SECR reporting in the UK: requirements, thresholds and how to comply

If you are a UK quoted company, or a large unquoted company or LLP, you almost certainly have to include SECR reporting in your annual report. Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) is a mandatory framework that requires qualifying organisations to disclose their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions every year, and it is part of the carbon reporting requirements in the UK.

An estimated 19,900 organisations are now in scope, according to the post-implementation review of SECR by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), published in May 2026. The review recommends keeping SECR, with amendments.

This guide explains who has to report, what to disclose, when SECR reports are due and what SECR compliance involves in practice.

The SECR legislation came into force on 1 April 2019 under The Companies (Directors' Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/1155). It was designed to simplify and expand corporate carbon reporting requirements in the UK, replacing the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme and extending reporting obligations to a wider range of large companies and limited liability partnerships (LLPs).

SECR supports the UK’s wider climate objectives by improving transparency around corporate energy consumption and encouraging organisations to identify opportunities to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency.

The framework applies alongside several other UK environmental and energy reporting schemes, including:

By standardising energy and emissions disclosures, SECR helps businesses integrate carbon reporting into broader sustainability and compliance strategies.

Organisations required to comply with SECR include:

These SECR size tests did not change when the general Companies Act size limits rose for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025. The government’s explanatory memorandum to SI 2024/1303 states that those regulations do not affect the SECR requirements and that qualifying for SECR will no longer be aligned with being a large company under the Companies Act, so a company that is now medium-sized for its accounts can still be in scope.

SECR criteria: does SECR apply to me? A five-step check

Answer these five questions in order and stop at the first one that ends the check.

1. Is your organisation a UK-incorporated company or LLP? If not, SECR does not apply to it directly, although a UK subsidiary of an overseas group is assessed on its own.
2. Is the company quoted? If yes, SECR applies at any size and you report your UK and global energy use and emissions. Go to step 4.
3. If the company is unquoted or an LLP, do you exceed at least two of the three size tests above? If not, you are out of scope and any reporting is voluntary. If yes, continue.
4. Is your company covered by a compliant UK group report from its parent? If yes, you can rely on that group report. If not, continue.
5. Did you use 40,000 kWh or less of energy in the reporting period? If yes, you can state that you are a low energy user and omit the detailed figures. If not, you need a full SECR report, as described in the requirements below.

Is SECR reporting mandatory in the UK?

Yes, for quoted companies and for large unquoted companies and LLPs. DESNZ describes SECR as a mandatory framework requiring large UK businesses to disclose energy use and emissions in annual reports filed at Companies House (post-implementation review, 2026). Other organisations can report voluntarily.

Is carbon reporting mandatory in the UK?

For large and quoted companies, yes: SECR requires them to report energy use and greenhouse gas emissions every year. Other regimes sit alongside it, including the FCA’s climate disclosure rules for listed companies, covered in the section on the UK SRS below.

SECR reports are due with your annual accounts, so the SECR reporting deadline is your accounts filing deadline: 9 months after the end of the accounting reference period for private companies and 6 months for public companies, according to Companies House accounts guidance.

Your SECR disclosures sit in the Directors' Report (or the Energy and Carbon Report for LLPs), which is filed at Companies House with your annual report and accounts. A private company with a 31 December year end therefore needs its SECR data ready and approved by the board in time to file by 30 September. SECR applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2019, so every in-scope organisation should now be on its annual cycle.

The government has announced plans to remove the requirement for all companies to produce a directors' report, with some information moved elsewhere in the annual report and details still to be confirmed. Check where SECR disclosures must sit before your next filing.

Although SECR applies to many UK organisations, certain exemptions may apply depending on how much energy the business uses and how its group is structured.

Where a parent company includes a subsidiary’s information within consolidated SECR disclosures, the subsidiary is generally not required to submit a separate energy and carbon report.

In some cases, subsidiaries that would not independently fall within the scope of SECR requirements may be excluded from group-level reporting.

Companies should ensure that group reporting arrangements are clearly documented and aligned with the Companies Act 2006 and SECR reporting requirements.

SECR compliance is high but not universal. The 2026 DESNZ post-implementation review concludes that actual non-compliance is likely to be 14–23%, with gaps more common among private companies and LLPs than among quoted companies. Enforcement is light-touch: it relies on Companies Act obligations and Financial Reporting Council (FRC) reviews rather than dedicated civil sanctions or proactive monitoring. That still leaves real exposure, because SECR disclosures sit inside your statutory annual report.

The 2026 DESNZ post-implementation review puts numbers on both sides. Complying takes a mean of 94 hours of internal staff time a year, worth about £2,500, and 56% of complying businesses also pay for outside help such as consultancies or auditors. Including those external costs, the mean ongoing cost is £7,100 a year per business.

On the benefit side, the review’s modelled analysis suggests SECR contributed to reductions in electricity and gas use among in-scope unquoted companies and LLPs of an estimated 4.5% in 2020 and 6.2% in 2021, and it reports a central benefit–cost ratio of 2.72. In the survey, 79% of complying businesses said they disclosed data they otherwise would not have published.

Although SECR establishes minimum disclosure requirements, many organisations build on sound carbon accounting practice and strengthen their reporting processes to improve data quality and make year-on-year comparisons reliable.

Some common SECR reporting best practices include:

SECR and TCFD cover similar ground but serve different purposes: SECR is a backward-looking record of what a company has already used and emitted, while the TCFD recommendations are forward-looking, focused on how climate-related risk could affect a business in future. The government’s own review reflects this: stakeholders said forward-looking frameworks play a greater role in strategic decisions, while SECR provides the baseline data that underpins them.

The UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS), built on the ISSB framework, were published on 25 February 2026 by the Department for Business and Trade. They are voluntary for most companies, but the FCA now requires in-scope listed companies to report against them on a comply-or-explain basis for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027, with a one-year deferral available for Scope 3 emissions.

The DESNZ 2026 post-implementation review recommends retaining SECR with amendments, to be explored through a planned 2026 consultation on streamlining energy and emissions reporting. The options include clearer guidance on eligibility and group boundaries, a standardised disclosure template, alignment with ISSB, CSRD and TCFD definitions, and light-touch forward-looking elements such as optional targets. DESNZ stresses that these are not final decisions, so keep reporting under the current rules.

SECR reporting pulls data from every site and vehicle you run, and it ends up in a statutory report. Greenly’s carbon assessment platform keeps energy and fuel data in one carbon account, and every figure traces back to its source.

Greenly automates SECR reporting end to end: Scope 1 and 2 emissions, energy use, intensity ratios and the energy efficiency narrative come out as one output aligned with the GHG Protocol and DEFRA conversion factors.

The software handles the arithmetic. Expertise handles the judgement calls: where the reporting perimeter stops, how to treat leased sites and reimbursed mileage, which methodology to disclose. A Greenly specialist trained on UK regulatory requirements validates your methodology and your perimeter, so every figure is defensible when someone checks it.

More than 3,500 companies use Greenly, and G2 ranks it number one for carbon management.