Safe Electric, RGI and CIRI on your website: what to show, and what gets you in trouble

This is practical guidance from people who build trade websites, not legal advice. The registers change their rules. Check the current guidance on each register's own site, linked below, before you publish.

Safe Electric (electricians)

Safe Electric is the regulatory body for electrical contractors in Ireland, operating under the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. Only a Registered Electrical Contractor may carry out restricted electrical works and issue the completion certificate a homeowner needs. On your website:

• Use the Safe Electric mark only if you're registered, and show your REC number beside it.
• Link the mark to your entry on the Safe Electric register so a customer can verify you in one tap. Verified beats claimed.
• Say "Registered Electrical Contractor" or "Safe Electric registered", not "Safe Electric approved" or "certified electrician", which aren't the register's terms.
• Explain the cert. One plain sentence like "Every job gets a completion certificate, which you'll need for insurance and for selling the house" reassures customers and answers the question they were about to search.

RGI (gas installers)

Gas works in Ireland must be carried out by a Registered Gas Installer, and the Register of Gas Installers of Ireland is the body that runs the register. Customers are actively told to check it.

• Show the RGI logo with your registration number, header and footer, and on every page that mentions gas, boilers or heating.
• Link to your register entry.
• If you do plumbing only and aren't RGI registered, say plainly that you don't do gas work. It's a trust signal, not a weakness.

CIRI (builders and contractors)

The Construction Industry Register Ireland is the register for building contractors, placed on a statutory footing by the Regulation of Providers of Building Works Act 2022. Registration is being phased in as a legal requirement for certain works. Check ciri.ie for the current position for your kind of work.

• If you're registered, show it with a link to your entry, on the homepage and on every project page.
• If you're not yet, don't imply you are. Build the site so the badge can be added the day you register.
• Pair it with your insurance line. Homeowners spending extension money check both.

SEAI registered installer (grant work)

For grant-funded work such as heat pumps, solar PV, insulation and EV chargers, the customer usually has to use an installer on the relevant SEAI registered installer list to get the grant. If you're on a list, your site should say which one, show the registration, and explain the grant process in plain English with a link to the current SEAI page. Don't quote grant amounts as fixed facts; they change. Say "currently up to" and link to the source.

Insurance

"Fully insured" on its own means little. Better: "Public liability insurance in place, cert available on request." Never publish the policy document or the insurer's name unless the insurer is happy with that, and never claim cover you don't have; if a job goes wrong it will be checked.

Company details the law expects on your website

If you trade as a limited company, the Companies Act 2014 requires certain details on your website: the company name, its registration number, the place of registration, and the registered office address. Put them in the footer. If you're a sole trader using a business name other than your own name, that name should be registered with the Companies Registration Office under the business names legislation, and it's sensible to show your own name alongside it. VAT-registered businesses normally show their VAT number on invoices; showing it on the site is optional but reassuring for commercial customers.

Reviews and testimonials

Use real reviews, attributed the way the customer left them. Pulling your Google reviews onto the site is fine and effective. Inventing reviews, or reproducing reviews without the review's context, is a consumer-law problem and, more practically, gets noticed. Irish customers are good at spotting a fake.

A five-minute check before you go live

• Every badge you show, you hold, with the number beside it and a link to the register.
• Every claim about grants links to the current official page.
• Company or business-name details in the footer.
• Insurance stated accurately.
• No reviews you can't stand behind.