How Long Is the BSR Taking? The Real Numbers

Ask how long the Building Safety Regulator takes and you will hear horror stories, most of them from 2025. The better answer is that the regulator publishes its own application data, and the picture it shows is changing fast. Every figure below comes from the BSR's published dataset for June to August 2026, all data as of 31 August 2026. We will keep this page current as new releases land.

Twelve months ago, when the regulator set up its dedicated unit for new-build applications, the median approval time for a new higher-risk building stood at 43 weeks with an approval rate of 39 percent. In the latest 12-week window the median is 22 weeks and the approval rate is 92 percent, with complex cases tracked separately at a median of 33 weeks. External remediation applications tell the same story: approval times down from 43 weeks to 33, approval rates up from 47 percent to 89. The system that produced the 2025 anecdotes is measurably not the system taking applications today.

The least reported number is the most relevant one for anyone refurbishing flats or common parts in an existing block. Internal works make up around 43 percent of all Gateway 2 decisions, with roughly 38 new applications arriving every week and over a thousand in progress. The median approval time reads 32 weeks, but that figure is weighed down by older cases still being cleared: applications submitted in 2026 are being approved at a median of 16 weeks. The sharper number is the approval rate: 78 percent, which means more than a fifth of internal works applications are rejected, and a rejection lands at a median of 24 weeks. Submit a weak application and the penalty is not a fast no, it is a slow no followed by starting again.

Once construction is under way, the clock that matters is the one on change requests. There are currently 184 live major change requests across the regime. For new-build projects the median time to close one is 7 weeks, one week over the statutory target of six; internal works changes close at a median of 9 weeks. Timely change decisions are what keep sites moving, and the regulator itself describes their processing as essential for work to continue, which is exactly why disciplined teams classify and submit changes the day they arise.

At the completion end, 16 Gateway 3 applications were determined in the latest 12 weeks, with an 88 percent approval rate, a median determination of 20 weeks and the quickest at 7. Two details in the data deserve more attention than they get. First, of the 346 Gateway 3 applications received to date, 260 are internal refurbishments: the regime's completion traffic is overwhelmingly refurbishment work, not towers. Second, no new-build project approved through Gateway 2 has yet reached Gateway 3, so every new building will still make this journey with the regulator learning alongside it.

Gateway 2 applications in progress climbed past 1,650 in August, up more than a hundred in a month, and the regulator attributes the rise to developers moving before the Building Safety Levy takes effect on 1 October 2026. It says a mitigation plan is in place, and it has been adding assessment capacity for months. The practical read: if your application is close to ready, the queue is more crowded every week you wait, and the premium on a complete, first-time-right submission is rising with it.

The spread in these numbers is not luck, it is application quality. The same regulator that approves clean 2026 internal works applications at a 16-week median rejects a fifth of that category, at a median cost of 24 wasted weeks each. The difference is whether the design was finished, evidenced and consistent before submission. That is a controllable variable, and it is controlled by the team you choose. MVV prepares applications with the people who will build the work, alongside fire and structural engineering partners, precisely because the fastest route through this regime is one complete story told once.