Fire NOC Requirements in India: Planning a New or Renovated Building

Updated 6 Oct 2026 · 10 min read · by Secured Engineers Editorial Team

An engineer in a hard hat and reflective vest studies a drawing in a fire pump room with a red electric fire pump, a jockey pump, a pressure vessel, gauges, valves and a pump controller panel on plinths.

Which state is your factory in? The authority, the online portal, the fee and the validity all differ by state — the state guides carry the official route for each: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The engineering common to all of them is on the complete Fire NOC guide.

Short answer: India has no single national fire NOC rule. NBC 2016 (BIS) is the technical model for fire and life safety, but whether your building needs a fire approval, at which stages and under what name — Fire NOC, fire safety recommendations, fire-fighting scheme approval, Fire Safety Certificate — is decided by your state's fire law and rules and the bye-laws your plan-sanctioning authority enforces. Plan the file around that authority, the building data it classifies you on, and the documents and inspections it asks for. A renovation, extension or change of use can reopen an approval you already hold.

State and authority scope: who decides for your building

BIS describes NBC 2016 as a model code "for adoption by all agencies involved in building construction works". It binds a project through the state's fire law, the bye-laws and the sanctioning authority. The four North Indian jurisdictions below answer the same question differently. Each row is read from the published text named in it; check for later amendments, rules and notifications before relying on any of it.

Jurisdiction and law	Stages the law describes	What an alteration does	Keeping it valid
Punjab — Punjab Fire and Emergency Service Act, 2024 (Punjab Act No. 12 of 2024)	Provisional Fire Safety Certificate before building-plan approval; Final Fire Safety Certificate before the completion certificate, for buildings in the low, medium or high risk categories the Government notifies (sections 22–23)	Periodic returns must state the building complies "as per the approved building plan" (section 23(5)), so a departure from that plan goes to the fire authority first	Validity is as prescribed, "ordinarily" not less than three years unless a risk category is prescribed otherwise (section 23(4)); periodic returns (section 23(5))
Haryana — Haryana Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022 (Haryana Act No. 14 of 2022)	Fire-fighting scheme approval after building-plan approval for the buildings listed in section 18(2); fire safety certificate after completion and inspection (section 19)	An addition or alteration beyond the limits permitted under the Haryana Building Code, 2017 ends the certificate, and a revised fire-fighting scheme must be approved (section 19(6))	Validity periods in section 19(4), renewal under section 20, and an annual self-declaration that the system works and nothing has been altered (section 19(6))
Uttar Pradesh — Uttar Pradesh Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022 (U.P. Act No. 16 of 2022), with the rules made under it	Fire Safety Certificate for the building classes in section 26(3), supported by a compliance certificate from a qualified agency (section 26(5)); the Act commences area by area on notified dates (section 1(3))	No one may alter or remove installed fire and life-safety equipment (section 27(4)) — a renovation that touches it needs the Fire Officer's position before work starts	A maintenance certificate twice a year, in January and July (section 26(5))
Delhi — Delhi Fire Service Act, 2007 and Rules, 2010, as amended by the Delhi Fire Service (Amendment) Rules, 2025 (Delhi Gazette, 26 May 2026)	Fire safety recommendations with the building plans, then a Fire Safety Certificate before occupancy, for the classes in rule 27; certificates are now issued by an empanelled Fire Safety Auditor (rule 35, in force 90 days after notification)	Delhi Fire Service states that plan-stage recommendations stay valid only until there is an addition, alteration or revision of the approved plan	The certificate stays valid subject to an online Form K declaration every year (rule 36) — which states that no additions or alterations affecting fire safety have been made

Identify the authority before anything is drawn: in Delhi, for example, building plans normally reach the fire service through the sanctioning body (a municipal corporation, DDA or NDMC). Fire is also only one of several clearances; the National Single Window System's Know Your Approvals questionnaire lists central and state approvals for a business — confirm each one it returns on the issuing authority's own site. Our state guides for factory fire NOCs also cover Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Building data and approved use: what the authority classifies

Every fire authority classifies the building before it decides anything else. NBC 2016 Part 4 groups buildings by occupancy — residential, educational, institutional, assembly, business, mercantile, industrial, storage and hazardous — and splits industrial buildings into low, moderate and high hazard (subdivisions G-1, G-2 and G-3). State laws then draw their lines with height, storeys, floor area and use. Collect the following before you ask anyone whether the building is covered.

Item	What to collect	Why the authority needs it
Jurisdiction	State, city, sanctioning body (municipal, development or industrial-estate authority) and the fire office for the area	Decides which Act, which list of covered buildings and which forms apply
Approved use	Use as sanctioned in the building plan, use today, and use after the project	Classification follows use, and a gap between sanctioned and actual use invites a query
Height and storeys	Height as your bye-laws define it; storeys counted with mezzanines, stilts and basements	Lists differ on what counts: Delhi's rule 27, for example, counts mezzanine and stilt floors as storeys
Floor areas	Area of each floor and total covered area, basements separately	Some lists use floor area on any one floor, others total covered area
Contents and process	What is stored or processed, flammable quantities, storage heights	Sets the NBC hazard class and therefore the systems the scheme must show
Existing approvals	Every fire NOC or certificate, its conditions, the approved fire drawings, renewals, returns or declarations filed	An existing approval is the baseline every change is measured against
Installed systems	Hydrants, sprinklers, detection, pumps and storage as built, with test records	Inspection compares what is installed with what was approved
Access	Fire-tender access, setbacks, width of the road the building abuts	Checked at plan stage against the bye-laws, and hard to change later
Proposed change	Layout, use, area, mezzanines, racking, new shafts or ducts, occupant numbers	Decides whether the existing approval still describes the building

Document and inspection sequence

Confirm the authority and the instrument. The state Act, its current rules and amendments, the bye-laws, and the portal or office that takes the application.
Plan-stage submission. The fire scheme goes in with the building plans: layout drawings and the calculations behind them. Delhi Fire Service's own guidance, for instance, lists smoke-ventilation plans with calculations and sprinkler plans with hydraulic calculations, prepared to NBC Part 4 and the Unified Building Bye-Laws. Expect queries, and answer them on the drawing rather than in correspondence.
Install to the approved scheme. Any change on site goes back to the scheme before it is built, not after. A deviation found at inspection is a design change made in the wrong order.
Completion inspection. The installed systems and means of escape are inspected against the approved scheme — by the fire officer, or in Delhi now by an empanelled Fire Safety Auditor whose certificates the fire service samples (not less than five per cent a quarter, rule 35(5)).
Certificate, then upkeep. The obligations after issue are where files lapse: periodic returns in Punjab, an annual self-declaration in Haryana, twice-yearly maintenance certificates in Uttar Pradesh, a yearly Form K in Delhi.

Documents that recur across states: the sanctioned building plan, fire scheme drawings and calculations, an occupancy and hazard statement, an area statement matching the sanctioned plan, ownership or occupancy proof, equipment test records, qualified-agency certificates where the state requires them, and any earlier NOC with its conditions. The fire NOC checker on this site helps assemble the particulars; it does not decide applicability.

Renovation, expansion and change of use

An approval describes a building at a point in time. When the building changes, the question is not "do we still have a NOC?" but "does the approved scheme still describe this building?" The table sets out the usual changes; the decision on each is the authority's.

Change	Why it can matter	What to prepare for the authority
Change of use (warehouse to manufacturing, office to assembly)	Occupancy group or hazard class changes, and with it the systems required	Revised fire scheme for the new use, with the sanctioned-use change
Added floor area, floor or mezzanine	Area and storey thresholds are how state lists draw their lines	Revised scheme with an updated area statement
Higher storage or new racking	The design basis for sprinklers and water supply can change with storage height and arrangement	Storage layout and heights, and the revised design basis
New partitions, shafts, ceilings or ducts through rated walls	Compartmentation and escape routes in the approved scheme are altered	Marked-up layout and a record of how each penetration was sealed
Fire-system changes (moving hydrants, new pumps, re-zoned detection)	The fire system is the approved scheme	Revised scheme drawings and calculations
Fit-out with no change to layout, use or fire systems	May need no revised scheme, but the yearly declarations state that the building has not been altered (Haryana) or not altered in a way that affects fire safety (Delhi)	The authority's position in writing before work starts

The expansion case in more depth — including when a change of use alone triggers a fresh application — is in does expansion or change of use affect the fire NOC. The sealing record is covered in firestopping and fire doors after renovation.

Authority decision and unresolved applicability

The fire authority decides; the owner, the architect and the contractor only prepare the case. The Acts say so directly. Haryana's lets the approving officer impose additional fire safety conditions "depending upon the ground situation" when approving a scheme or a certificate (sections 18(3) and 19(5)), and lets the Director require National Fire Protection Association (USA) parameters where NBC Part 4 and BIS guidance are silent on an occupancy (section 18(5) and (7)). No consultant — ourselves included — can promise an approval, a date or a waiver.

Applicability can be genuinely open: a mixed-use building with one occupancy near a line, an older building that predates the current Act, a mezzanine that may or may not count as a storey, an occupancy the list does not name. Put the question to the authority in writing with the particulars and drawings attached, and keep its reply with the file. A written answer from the authority is evidence; anyone else's opinion, or an online checker's output, is not.

How Secured Engineers works on a fire NOC file

Our fire NOC assistance covers fire scheme design, drawings and calculations, documentation, liaison with the fire authority and rectification of shortfalls raised at inspection; the systems themselves are delivered under fire-fighting systems. We do not issue certificates. In Delhi the amended rules bar a Fire Safety Auditor from certifying a building for which the auditor's firm provided design, consultancy, installation or maintenance (rule 35(7)), so the certificate there comes from an independent empanelled auditor. To have a file reviewed, send the documents listed in the FAQs below through the scope review form; more planning guides are in Insights.

Sources and how to verify

National Building Code of India 2016 and the BIS guide to using NBC 2016 — Bureau of Indian Standards; Part 4, Fire and Life Safety (occupancy groups, hazard subdivisions).
National Single Window System — Know Your Approvals — Government of India; a discovery tool, to be confirmed against each issuing authority.
Punjab Fire and Emergency Service Act, 2024 (Punjab Act No. 12 of 2024; notification dated 27 October 2024) — sections 22 and 23.
Haryana Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022 (Haryana Act No. 14 of 2022; Haryana Government Gazette Extraordinary, 8 April 2022) — sections 18 to 20.
Uttar Pradesh Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022 (U.P. Act No. 16 of 2022; English text published 13 December 2022) — sections 1, 26 and 27.
Delhi Fire Service (Amendment) Rules, 2025 (Delhi Gazette Extraordinary, 26 May 2026) — rules 27, 35 and 36 — and the Delhi Fire Service FAQ on the two-stage process. Parts of that FAQ, such as renewal periods, predate the 2026 amendment.

Confirm locally: the Act, rules and notifications in force on the day you apply, the risk or occupancy category the authority places your building in, current fees and forms, and — in writing — whether your planned change needs a revised scheme.

Frequently asked

What building information do I need before planning a fire NOC application?

Seven things, in this order. The state, city and the authority that sanctions your building plan, because they decide which fire law and which list apply. The sanctioned building plan and the use it approved. Height and number of storeys, measured the way your bye-laws measure them, with mezzanines, stilts and basements counted. Floor area per floor and in total. What is stored or processed and in what quantity, because NBC 2016 separates low, moderate and high hazard industry, storage and hazardous buildings. Any fire NOC or certificate you already hold, with its conditions and approved fire drawings. And the change you are planning. With those, the list in your state's fire law can be read against your own drawings instead of a rule of thumb.

Which site conditions can change the scope or budget of a fire NOC file?

A use that differs from the sanctioned plan; an added floor, mezzanine or basement; higher storage or new racking; fire-tender access and the road the building abuts; installed systems that no longer match the approved fire drawings; compartment walls opened by earlier fit-outs; and a building that must keep running while work is done. Each can put the building in a different class or require a revised fire scheme, and the authority can add conditions for what it finds on site — Haryana's Act says so in terms (section 18(3)). None of these shows up on a drawing review alone, which is why a site visit comes before a scope.

What should I send an engineer to review a fire NOC file for my building?

The approved fire layout (the fire scheme drawings the authority stamped) and any NOC or fire safety certificate with its conditions; the sanctioned building plan; a description or drawing of the proposed changes; and the building particulars — state and city, height, storeys including mezzanines and basements, floor areas, occupancy and what is stored or processed. That is enough for an engineer to say what the change touches, which parts of the file it reopens and what the authority will want to see. It is not enough for anyone to tell you the authority's decision; only the authority gives that.

What is the difference between a provisional and a final fire NOC?

The names change from state to state, the logic does not. The first approval accepts the design before construction; the second certifies the installed systems against that design. Punjab's 2024 Act calls them the Provisional Fire Safety Certificate (before building-plan approval) and the Final Fire Safety Certificate (before the completion certificate). Haryana approves a fire-fighting scheme after the building plan and issues a fire safety certificate after inspection. Delhi issues fire safety recommendations with the building plans and a Fire Safety Certificate before occupancy. Whatever the names, what is inspected at the end is the drawing approved at the beginning.

Is there one national height or area above which a fire NOC is needed?

No. NBC 2016 is a model code, and each state's law lists the buildings it covers in its own terms. Delhi's rule 27 uses height or number of storeys for most occupancies and total covered area for industrial and storage buildings; Haryana's Act uses high-rise status and, for most of its special buildings, floor area on any one floor; Uttar Pradesh's Act names multi-storey height and a list of special occupancies. Any single number quoted for the whole country — 15 metres, 24 metres or anything else — should be checked against your state's text before you design to it.