How many EV chargepoints does a commercial building legally need?

Where a new non-residential building has more than 10 parking spaces, paragraph S4 of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 requires one chargepoint, plus cable routes in at least one fifth of the remaining spaces. The same applies under paragraph S5 to a non-residential building after major renovation.

Does the requirement apply if we are only refurbishing?

It can. Paragraph S5 applies to a building undergoing major renovation, which Approved Document S defines as renovation of more than 25% of the surface area of the building envelope. Work that never touches the car park can still bring it into scope.

How much is the Workplace Charging Scheme worth?

Up to 75% of purchase and installation cost, capped at £500 per socket, for a maximum of 40 sockets across all sites per applicant. The scheme is published as open until 31 March 2027.

Can a landlord claim for a commercial car park?

Landlords and property management companies have a separate scheme worth up to £500 per socket for up to 200 sockets, which is five times the socket cap of the workplace scheme.

What does a commercial EV charger installation cost?

No official source publishes a figure and this page does not invent one. The variables that decide it are the spare capacity at the incoming supply, the trenching distance from board to parking bay, whether the parking is covered, and whether load management avoids a supply upgrade.

Guide

Commercial EV charger installation: rules, grants and cost drivers

Updated 2026-08-14

A commercial installation is not a home installation with more sockets. The building regulations bite at a specific number of parking spaces, the grant rates are different from the domestic ones, and the largest single cost is usually invisible until the network operator answers.

The threshold is 10 parking spaces, and it is written in the regulations

Part S of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 sets the requirement directly. Paragraph S4 covers a new building that is not residential and not mixed use: where it "has more than 10 parking spaces", then "one of those parking spaces must have access to one electric vehicle charge point" and "cable routes for electric vehicle charge points must be installed in a minimum of one fifth of the total number of remaining parking spaces" (legislation.gov.uk).

Paragraph S5 applies the same two requirements to a non-residential building undergoing major renovation, measured on the spaces it "will have more than 10 parking spaces after the major renovation is completed". A major renovation is defined in Approved Document S as renovation where more than 25% of the surface area of the building envelope is renovated, so a re-cladding or a re-roofing can pull a car park into scope even though nobody set out to touch it.

Read the two requirements together. One working chargepoint plus passive cable routes to a fifth of what is left is the floor, not the target. A 40-space commercial car park needs one chargepoint and cable routes to at least seven further spaces.

What the regulations do not do

They do not set a power rating. Part S requires a chargepoint, not a fast one. The commercial decision about 7kW, 22kW or DC sits outside the regulation entirely.
They do not apply below the threshold. Ten spaces or fewer and paragraphs S4 and S5 say nothing, whatever the building is used for.
They carry cost and capacity escapes. Regulation 44G and its neighbours qualify the duty where the connection cost or the available electrical supply make it impracticable, which is why the network operator's answer arrives before the design is settled.

The grants a business can claim

Three separate schemes cover non-domestic installations, and they differ by who owns the parking rather than by what is installed. All three are published as open until 31 March 2027.

Workplace Charging Scheme: Up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost, capped at £500 per socket, for a maximum of 40 sockets across all sites per applicant. Open to businesses, charities, public sector organisations and small accommodation businesses. The parking must be off-street and for staff or fleet, not customers (find-government-grants.service.gov.uk).
Chargepoint and infrastructure grants for landlords: Up to £500 per socket, for a maximum of 200 sockets, for landlords and property management companies (find-government-grants.service.gov.uk).
Workplace Charging Scheme for state-funded education institutions: Up to £2,000 per chargepoint socket, for a maximum of 40 sockets. The highest per-socket rate of the three, and restricted to state-funded education (gov.uk).

The workplace scheme counts against a subsidy allowance: applicants must have received less than £315,000 in minimal financial assistance over the past three fiscal years. A business that has taken other public support should check that ceiling before budgeting the grant in.

What moves the installed cost

We publish no price range for a commercial installation, because no official source publishes one and the honest answer is that the spread between two sites with identical socket counts is larger than any average would survive. What follows is what the quotes actually differ on.

The available supply at the board. If the existing incoming capacity covers the load, the job is cabling and commissioning. If it does not, the price is set by the distribution network operator, not the installer.
The distance from board to bay. Trenching and reinstatement across a surfaced car park is frequently the largest line on a commercial quote, and it scales with metres rather than with sockets.
Covered or open parking. Regulation 44G treats covered car parks separately, and a covered structure changes both the containment and the ventilation and fire considerations.
Load management. Sharing a supply across sockets dynamically is cheaper than reinforcing the supply, and it is a specification decision that has to be made before the DNO application, not after.
Back office and payment. A workplace charger for staff and a public-facing charger taking card payments are different products with different ongoing costs.

Where the published figures stop

Everything numbered on this page comes from primary sources: the parking thresholds and the one-fifth cable route rule from Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010, the grant rates and socket caps from the schemes' own listings, and the subsidy ceiling from the workplace scheme's eligibility conditions. There is no published official figure for what a commercial installation costs, so this page does not carry one. A cost driver you can check against your own site is more use than an average you cannot.