Is Martyn’s Law in force yet?

The Home Office set an implementation period of at least 24 months so those in scope could prepare. The SIA, the appointed regulator, says it expects the Act to come into force in spring 2027 and that it will confirm the date beforehand. No exact date has been announced.

The Home Office statutory guidance, published 15 April 2026, says there is no legal requirement to comply until the legislation comes into force, and the overarching factsheet says the requirements do not need to be complied with until brought into force by regulations.

The single hardest piece of evidence is one nobody else quotes. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) (Notification Requirements) Regulations 2026 — SI 2026/793 — have been made, and they say of themselves that they “come into force on the date on which section 9(1) (notification requirements) … comes fully into force”. In other words Parliament has written the rules for telling the SIA about your premises, and then left them switched off until the duty they serve exists. A statutory instrument does not sit dormant like that under a law that is already running.

We maintain this page because the market is full of bad information. In researching our own competitors we found a UK security integrator stating the Act “is now in force”, another still describing it as being in draft, and a facilities-management firm quoting a 100-person threshold when the figure in the Act is 200. All three were selling against those statements.