On 1 August 2025, BSI published BS 9792:2025, Fire risk assessment. Housing. Code of practice — the standard that now sets the recommended methodology for fire risk assessments across houses in multiple occupation, blocks of flats and maisonettes, specialised housing and student accommodation. It replaces PAS 79-2:2020, the code of practice that had covered this ground since December 2020 and that BSI had already pulled from sale in March 2021, pending exactly this rewrite.
For a responsible person with a housing FRA due for renewal, the standard's own history matters less than a narrower, practical question: is the assessment on file, or the one about to be commissioned, actually written to BS 9792 — or is it still working from a template built around the withdrawn PAS?
Why PAS 79-2 was pulled, not just updated
BSI suspended PAS 79-2:2020 from sale in March 2021, only months after publication. Its steering group had reviewed the code of practice against new evidence on personal emergency evacuation plans emerging from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and the government's response, and concluded that an amendment wasn't enough — the housing methodology needed a full rewrite, developed as a formal British Standard through BSI's consensus-based process rather than reissued as a PAS. That rewrite took four years.
BSI describes BS 9792:2025 as a full revision and formal conversion of PAS 79-2:2020, not a straightforward reissue. Two changes matter for how an assessment actually reads: a new pro forma for recording and communicating findings, with commentary streamlined for assessors and for the non-specialists who have to act on the report; and updated guidance on the evacuation needs of residents, including those with disabilities — the gap that triggered the 2021 suspension in the first place.
The gap wasn't left empty in the meantime. BSI kept a version of PAS 79-2:2020 available through the four-year rewrite, but with the sections on vulnerable persons redacted pending the fuller treatment now built into BS 9792. An assessment written entirely from that interim document would have been silent, by design, on exactly the residents most likely to need extra time or extra help to get out.
What the standard covers, and what it doesn't
BS 9792:2025 applies to HMOs, blocks of flats and maisonettes (purpose-built and converted), specialised housing such as supported or sheltered accommodation, student accommodation, and the common and access areas of mixed-use residential buildings. It doesn't apply to single-household private dwellings, short-term lets, care homes or non-domestic premises — those sit outside its scope by design.
Premises other than housing are unaffected by any of this. PAS 79-1:2020, published in December 2020 as the non-housing half of the original PAS 79 split, remains current, and nothing about the housing rewrite changes it. Where a portfolio mixes uses, a block of flats over a row of shops is the obvious case, the two documents run side by side: the residential parts assessed under BS 9792, the commercial parts and the ground-floor units under PAS 79-1, each to the methodology built for it. Getting that split wrong, applying one methodology across a building that actually needs both, is a more common source of a weak assessment than either standard being followed poorly on its own.
The legal duty hasn't moved
None of this changes what the law requires. Article 9 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to relevant persons, identify the general fire precautions needed, and keep that assessment under review. BS 9792, like PAS 79-1 for non-housing premises, is the recognised methodology for demonstrating that duty has been met — it isn't itself the law, and an assessment produced under the old PAS didn't become unlawful the day BS 9792 was published.
What has moved is the benchmark a regulator, insurer or court will expect a current assessment to be measured against, particularly on the point that prompted the rewrite. An assessment that reasons about the evacuation of residents with disabilities using guidance BSI itself judged inadequate enough to withdraw from sale is a weaker position to defend than one that doesn't.
What this means for the next assessment
The practical response is straightforward. Any housing FRA commissioned now should be written to BS 9792:2025, not PAS 79-2 — an assessor still working to the withdrawn document is a fair question to raise before instructing them. The familiar Type 1 to Type 4 structure, from a non-destructive review of common parts through to opening up inside both flats and communal areas, carries over: the type of assessment a building needs hasn't changed, only the document it's written against.
For an assessment already on file, the trigger isn't the standard's publication date on its own. RRFSO reviews fall due when circumstances change materially or at the interval the last assessment set, not automatically at the next standard release. But where the last housing FRA predates August 2025 and a review is coming up regardless, it's worth asking the assessor directly whether the evacuation planning for vulnerable residents was reasoned under the superseded guidance or the current one — that is the specific gap BS 9792 was written to close.
A reasonable check before instructing anyone: ask the assessor to name the standard on the proposal, not just "PAS 79" as a catch-all, and to confirm in writing which of BS 9792:2025 or PAS 79-1:2020 applies to the building being assessed. For mixed-use buildings, both should appear. Apex's fire risk assessment service assesses housing under BS 9792:2025 and other premises under PAS 79-1:2020, agreeing the assessment type and the reasoning behind it before the work starts.
Common questions
Does my existing housing FRA need to be redone now that BS 9792:2025 has replaced PAS 79-2?
Not automatically. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires a fire risk assessment to be reviewed when the premises or circumstances change materially, or at the interval the assessment itself set — not on the day a new standard publishes. An assessment that remains suitable and sufficient doesn't need reopening purely because its methodology reference has changed. The practical trigger is the next scheduled review: commission that one to BS 9792:2025, and ask the assessor whether the vulnerable-resident evacuation guidance they worked to was current.
Which buildings does BS 9792:2025 apply to?
Houses in multiple occupation, blocks of flats and maisonettes (purpose-built and converted), specialised housing such as supported or sheltered accommodation, student accommodation, and the common and access areas of mixed-use residential buildings. It excludes single-household private dwellings, short-term lets, care homes and non-domestic premises.
Has PAS 79-1 been withdrawn as well?
No. PAS 79-1:2020 covers premises other than housing and remains current, unaffected by the housing-specific rewrite. Only the housing half of the original PAS 79 split, PAS 79-2:2020, has been superseded, by BS 9792:2025. Where a building mixes residential and commercial use, both documents apply, each to its own part of the building.