In England, solar panels on a house are almost always permitted development. You do not need to apply for planning permission, provided the installation stays inside the limits in Class A of Part 14 of the Permitted development order.
The limits that bite in practice: 0.2 metres of protrusion beyond a wall or pitched roof slope, not above the ridge on a pitched roof, and 0.6 metres above the highest part of a flat roof.
The two things people most often get wrong are that a conservation area stops you — usually it does not — and that a listed building is only a planning question. It is not.
Start here
Is your building in England? Part 14 of this order applies to England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate regimes with different wording. We have not researched those yet and will not guess at them.
Is the building listed? Then there is a second regime on top of planning, and it is the one that usually decides the answer. See listed buildings.
Is it in a conservation area, National Park, area of outstanding natural beauty, the Broads, or a World Heritage Site? These are “article 2(3) land” and some restrictions change. See conservation areas.
Otherwise: you are almost certainly in permitted development, and the question is whether your specific installation stays inside the limits.
The limits, in one table
| Situation | Limit | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Protrusion beyond a wall or pitched roof slope | 0.2 m, measured from the perpendicular | A.1(a) |
| Height on a pitched roof | Not higher than the highest part of the roof, excluding chimneys | A.1(b) |
| Height on a flat roof | Not more than 0.6 m above the highest part of the roof, excluding chimneys | A.1(ba) |
| Conservation area or World Heritage Site | Not on a wall which fronts a highway | A.1(c) |
| Scheduled monument | Not permitted | A.1(d) |
| Listed dwellinghouse | Not on a building within the curtilage | A.1(e) |
Plus three conditions that apply to every installation: site it so as to minimise the effect on the building’s external appearance and on the amenity of the area, so far as practicable, and remove it when it is no longer needed.
Before 21 December 2023 the order did not distinguish pitched from flat roofs in these limits. S.I. 2023/1279 inserted the 0.6 metre flat-roof allowance, restricted the ridge-height and 0.2 metre limits to pitched roofs, and added a prior approval requirement for flat-roof installations on protected land.
A great deal of guidance online — including the government’s own householder technical guidance, which is dated 2019 — has not caught up.
The full detail, including standalone and ground-mounted arrays, is on permitted development for solar: the actual rules.
Permitted development is not permission
This distinction matters and is worth being precise about.
Permitted development is a general grant of planning permission made by the order itself. Nobody grants it to you and there is nothing to apply for. If your proposal falls inside Class A, it is already permitted.
The consequence is that you carry the risk of judging it wrongly. There is no official who checks in advance unless you ask one to. If you build something that turns out to fall outside the class, it is unauthorised development, and the remedies available to the authority are not pleasant.
If you want certainty, apply for a lawful development certificate. It is a determination that what you propose is lawful rather than a permission, it costs a fee, and it is the sensible route where an installation sits close to a limit or the building is in any way unusual.
What permitted development does not cover
Building regulations. Entirely separate. Structural adequacy, electrical safety and fire are governed by the building regulations, and permitted development says nothing about them.
Listed building consent. A separate regime under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. A proposal can be permitted development and still require listed building consent.
Your lease, your covenants, your freeholder. Private law, untouched by planning. A leaseholder may have permitted development rights and still need the freeholder’s consent — that is covered in our leasehold guidance.
Article 4 directions. A local planning authority can withdraw permitted development rights in a defined area. Where one applies, the rights described here may simply not exist for your property.
What we have not done yet
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each has its own order and its own limits. This cluster is England-only until we have read the others properly.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each has its own permitted development order and its own limits. This cluster is England-only until we have read the others properly. Everything planned for England is published.
If one of those is what you came for, tell us — it moves up the queue.
Most people start here
Permitted development for solar: the actual rules
Class A and Class B of Part 14, clause by clause, including the December 2023 amendments that changed the flat-roof rules and that most guidance has not caught up with.
Solar panels in a conservation area
The restriction is narrower than almost everyone says. It applies to walls fronting a highway — not to roofs. But there is a new prior approval requirement for flat roofs that is genuinely easy to miss.
The rules
Beyond planning permission
Neighbours and private rights
Sources
- The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 14 UK Statute Law · Accessed 17 August 2026 · OGL v3.0
- Permitted development rights for householders: technical guidance (September 2019) Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Accessed 17 August 2026 · OGL v3.0 Predates the December 2023 amendments and does not cover Part 14 in detail.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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