Do you still need RECC or HIES on the redeveloped MCS scheme?

A RECC or HIES membership is a real line in the overheads: the annual fee, the per-certificate charges, the admin of keeping the listing current. For years the justification was simple, because MCS required it. Then, on 18 June 2026, that requirement went away for some install businesses and not for others, and the question "can I cancel it?" stopped having one answer.

Here is the short version: if your certification body has moved you onto the redeveloped MCS scheme, consumer code membership is no longer mandatory. If you're still on the legacy scheme, it still is, and it stays that way until your transition completes. The deadline for every MCS certified business to be on the redeveloped scheme is 31 March 2027.

The decision is worth getting right in both directions. Cancel too early and you're operating outside your scheme's requirements. Keep paying too long and you're carrying a membership whose job the scheme now does itself.

What actually changed on 18 June 2026

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero formally recognised the redeveloped MCS installer scheme as a Code of Practice for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). MCS announced that, effective immediately, installers delivering installations under BUS no longer require membership of a consumer code if they're certified to the redeveloped scheme.

That recognition matters because it's the government confirming the scheme's own consumer protections are sufficient, rather than MCS simply asserting it. It also sits alongside a separate decision from October 2025, when the government confirmed it plans to make MCS the sole certification scheme for clean heat measures in UK government funded schemes (MCS), which matters as the Warm Homes Plan scales up; which certification route your business actually needs covers that wider picture. The consumer-protection work the codes used to do now sits inside the scheme itself:

• The Customer Commitment, currently at V1.1, sets out your responsibility to protect consumers and adhere to consumer protection law (MCS)
• Complaints management is centralised with MCS, instead of being spread across codes and certification bodies
• The Installer Agreement is held directly between your business and MCS, signed by a named person, with a dedicated MCS account manager assigned to you

If you're still getting to grips with the scheme as a whole, the shape of it, including the new business roles and the Installer Agreement, is covered in our guide to the redeveloped MCS installer scheme.

Whether you can cancel depends on which scheme you're on

This is where businesses are getting caught. The June 2026 announcement applies to the redeveloped scheme, and plenty of businesses are still certified under the legacy scheme while they wait for their transition slot.

If you're on the redeveloped scheme, code membership isn't required. The Customer Commitment and the scheme's complaints handling replace it.

If you're still on the legacy scheme, the requirement hasn't changed. Your certification body manages your move, and until it's complete, the legacy requirements, including consumer code membership, still bind you. With the transition closing on 31 March 2027, that's a matter of months, not years, and the sequence of checks you will go through, from the onboarding call to the transition assessment, is set out in what the MCS transition assessment actually checks.

One combination deserves special care: quoting Boiler Upgrade Scheme work while still on the legacy scheme. BUS is the grant your heat pump customers are claiming, and the code exemption is tied to redeveloped-scheme certification. The redemption workflow and the paperwork Ofgem checks are covered in heat pump commissioning under BUS. If that's your workload, keep the membership until the transition is done.

What replaces the code's protections in practice

Cancelling a membership doesn't cancel the obligations. Here's where each one now sits.

Financial protection. This is the main replacement. Under the redeveloped scheme, you must buy an MCS approved financial protection product on behalf of each customer. It gives at least six years' cover from installation and pays for remediation when the customer can't get an issue put right through you, including if your business goes bust, retires or refuses to do the work (MCS). It takes over the role of the deposit and warranty protection the codes required, so price it into every job before you cancel.

Complaints. Under the codes, a customer complaint about your work went to RECC or HIES. Under the redeveloped scheme it goes to MCS, centrally. What that means for you operationally is the same as it ever was: when a complaint arrives, someone at MCS will want to see what you did, what you quoted, what you installed and what you told the customer. A complaints log that exists, per job, with dates and copies, is the difference between a resolved complaint and an escalated one. The documentation pack your customer walks away with still matters too, and solar commissioning compliance runs through what should be in it.

Deposits and cancellation rights. The statutory rights never came from the code. The 14-day cancellation period comes from the Consumer Contracts Regulations, and your duties on the quality of the work come from the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Both apply whether you hold a membership or not. The codes did add deposit rules of their own on top: RECC, for example, requires members to protect deposits and advance payments and caps how much can be taken before the work is done (RECC Consumer Code). Under the redeveloped scheme, MCS's own financial protection requirement takes that role. The rules on what you can take as a deposit and what happens when a customer cancels are covered in deposits and cancellation rights, and the working-capital effect of deposit headroom, which the codes' advance payment frameworks govern, is worked through in our solar installer cash flow breakdown.

Before you cancel, price what you're losing

The mandate is gone, but the membership may still earn its keep, and it's worth a deliberate decision rather than a reflex.

• Credibility listings. Customers and local authority lists check memberships. Being on the RECC directory, the MCS installer database and TrustMark still functions as a trust signal, particularly for heat pump lead generation, where homeowners are comparing you against national chains.
• Contracts you have already signed. Some framework agreements, insurer arrangements and approved-contractor lists name your code membership as a condition. Read the paperwork before you cancel, not after.
• Advance payment frameworks. If your quoting habits are built on the code's staged payment structure, check what your scheme status lets you keep doing.

None of that's a reason to keep paying for a requirement that no longer exists. It's a reason to make the cancellation a decision with a date, rather than a surprise on a customer call.

What to do this week

1. Ask your certification body, in writing, which scheme you're certified under and when your transition slot is. Everything else follows from that answer.
2. Read the Customer Commitment and the Installer Operating Requirements on the MCS site. The onboarding call assumes you have, and the transition assessment checks that you have embedded them, not just read them.
3. Pick one recent job and assemble its full compliance record: quote, design evidence, commissioning documents, DNO notification, customer sign-off. If that takes longer than ten minutes, the fix is systemic, and it's cheaper to find now than mid-assessment. What the MCS transition assessment actually checks is the template.
4. If you quote BUS grant work and you're still on the legacy scheme, hold the membership until the transition completes.

If step 3 is the one that worries you, that's the gap job management software is supposed to close: every job's documents, DNO applications and customer sign-offs kept together on the project rather than scattered across a shared drive. See how Payaca handles compliance for heat pump and solar install businesses, or compare it against the tool you use now.