Martyn's Law for churches and places of worship
Last reviewed:
If you help run a church, mosque, synagogue or any other place of worship, Martyn's Law may well apply to your congregation, at least at its busiest. This guide covers what the law expects of premises like yours, who carries that responsibility, and one important exception that sets places of worship apart from most other venues.
The two tiers, and where places of worship sit
Before working out where your premises fits, it helps to understand how the law categorises premises and what those categories demand. Martyn's Law places public premises into two main tiers based strictly on maximum expected headcount, including clergy, stewards and volunteers alongside the congregation.
Standard tier (200–799 people)
- What it means: focuses on simple, low-cost preparedness.
- Key requirement: you must notify the regulator and maintain basic procedures for four emergency responses (evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication).
- Implications: no mandatory paid training, expensive security upgrades, or heavy documentation are required.
Enhanced tier (800+ people)
- What it means: for most premises types, asks more of high-capacity venues, because of the larger potential impact of an incident.
- Key requirement: includes all standard tier duties, plus formal requirements like a documented vulnerability assessment, a designated senior responsible individual, and measures designed to reduce the premises' vulnerability.
Places of worship are the one exception to all of this: they cannot reach the enhanced tier, however large the congregation gets (para 4.28). A cathedral or a mosque regularly holding several thousand people at Friday prayers still only carries the standard tier's two duties. The only question that matters is whether you cross 200 at all, not how far past it you go.
How to tell if your church or place of worship needs a plan for Martyn's Law
Places of worship are their own named category under the Act (para 4.28).
Your standard-tier status depends on the headcount you can reasonably expect at once at your busiest services, including predictable spikes like Christmas or Easter, defined in the guidance as occurring "from time to time." That number must include clergy, stewards and volunteers, not just the congregation.
Below are some examples to help illustrate this:
- Church A (out of scope). A parish church with a regular Sunday congregation of 120, including clergy and volunteers, stays comfortably out of scope most weeks.
- Church B (standard tier, recurring peak). The same church at Christmas or Easter, with visiting families, an enlarged choir and extra stewards, reaches 250 or more. Because that happens every year, the church is in scope on the "from time to time" test, even though a normal Sunday is quiet.
- Church C (large congregation, still standard tier). A large mosque holding several thousand worshippers at Friday prayers, or a cathedral regularly seating 1,000-plus, is comfortably over 800. It still only carries the standard tier's duties, because places of worship never move up to the enhanced tier, whatever their numbers.
To double check whether your premises comes under the scope of Martyn's Law, use our free checker.
Who is the "responsible person"?
Someone has to be legally on the hook for getting this done. The law calls that person the responsible person, and for most Church of England parishes that's the Parochial Church Council. For other denominations and faiths it's usually an equivalent management committee, board of trustees, or charity. It's the body as a whole that carries the legal duty, not one volunteer personally, though the body will typically ask one named person, often a churchwarden, administrator or facilities lead, to own the task day to day.
If your hall is used for separate purposes, a Tuesday toddler group or private hire for parties, it's generally assessed as its own premises with its own numbers, not folded into the church's. If it's used as part of the same worship activities, the two may need to be considered together as one premises. Treat it as a distinct question rather than assuming one plan automatically covers both buildings.
Some denominations have published their own advice. The Church of England and Ecclesiastical Insurance both have material aimed at parishes, worth reading alongside this guide.
What you must do (standard tier)
If you're in the standard tier, compliance requires two primary actions:
- Register your premises with the Security Industry Authority
(SIA), the law's regulator.
- This is a simple registration, not an application process.
- There's no fee and no approval process to wait for. The SIA portal isn't open yet, so no action is required until it launches.
- Prepare four core emergency procedures. You must
establish basic, practical procedures for four scenarios:
- Evacuation. Getting people out of the building safely.
- Invacuation. Moving people to safe spaces inside the building.
- Lockdown. Securing doors to keep an external threat out.
- Communication. Quickly telling the congregation what to do.
Congregation advantage: most churches have one main entrance and a congregation facing the same direction, which makes evacuation and invacuation fairly straightforward to plan for compared with a venue where people are scattered across several rooms. The harder part is communication mid-service: whoever leads worship needs a calm, agreed way to interrupt and give short, clear instructions, rather than leaving people to work out what's happening from raised voices or a fire alarm nobody expected.
What you do not have to do (standard tier)
A lot of the worry around Martyn's Law comes from assuming it means security staff, an expensive consultant, or mandatory training courses for your volunteers. None of that is required at the standard tier.
- You do not need a written plan by law, though the guidance recommends one because compliance is hard to demonstrate without it (para 7.32).
- You do not need security staff, CCTV, or any physical security measures.
- You do not need paid or accredited training. Using a third-party product or service is never mandatory to comply (para 6.7).
- You do not need to review your procedures on a set schedule. Reviewing them periodically is sensible practice, not a legal requirement (para 7.29).
- You do not need a risk assessment document or a designated senior individual. Those apply only at the enhanced tier, which places of worship never reach.
How to get Martyn's Law ready in minutes
If you're in scope for the standard tier, every duty above can be worked out and written down by hand, for free. It's perfectly possible, and we'd rather tell you that straight than fear-monger you into hiring a consultant or buying a tool you don't need.
The part that takes time, particularly with a rota of volunteers who change from month to month, is reading the official guidance, applying it to your actual building, and keeping a record that a new churchwarden could pick up without starting from scratch.
That's what Martyn's Law Plan was built to solve. It's a short online questionnaire any administrator can complete, about your building and how your services run, that turns your answers into your four procedures, a written plan, and printable briefing cards for welcomers and stewards to read and sign. Above all, it gives you peace of mind that you're prepared for when an inspection comes.
For now, start with the free tier checker, no email required, or see how the service works for churches if you already know you're in scope.
Similar venues: village halls and gyms and leisure centres.
Common questions
Are churches exempt from Martyn's Law?
No. Places of worship are a named category under the Act. If your church, mosque, synagogue, temple or gurdwara can reasonably expect 200 or more people at once, from time to time, including clergy, choir, stewards and volunteers, it's in scope at the standard tier.
Our cathedral holds well over 800. Does that make us enhanced tier?
No, and this is worth knowing early: places of worship stay in the standard tier regardless of capacity (para 4.28). A 1,000-seat cathedral or a large mosque at Friday prayers never moves up to the enhanced tier's extra duties. Whatever your numbers, you only ever need the standard tier's two duties.
Who complies, the diocese or the parish?
The duty sits with whoever controls the premises. For most churches that's the responsible body itself, the PCC, a mosque or gurdwara's management committee, or an equivalent trustee body, rather than any single volunteer. In practice, one named person, often a churchwarden or administrator, is usually given the day-to-day task.
Do weddings and funerals count towards our numbers?
Yes. The test is who could reasonably be expected at your premises at the same time, whatever the occasion. A wedding, a funeral or a big Christmas service all count the same way a regular Sunday service does, and if one of those pushes you past 200 including staff and volunteers, it puts you in scope even if most weeks are much quieter.
About this guide. Written by the Martyn's Law Plan team, based on the statutory guidance published under the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. Last reviewed: . Read the official guidance on GOV.UK.
Sources: Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025; Home Office statutory guidance (April 2026, updated May 2026) and supplementary documents. Paragraph references are to the statutory guidance. General information, not legal advice. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.