General access and utility staircase regulations

Most staircase advice assumes a "private" stair, the everyday stair inside a home. But Approved Document K sets three categories, and the other two, general access and utility, are held to stricter, shallower rules. Get the category wrong and the stair is not merely a tight fit; it is non-compliant and will not pass. This is the trap that catches self-builders and small commercial projects.

Which category applies

A private stair serves a single dwelling. A general access stair is one used by the public or by people who are not familiar with it, such as the stair in a block of flats, an office or a shop; it has to be gentler, hence the shallower 170mm rise and the deeper 250mm going, and a flight is limited to 12 risers, or up to 16 in small premises where the plan area is restricted. A utility stair is for occasional access, for example to a plant room or a store; it may be a little steeper than general access (up to 190mm rise) but still needs the 250mm going and is limited to 16 risers. A stair serving more than one category has to meet the more demanding one.

Worth knowing, because a lot of sites print a figure here that does not exist: Approved Document K sets no maximum pitch for a general access or utility stair. The only pitch in the document is the 42 degrees in note 1 to Table 1.1, and that applies to private stairs alone. The rise and going do the work instead. A general access stair at its steepest permitted combination, a 170mm rise on a 250mm going, comes out at 34.2 degrees, and a utility stair at 190mm on 250mm comes out at 37.2 degrees. Both are already gentler than a private stair without any pitch rule being needed.

These three are England's categories. Wales sorts stairs into private, institutional and assembly, and other stair instead, so the labels on this page do not travel across the border. See staircase building regulations in Wales.