NSW Fire Safety Reforms: Your 2026–2027 Readiness Roadmap

Why NSW is lifting fire safety compliance

NSW has been rolling out staged reforms to building fire safety regulation to make buildings safer and improve compliance across design, certification and ongoing maintenance. The changes affect building owners, developers, fire safety practitioners, certifiers/councils and building practitioners—so it’s a whole-of-industry uplift, not a niche tweak.

The intent is practical: bring Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) further into the review of performance-based (non-standard) fire safety designs, strengthen checks before buildings are occupied, standardise key documentation, and make routine maintenance requirements clearer and more consistent.

What’s already in effect (2023–2025)

While the spotlight is on what’s coming next, a few foundational pieces are already live—and they set the tone for the 2026/2027 steps.

From 13 February 2023

• Councils/certifiers can re-issue fire safety schedules at an owner’s request to correct minor errors/omissions or replace missing schedules.
• Building practitioners issuing a building compliance declaration (under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020) must lodge a copy of the fire safety certificate with that declaration—building owners need to provide the certificate to support this.

From 1 August 2023

• FRNSW consultation and referral requirements expanded for performance-based fire safety matters, including certifier referrals for Class 2–9 buildings at construction certificate and occupation certificate stages.
• Fire Safety Schedules (FSS) must be issued using the NSW Government’s standard template for Class 1b–9 buildings.

The big change in 2026: AS 1851-2012 becomes mandatory

The next major milestone is 13 February 2026, when AS 1851-2012 becomes mandatory under NSW requirements for essential fire safety measures in Class 1b and Class 2–9 buildings. In simple terms, essential measures must be inspected and tested in accordance with AS 1851-2012 from that date.

The NSW Government also flags that building owners must maintain essential fire safety measures (except single dwellings) in line with AS 1851-2012 procedures where the maintenance activity is addressed by the standard—and importantly, this commencement was deferred from 13 February 2025 to 13 February 2026 following an amendment to the regulation.

Just as importantly: the responsibility sits with the building owner to ensure their building meets the standard, and contractors engaged to perform inspection/maintenance work need to understand the standard and hold appropriate licences and qualifications.

The next step in 2027: accredited certification for newly installed measures

From 13 February 2027 (or 18 months after an accreditation scheme is approved, whichever occurs first), NSW introduces a further uplift focused on new installations:

• Building owners must use accredited person(s) to certify newly installed fire safety measures before issuing a fire safety certificate, and include relevant accredited-person details in the certificate.
• The people certifying newly installed measures before a fire safety certificate is issued must be accredited.

Like the 2026 changes, this requirement was also deferred from an earlier 2025 commencement date.

What this means for projects, portfolios and teams

For owners, developers and delivery teams, the 2026 and 2027 milestones are an opportunity to tighten systems—not just to “tick the box,” but to reduce risk, avoid defects, and protect occupants and assets.

A few practical ways many organisations are preparing:

• Audit your current fire safety maintenance program against AS 1851-2012 now (before February 2026), so any scope or frequency gaps can be addressed early.
• Pressure-test your documentation process: confirm you’re using the correct FSS template version and that re-issues/corrections are managed cleanly.
• Plan ahead for 2027 handovers: if your projects will complete around 2027, build accredited certification steps into your commissioning, certification and occupancy timelines from day one.

A positive shift for the whole industry

These reforms are ultimately about lifting confidence—confidence that essential fire safety measures are properly documented, properly maintained, and properly verified when new systems are installed. With clear dates on the horizon (13 February 2026 and 13 February 2027), the businesses that will thrive are the ones that start preparing early, invest in capability, and treat compliance as a quality advantage—not a last-minute scramble.