Landlords must hit EPC C by 2030, and windows are part of the answer

What the new rule actually says

Under the government's Warm Homes Plan, published in January 2026, the minimum EPC rating for privately rented homes in England and Wales rises from E to C. The standard applies to all tenancies from 1 October 2030. That is now a single deadline. An earlier proposal that would have split the date, 2028 for new tenancies and 2030 for existing ones, has been dropped in favour of one clear cut-off.

This raises a floor that already exists. The current minimum is EPC E, and letting out an F or G rated home is unlawful today unless it holds a valid exemption. So the change is not new regulation from a standing start, it is a tightening of standards landlords already work within. It also lands alongside the overhaul of how EPCs are calculated, which replaces the single cost metric with four headline metrics, one of which is fabric performance in its own right. Both flow from the same Warm Homes Plan announcement, and a parallel EPC C deadline for social housing follows the same logic on the other side of the tenure line.

It is a dual-metric standard, and fabric comes first

This is the part most coverage skates over, and it is the part that decides where the money goes. The government response describes the new standard as "a dual-metric standard as proposed in the consultation, with a fabric performance standard first followed by landlord discretion to meet either a heating system standard or a smart readiness standard".

Read that carefully. There are two things to satisfy, not one, and the discretion applies only to the second. A landlord chooses freely between the heating system standard and the smart readiness standard, picking whichever is cheaper or easier for that property. Nobody chooses whether to meet the fabric standard. It is mandatory and it is not substitutable.

The practical consequence is blunt. You cannot buy your way out of the fabric standard with a heat pump. A landlord who spends the entire £10,000 on a new heating system has paid for the optional half of the standard and still has the compulsory half in front of them. Insulation, draught-proofing and glazing are the unavoidable first spend, which is why our guide to double glazing for landlords starts with the fabric of the building rather than the boiler cupboard.

The £10,000 cost cap

Landlords are not asked to spend without limit. Government confirmed "raising the cost-cap to £10,000 with a 10-year validity period for exemptions", up from earlier proposals and down from a floated £15,000. There is a further protection for lower value properties, now formalised as a named exemption rather than a rule of thumb: the cap is reduced where £10,000 would represent 10% or more of the home's value. In practice that means the amount you can be required to invest scales with the property, rather than landing the same bill on every home regardless of what it is worth.

Where grant funding is available, it can offset part of that spend, so it is worth checking the current routes in our double glazing grants guide before you commit to paying out of pocket, because those routes shift with each round of double glazing news and policy updates.

The penalty is confirmed at £30,000

The enforcement side has now been settled. Government's stated position is that "the proposed £30,000 fine is the maximum amount per property per breach, with each breach enabling more proportionate fines relative to the extent of non-compliance", and it concludes that "government's decision is that the maximum fine level for future increased PRSMEES is set at £30,000 per property, per breach of the regulations".

Two things follow. First, the reasoning is deliberate: government says a maximum fine similar or closer to the cost cap would risk incentivising non-compliance, so the ceiling sits at three times the £10,000 you might be asked to spend. Paying the fine is meant to be the worse deal. Second, and this matters for anyone reading a scare headline, it is a confirmed decision rather than a live penalty. The regulations implementing the increased standard have not yet been made, so £30,000 is what the maximum will be, not what a council can issue today.

The exemptions, and the one that points money at windows

Three new exemptions have been identified, and they are more interesting than the usual boilerplate because of what they leave in place rather than what they take away.

Solid wall insulation: you can decline it, but not the standard

Government "has identified the need to introduce a new 'Solid wall insulation (SWI)' exemption", which lets a landlord register an exemption where the property remains below the fabric standard without SWI and it is the landlord's preference not to install it. The stated reason is twofold: "there is significant risk of damp and mould if SWI is not installed to the correct standard and potentially more cost-effective improvements could be made to the property under the secondary standard and within the cost cap".

That second clause is the sleeper story here. Declining solid wall insulation does not remove the fabric standard. The landlord still has to reach it, still within the same £10,000 cap, using other measures. For a solid-wall Victorian terrace the shortlist of remaining fabric measures is short: glazing, draught-proofing, loft insulation and floor insulation. Government has effectively signposted a route that pushes spending towards exactly those measures, and windows are the biggest single item on that list. If you want to size the fabric gain on a specific property, our energy savings calculator models it.

Negative impacts: heritage protection is being strengthened

A good deal of secondary coverage claims the heritage exemption is being removed. The primary text says the opposite. Government "has identified the need to introduce a 'Negative impacts' exemption to ensure necessary flexibility for the range property types within the PRS including older traditionally constructed properties and those of heritage significance", and adds that it "is also committed to ensuring appropriate exemptions are in place to protect older, historic and heritage buildings".

So if you let a period property, the direction of travel is towards more protection, not less. That does not mean nothing is expected of you, and it does not change what a conservation officer will say about your window frames, which is a separate consent question covered in our guide to conservation area window rules.

Property value adjustment: homes under £100,000

Government "will introduce a 'Property value adjustment' exemption for landlords of properties with a value of less than £100,000". This is the formal home of the 10% rule described above. Below that threshold the required spend is £10,000 or 10% of the property's value, whichever is lower, which keeps the standard proportionate in the parts of the country where £10,000 is a meaningful share of what the house is worth.

An EPC C obtained before October 2029 still counts

There is a transitional provision worth planning around. Government will "allow for properties with a current EPC C to be recognised as compliant under the future standard until the EPC expires", and specifies that this "includes private rented homes graded C or above against the Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) on EPCs before 1 October 2029".

In plain terms: an EPC C achieved under today's methodology, on a certificate issued before 1 October 2029, keeps the property compliant until that certificate expires. Getting assessed early therefore has real value, particularly for a home sitting just below C where a round of glazing and draught-proofing would tip it over. Leaving the assessment until 2030 means being measured against whatever the reformed regime looks like by then.

Where double glazing fits

Windows are one of the more visible ways landlords plan to close the gap. In a Simply Business survey, 20% of landlords said improving windows, by installing double or triple glazing, was a step they would take to reach EPC C. Loft insulation, at 23%, and draught-proofing, at 15%, were the other leading fabric measures named. Glazing therefore sits in the same tier of practical, fabric-first upgrades that landlords are already weighing up, and it now sits on the mandatory side of the dual-metric line rather than the discretionary one.

There is a tenant-side argument too. A tenant in an average EPC C home pays roughly £499 a year less in energy bills than one in an EPC D home, on Hamptons and MHCLG data. A warmer, cheaper-to-run property is easier to let and easier to keep let.

The landlords who do well treat EPC C as a deadline to plan towards, not a panic in 2029. Get the survey done early, do the cheap wins like draught-proofing first, then put the glazing budget where the worst windows are. And do not let anyone sell you a heat pump as the answer to the fabric standard, because it is not one. Spread over four years, £10,000 is very workable.

Double Glazing Cost Calculator Team

Who this applies to, and who it does not

These Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards apply to England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate regimes, so a landlord with property across the border should not assume one set of dates covers everything, and we track each nation's timetable in our double glazing news and policy updates. Government has also confirmed that "short-term lets will not be included within the scope of PRSMEES regulations, with more engagement required before any further consideration", so holiday and short-let stock is outside this deadline for now. It remains a rental-sector rule in any case: owner-occupiers are not required to reach EPC C, although the same window upgrades cut their bills just as effectively.

Price-checkedLast reviewed 15 August 2026

Reviewed byDouble Glazing Cost Calculator TeamCross-checked against Checkatrade, the FMB & GreenMatch