The Working Upholsterer’s Bible · Tools
The Furniture & Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations, turned into four plain questions. What your job needs on covers, fillings, interliners and records — and a printable compliance record for your files.
Regulations under reform — last reviewed 5 July 2026
This tool describes the law as it stands: the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, as amended in 1989, 1993, 2010 and 2025. A government consultation on a wider new regime (including a smoulder-based test) closed on 23 June 2026; the response and transition timetable are expected later in 2026. Until new regulations take effect, the 1988 Regulations as amended remain the law. We update this page as the position changes.
Answer the four questions and the checker sets out, in plain English, what the regulations require of that job — and where the recognised grey areas are. It is guidance from a working upholsterer’s point of view, not legal advice: the authoritative sources are linked under every result.
For re-upholstery jobs: fill this in, print it, staple one copy to the job sheet and give one to the customer. It is a record of the materials you supplied — the thing Trading Standards, your insurer, and future-you will all want to see. (It is not a statutory label; new furniture’s permanent label is a separate requirement for first suppliers.)
Stripped to the bones, the current Regulations contain five working obligations. Fillings — every filling material (foam, wadding, fibre) supplied in furniture or re-upholstery must meet the specified ignition requirements; in practice this means buying CMHR / combustion-modified foam and compliant waddings from a supplier who can certify them. Covers — cover fabric must resist the match test, with the main alternative route being a cover of at least 75% natural fibre fitted over a compliant fire-resistant interliner. Cigarette resistance — the upholstery composite must resist a smouldering cigarette. Labelling — new furniture placed on the market carries a permanent label (mattresses and bed bases excepted); since October 2025 a display label is no longer required. Records — the first supplier of new furniture keeps compliance records for five years; for re-upholstery, keeping equivalent records is the recognised good practice this page’s record card exists for.
Customer-supplied fabric of unknown compliance is the trade’s permanent headache. The Regulations attach to what you supply in the course of business; a fabric the customer hands you was not supplied by you — but the finished, filled article leaves your workshop under your name. The recognised safe practice, and what we do at the bench: fit a compliant FR interliner beneath the customer’s fabric, tell them in writing what you’ve done and why, and keep the record. Some workshops simply decline unknown fabric; that is also a defensible policy. What is not defensible is fitting it silently and hoping. The reform now in progress is expected to clarify exactly this area — one reason this page carries a review date.
Always keep the supplier’s compliance certificate for anything you fit — the link is only compliant if the paperwork says so.