Updated August 2026

Are you in scope?

Three questions decide it, and the third is the one that catches people out. Most estates have fewer premises in scope than they fear, but nearly all have at least one they hadn't counted.

Question one: is it a qualifying use?

Schedule 1 of the Act lists the kinds of use that bring premises into scope, and chapter 4 of the statutory guidance goes through them. Broadly, it's places the public can get into: shops, food and drink venues, entertainment and leisure, hotels and other visitor accommodation, sports grounds, libraries, museums and galleries, visitor attractions, places of worship, healthcare, childcare and education, and public authority buildings.

Offices the public don't visit are generally outside it, and so is private housing. If people can walk in off the street without an appointment, assume it's a qualifying use and move on.

Question two: 200, or 800?

Standard tier runs from 200 to 799. Enhanced tier starts at 800. Places of worship are the exception: they're standard tier whatever their capacity, which matters a lot to cathedrals and large mosques. There is a page on that.

The number includes everyone who may be present, staff as well as customers.

Question three: how often is "from time to time"?

This is where people get caught. The test isn't what happens on a normal Tuesday. It's whether it's reasonable to expect 200 or more people at the same time, from time to time. The Home Office sets out its own methods for judging that in supplementary document A. It's ten pages and takes about twenty minutes.

So a pub that does sixty on an ordinary evening may still be in scope if it fills up for a cup final, a wedding reception, a beer festival or New Year's Eve. A village hall that's empty most of the week is in scope if it takes 250 for a Christmas fair. For each site, ask what it held on its busiest night last year and whether that's likely to happen again.

Per site, not per estate

The threshold applies to each premises separately. It isn't added up across an estate, a brand or a company. If you run forty pubs and nine of them cross 200, you have nine premises in scope and no obligation on the other thirty-one.

For a large operator that's a lot less work. It also means someone has to go through site by site and make a call on each one. You can't do that from head office with a spreadsheet of floor areas.

Where the boundaries get awkward

These are judgement calls. The Home Office has published twenty-five pages of worked examples in supplementary document B. If one of your sites is borderline, there's probably an example in there that matches it.

Situation	How to think about it
A concession inside a larger venue	The host venue usually controls the wider premises, and it's the wider premises that carry the capacity.
A hotel with function rooms	Count the whole premises on an occasion when the function room is full, not just the function room.
An outdoor area or garden	If it's part of the premises you control and people are in it, they count.
A site that only crosses 200 once a year	Once a year is still "from time to time". It's in scope.
A site right on 200	Treat it as in scope. Standard tier compliance costs far less than getting it wrong.

Then check it's actually yours

Being in scope and holding the duty are two separate things. A premises can be clearly in scope while the responsible person is someone else entirely. That's normal for a pub company's tenanted estate. Sort that out before anyone starts writing procedures. Who holds the duty.