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How long does gateway 2 approval take?

Published 10 August 2026Updated monthly — latest data 1 August 2026

A median of 22 weeks for a new higher-risk building, at the latest count. The Building Safety Regulator publishes its gateway 2 performance every month as a slide deck, and each release is reported in isolation. This is the series: 9 releases from 24 November 2025 to 1 August 2026, assembled so the trend is visible rather than just this month's number.

The headline figure

22 weeks

Gateway 2 approval for a new higher-risk building takes a median of 22 weeks.

That is BSR's median approval time for new-build higher-risk building applications in the 12-week rolling period to 1 August 2026, alongside an approval rate of 91%. Gateway 2 is the mandatory stop/go point an HRB project must clear before construction can begin, so this is the wait a scheme has to plan around.

How this was read: Read from the 'Approval weeks' and approval-rate tiles of the new-build section of BSR's most recent monthly release. · Link to this figure

Citing this analysis?

PM Assist, "Gateway 2 Approval Times: BSR Performance Tracker", analysis of Building Safety Regulator, building control approval application data, 2026. https://pmassist.co.uk/gateway-2-approval-times

Gateway 2 approval rates over time

Each point is one BSR monthly release, plotted on the date its data was current.

0%25%50%75%100%Nov 2025Jan 2026Mar 2026May 2026Aug 2026
New build HRBsExternal remediation
Gateway 2 approval rate by month, Nov 2025 to Aug 2026. PM Assist analysis of Building Safety Regulator, building control approval application data.

10% → 91%

New-build gateway 2 approval rates have risen from 10% to 91% since 22 December 2025.

Across the 8 monthly releases BSR has published since 22 December 2025, the rolling approval rate for new-build applications has climbed steadily. The rejection rate that dominated coverage of the regime's first year is not what the current data shows.

How this was read: Approval-rate tile from the new-build section of each release, ordered by the 'all data as of' date each release states.

12 weeks

Remediation applications wait 12 weeks longer at gateway 2 than new builds.

External remediation work takes a median of 34 weeks to approve, against 22 weeks for new build, at an approval rate of 85%. The buildings waiting longest for a decision are the ones that already have a safety problem.

How this was read: Difference between the 'Approval weeks' tiles of the remediation and new-build sections of the most recent release.

461

461 new-build and remediation applications were sitting in the gateway 2 system at 1 August 2026.

These are live applications awaiting a decision. Each one is a project that cannot start or continue construction until BSR determines it.

How this was read: Sum of the 'In progress' (earlier releases: 'Live') tiles for the new-build and remediation sections of the most recent release.

Every release in the series

Approval rate, median approval time, live caseload and decisions made, for new build and external remediation, from each of BSR's monthly publications.

Gateway 2 approval rate, median approval time, live applications and decisions made, by BSR release
Data as ofCategoryApproval rateMedian approvalIn progressDecisions
24 November 2025External remediation32%44 weeks28366
22 December 2025New build HRBs10%12 weeks10231
22 December 2025External remediation44%43 weeks28082
23 January 2026New build HRBs13%13 weeks11139
23 January 2026External remediation47%34 weeks28675
25 February 2026New build HRBs33%18 weeks12327
25 February 2026External remediation48%31 weeks27986
29 March 2026New build HRBs61%22 weeks13531
29 March 2026External remediation61%36 weeks29992
1 May 2026New build HRBs73%22 weeks14333
1 May 2026External remediation72%46 weeks33781
30 May 2026New build HRBs90%22 weeks13131
30 May 2026External remediation79%39 weeks35967
28 June 2026New build HRBs89%22 weeks13837
28 June 2026External remediation85%35 weeks34285
1 August 2026New build HRBs91%22 weeks13145
1 August 2026External remediation85%34 weeks330110

Download the series

Every release and category as JSON. Free to reuse under the Open Government Licence v3.0 — please credit PM Assist for the series and the Building Safety Regulator for the source data.

Download JSON

Methodology

The Building Safety Regulator publishes gateway 2 performance monthly as a PDF slide deck. We read each release and record the figures into a series. We do not model, adjust or estimate any value — every number here is printed in a BSR release, and each finding states which tile it came from.

  • Values are read only from the labelled tiles in each deck, never from the surrounding commentary. Commentary paragraphs routinely quote the current figure, a year-ago baseline and the neighbouring panel's figure in one sentence, and are not safely machine-readable.
  • Each release is dated by the "all data as of" stamp it carries, not by its publication date or the month range in its title.
  • Figures are national. Every release also breaks out London separately; those panels are excluded so the series stays like-for-like.
  • "New build" covers BSR's Innovation Unit category, renamed "New HRBs and conversions" in June 2026. "Remediation" covers the remediation category, renamed "External remediation" at the same point.
  • Where a release reports no value for a metric — as in the first months, before the Innovation Unit had made any approvals — the cell is left empty rather than recorded as zero.
  • BSR's October 2025 release predates this reporting format and carries no approval-rate or approval-time figures, so it is not in the series. The tracker covers the 9 releases that do.
  • The parser is a script in our repository, and prints every value it reads for checking against the source decks.

Source

Building Safety Regulator, building control approval application data. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Frequently asked questions

How long does gateway 2 approval take?

That is BSR's median approval time for new-build higher-risk building applications in the 12-week rolling period to 1 August 2026, alongside an approval rate of 91%. Gateway 2 is the mandatory stop/go point an HRB project must clear before construction can begin, so this is the wait a scheme has to plan around. Figures are from the Building Safety Regulator's release covering data as of 1 August 2026.

What is gateway 2?

Gateway 2 is the mandatory stop/go point in the Building Safety Act 2022 regime. Before construction can begin on a higher-risk building, the Building Safety Regulator must approve the building control application. Remediation work on existing higher-risk buildings goes through the same gateway.

Is the gateway 2 backlog getting better or worse?

Approval rates have improved markedly. Across the 9 monthly releases in this tracker, the new-build approval rate rose from the level reported in 24 November 2025 to 91% at 1 August 2026. Median approval times and the live caseload are shown in full in the table on this page.

Can I use these figures?

Yes. The underlying data is the Building Safety Regulator's, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The series, comparisons and derived figures on this page are PM Assist's own — please credit PM Assist and link to this page, and credit BSR for the source data. The full dataset is available to download.

Gateway 2 is a documentation test

Most rejections turn on the quality and completeness of the information submitted, not the design itself. The same records become the golden thread the building must carry for the rest of its life. See the wider UK facilities management statistics, or the NHS maintenance backlog by trust, or browse all our research and data.