possible.

This has led to an environment of uncertainty for businesses and ever-growing concerns about the health and environmental impacts of high chemical flame retardant use. The Government recognises the strength of feeling across different stakeholder groups, and the valid concerns expressed by all those that have contributed to this review process. There are also substantial limitations to the conclusions that can be drawn from the available data. Nonetheless, we are determined to give the sector certainty. This consultation builds on all the views and evidence expressed over the last few years, including through the 2023 consultation process, to propose comprehensive reform of the FFRs.

The Government’s policy paper The fire safety of domestic upholstered furniture, published in January 2025, noted that the FFRs are out of step with modern approaches to product safety and are increasingly a potential barrier to innovation and the circular economy.

The paper also considered the feedback received to the consultation held by the previous Government in 2023 and committed to working with stakeholders to find resolutions to some of the key issues in this sector. The Government committed at that stage to move forward with reform plans, and this was in full acknowledgement that it will likely not be possible to implement universally popular reforms. Following further targeted engagement with stakeholders – including businesses, charities, fire services, and unions – we are taking the next step and moving forward work on these important reforms.

This paper, which sets out the Government’s proposed final approach, reflects the informative, and in some cases stark, feedback received in 2023 as well as comprehensive engagement since. Though it is the fourth consultation held on FFRs reform, it is important – and required under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025 – that businesses, consumer groups, and others working in the sector, have this final opportunity to provide feedback ahead of implementation.

Reform of this sector will provide the certainty that businesses need. The Government has taken an evidence-led approach to craft a set of policy proposals that will maintain a high level of fire safety, while meaningfully reducing the reliance on chemical flame retardants brought about by the FFRs – a reliance which has not been seen elsewhere.

Following this consultation, we will prioritise finalising the reforms and setting out a timeline for implementing changes and transitioning to new regulations.

Proposal 1: Introduce new furniture fire safety requirements based on a smoulder test

The FFRs require components used in the construction of upholstered furniture to undergo ‘open flame testing’, This can range from a small flame ‘match’ test for cover materials, to a larger flame ‘crib 5’ test for foam fillings.

These tests represent different levels of ignition prevention activity and are designed to simulate an open flame falling on the furniture and ensure the product either does not ignite or self-extinguishes within a certain timeframe.

In January 2025 we reflected on the concerns raised about open-flame testing and the possibility that retaining it could significantly undermine the objective to reduce the use of chemical flame retardants. Following that we have been reviewing and scrutinising our evidence base and engaging with stakeholders to assess the benefits brought by the FFRs, the risks presented by chemical flame retardants and how the UK’s outcomes compare to other countries.

Fire deaths in the UK have decreased since the introduction of the FFRs, but importantly this trend has also occurred in other European countries that did not adopt the same level of flammability testing as the UK. In those jurisdictions, a ‘smoulder’ or ‘cigarette’ test is utilised to assess compliance. This uses a smaller ignition source – simulating a lit cigarette – to test the flammability performance of the product or component.

Whilst chemical flame retardants have appeared to successfully reduce the number of fire casualties, other factors may also be significant in achieving this downward trend. For example, when the FFRs were introduced, the use of smoke alarms in English homes was recorded at just 8%. By the following year this figure had risen to 25% and in 2022/23, an estimated 93% of households in England had a working smoke alarm.

A number of other variables have changed since 1988, including a greater awareness of fire risk, a significant reduction in smoking, less open-fire heat sources in the home and safer cooking practices. It is therefore not possible to separate the role of the FFRs from those other factors and draw firm conclusions on the effectiveness of the UK regulations using our own fire data or international comparison data.

Furthermore, alongside the then-Government’s 2014 consultation, a technical annex was published which set out a number of flaws in the existing match test. Testing undertaken at the time called into question how representative the testing was of furniture being sold to consumers and showed that while components were passing tests, a composite of those materials tested together may behave differently and not offer the same level of protection.

There is also a growing understanding of the health and environmental effects of chemical flame retardants, such as their being linked to an increase in the rates of cancer, neurotoxicity, developmental and behavioural challenges, and endocrine disruption. While the evidence of actual negative health impacts on humans is so far limited for chemicals still in use, and is therefore difficult to weigh against fire risk, this is a cause of some legitimate concern.

This is further borne out in one of the primary concerns raised by a range of stakeholders, which is the evidence linking chemical flame retardant use with an increase in smoke toxicity, if furniture does become ignited. Assessing how the benefits to delaying ignition are weighed against the issue of increased smoke toxicity is a particular challenge.

Other suggestions to address this issue included amending or adding additional testing requirements to consider smoke toxicity. This would be a significant step change from the current tests focused on ignitability, and the development of new tests focused on toxicity would likely take a long time and further delay overdue reforms. It is also clear that introducing additional testing requirements would be particularly prohibitive for small businesses and bespoke furniture manufacturers. The Government therefore believes that reducing the stringency of the testing is a more proportionate approach to address these concerns.

It is also certainly the case that the presence of chemical flame retardants significantly inhibits recycling and reuse and presents real challenges for the safe disposal of furniture at end of life.

It has not proven possible to conclusively assess the risks and benefits of retaining the existing regime, given the number of variables that have changed since the FFRs came into force. As a result, the Government is not persuaded that the benefits brought by the FFRs are such that we should continue with the current regulations.

Retaining open-flame testing requirements, even to a reduced level, would likely not go far enough to facilitate a reduction in chemical use and better balance health and environmental outcomes. We feel that we can maintain a high level of fire safety in the UK and facilitate meaningful reduction to chemical flame retardant use by implementing new furniture fire safety regulations that can be met by passing a smoulder test. This is consistent with the voluntary tests often used by manufacturers in the EU to meet the General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) there, and with the approach taken in the United States.

The Government will not be moving ahead with the Flame Retardant Technology Hierarchy proposed in 2023. Moving away from open-flame testing will do more than the hierarchy to reduce chemical flame retardant use, meaning that the significant additional burden on manufacturers that it would have represented is not justified.

Similarly, this approach means that the Government is reassured that outdoor furniture should stay in scope of the regulations. Removing open-flame testing requirements should address the concerns expressed by industry that they are needlessly treating components with chemicals which are at significant risk of being degraded quickly when used and stored outside.

The Government has considered removing the FFRs in their entirety, meaning furniture fire safety would be regulated by GPSR, as it is in the EU. However, a key benefit to retaining sector-specific regulations for furniture fire safety is the ability to make further changes to bespoke regulations and testing requirements if evidence necessitates that. Sector regulations will also allow us to consider setting specific labelling requirements to underscore compliance, support enforcement and inform disposal at end of life.

The Government will have an active post-implementation monitoring and evaluation plan and will track the impacts of the new regulations and testing regime and will be able to take action as and when evidence necessitates that.

To maintain a high level of fire safety, while meaningfully reducing the reliance on chemical flame retardants, the Government will:

• end open-flame testing requirements
• introduce new regulations underpinned by a smoulder test aligning with international approaches
• put in place a robust monitoring and evaluation plan and mechanisms to assess the impact of changes
• retain bespoke regulations to ensure we can amend requirements if evidence necessitates it

The Government will not:

• remove furniture fire safety regulations completely
• implement a flame retardant technology hierarchy
• remove outdoor furniture from scope the regulations

Question 1: Do you agree with the proposal to introduce reformed furniture fire safety sector legislation, based on a smoulder test?

Proposal 2: Pragmatic testing solutions to facilitate innovation

In January 2025 the Government acknowledged the concerns expressed by a range of stakeholders about the viability of final item testing. The made-to-order sector and manufacturers of bespoke products in particular set out how that approach would not align with manufacturing processes and supply chains, and would represent a significant additional testing burden.

We are committed to implementing a solution that supports the bespoke sector to thrive and ensures the safety of consumers, while recognising that some manufacturers support a composite or final-item approach as they feel it will allow them to be more innovative in how they meet testing requirements.

One of the difficulties that we identified was defining what it means to be a bespoke manufacturer, with views ranging from genuinely one-off designs to businesses that produce relatively high volumes of furniture but do so entirely by hand in the UK. Any exemption for bespoke manufacturers would likely require an arbitrary definition to be set and would leave a number of businesses unable to benefit from it.

On that basis, the Government intends to allow manufacturers free choice over whether they use component testing or composite testing to evidence compliance with the essential safety requirements. This will allow businesses that would benefit from testing materials in combination to do so, without placing an undue burden on those whose business models and supply chains do not easily fit that approach.

We have reviewed the proposal for an essential safety requirement addressing foam fillings in conjunction with this proposal and the end to open-flame testing requirements. We will not require the separate testing of foam where manufacturers choose to follow the composite testing route to evidence compliance. We recognise the argument that unmodified foam used in furniture manufacture in the 1960s to the 1980s was one of the key drivers for the FFRs being introduced. However, we must also ensure testing requirements are proportionate and that costs incurred from testing by businesses are justified, and do not believe a separate smoulder test on foam would offer additional assurance.

We will also further consider the accreditation and assurance requirements for test laboratories. In 2023 it was proposed that laboratories used for testing should be accredited by UKAS or an equivalent international accreditation body. While this was intended to address a significant oversight gap in the FFRs and we do not believe this approach would present any laboratory capacity issues, we recognise that there are a number of furniture manufacturers operating labs without accreditation by UKAS, or an equivalent national accreditation body. As a result, we will further consider practical solutions that represent more appropriate testing oversight.

To ensure testing requirements are pragmatic and support innovation whilst protecting consumers, the Government will:

• allow businesses to conduct composite or component testing
• work with the British Standards Institution to ensure that standards are available to support compliance

The Government will not:

• require foam fillings to be tested separately, where manufacturers are utilising composite testing methods

Question 2: Do you agree with the proposal to allow businesses to use composite/ representative sample testing or component testing to demonstrate compliance with the new regulations?

Proposal 3: Proportionate scope adjustments

Re-upholstery and repair

The re-upholstery sector, which is predominantly made up of micro businesses, needs to be considered separately to the manufacture of new products. The nature of the business is notably different: each item, and the work undertaken on it, is unique, and often performed with very direct engagement with the end consumer. The term re-upholstery is broad which makes defining and regulating the sector challenging. It includes simple repairs where covers and/ or fillings are replaced as well as more substantial work like full rebuilds.

Proposals were set out in the 2023 consultation and the feedback received suggested that re-upholsterers found them overly burdensome, especially where new administrative burdens around labelling were proposed.

In January 2025 the Government committed to undertake further work with the re-upholstery sector to better understand existing compliance challenges and find a suitable and proportionate solution that protects consumers without over-burdening businesses. Additional stakeholder engagement carried out last year identified inconsistency in interpretation and substantial challenges to complying with the current requirements in the sector. Evidence shared with OPSS implies upholsterers and their suppliers find the regulations difficult to understand in many cases and receive inconsistent regulatory advice from a range of sources.

Despite the challenging compliance environment within the sector, we have not seen significant incidences of fires linked to re-upholstered furniture. It is therefore important to ensure that regulatory requirements put in place are proportionate to the risk, scale and business models used, and support upholsterers while protecting their customers, balancing fire safety and regulatory requirements.

On that basis, the Government does not believe the reupholstery sector needs the same level of bespoke regulation as the wider furniture sector. We therefore intend that re-upholstery will be regulated under the GPSR rather than the reformed furniture fire regulations. We believe that this approach strikes an appropriate balance by ensuring upholsterers must still have regard for safety without applying bespoke regulations when it is not so necessary to do so, but would welcome views about whether this deregulation is necessary, given the move to a smoulder test for the future furniture fire safety regulations. We will also seek to ensure that informative guidance is made available to the sector to aid understanding and consistent compliance.

Second-hand upholstered furniture

The current requirements for second-hand upholstered furniture are unclear, divergently interpreted and in some cases inconsistently complied with. Stakeholder engagement and feedback from the 2023 consultation highlighted confusion about the current regime. The FFRs require second-hand domestic furniture to still meet the testing requirements for new furniture in order to be re-supplied, but given that retesting would be destructive and is therefore not feasible, what this means in practice appears to be unclear.

While 2023 proposals sought to clarify best practice as we understand it, it is clear that this would lead to more serviceable furniture being disposed of and second-hand supply being curtailed at a time when the Government’s circular economy agenda seeks to support greater reuse and repair across different product sectors. This existing policy also appears to rule out the resale of any furniture first sold between 1950 and the introduction of the regulations in 1988, which are in scope of the requirements but have not been tested against the relevant standards and are not labelled accordingly.

Feedback received indicates that to meaningfully support the circular economy, and avoid the destruction of period furniture that appears to represent a low fire risk, we need to go further. We need to ensure the correct balance is struck to support the second-hand market by minimising administrative burdens while ensuring that products remain safe when they are resupplied. The Government therefore also intends that second-hand furniture will not be in scope of future furniture fire safety regulations when they are implemented.

The inconsistent interpretations of the current requirements, including in some cases likely non-compliance, have not been associated with significant furniture fires. This approach will reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses, where it appears consumer safety risk is low, while maintaining a basic framework for safety.

The decision to end open-flame testing means that setting sector-specific requirements for second-hand furniture, based on ensuring that labelling is in place indicating furniture passed relevant tests when supplied new, would arguably lead to older products having to clear a higher bar than newer products, which is not proportionate and therefore hard to justify.

The Government is also mindful that our proposed approach to remove re-upholstery from the scope of the regulations would also mean retaining second-hand upholstered products in scope of the FFRs would be practically very hard to administer. Re-upholstered products will no longer have any mandatory labelling requirements indicating compliance. In practice that means there is no clear way to establish, when they are being supplied second-hand, whether re-upholstery has been carried out and whether they are compliant with sector-specific requirements or not. Therefore, while a zero-risk approach could be taken, this would likely lead to a significant increase in serviceable products being disposed of via landfill or incineration with negative environmental consequences.

More broadly, the supply of second-hand consumer products is generally regulated, for proportionality reasons, by the GPSR instead of specific sector requirements. This applies to product sectors covered by the assimilated EU law in the UK’s product safety framework and will remain a principle in the new framework.

As part of the ongoing work to review and update the core framework in Great Britain, there will be some consideration of requirements of second-hand consumer products, to ensure requirements are proportionate and robust. We intend to adopt an approach consistent with the wider framework for second-hand upholstered furniture but would welcome views from respondents about how best to ensure obligations are proportionate for this specific sector.

To ensure that regulatory requirements are proportionate, the Government will:

• remove re-upholstery and repair from the scope of the regulations
• remove second-hand upholstered furniture from the scope of the regulations

The Government will not:

• place additional administrative burdens on upholsterers
• take a zero-risk approach which leads to serviceable furniture being disposed of

Question 3: Do you agree with the proposal to use the General Product Safety Regulations to regulate re-upholstery and repair of upholstered furniture?

Question 4: Do you agree with the proposal to use the General Product Safety Regulations to regulate second-hand upholstered furniture?

Next steps

Following this consultation, the Government will consider responses provided and move quickly to finalise the other outstanding issues. Later this year we will publish a response that sets out a comprehensive policy position, including addressing labelling and technical file requirements, and set out a timeline for implementing changes and transitioning to the new regime.

Summary of proposals

• We will introduce new furniture fire safety requirements based on a smoulder test, ending mandatory open-flame testing and better balancing the risk posed by fire and by chemical flame retardants.
• We will offer businesses the option to choose between component or composite testing, to support innovation without compromising certain business models.
• We will remove re-upholstery and repair and second-hand furniture from the scope of future furniture fire safety regulations to ensure the regulation of these sectors is more proportionate.

Consolidated list of consultation questions

Question 1: Do you agree with the proposal to introduce reformed furniture fire safety sector legislation, based on a smoulder test?

Question 2: Do you agree with the proposal to allow businesses to use composite/ representative sample testing or component testing to demonstrate compliance with the new regulations?

Question 3: Do you agree with the proposal to use the General Product Safety Regulations to regulate re-upholstery and repair of upholstered furniture?

Question 4: Do you agree with the proposal to use the General Product Safety Regulations to regulate second-hand upholstered furniture?