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Your exhibitor manual may still ask for Class 1 to BS 476 Part 7. The building regulations moved to Euroclass — and the two do not convert into each other.
This is the question a UK stand contractor asks first, and it has an awkward answer: the classification your venue asks for may no longer be the one the law uses.
Class 0 and Class 1 come from BS 476 Part 7, the old national test for surface spread of flame. They are legacy terminology: Class 0 is no longer the reaction-to-fire specification route in Approved Document B for new building work in England. The current route is BS EN 13501-1 — the same Euroclass system used across the rest of Europe, running A1, A2, B, C, D, E, F with an s suffix for smoke and a d suffix for flaming droplets.
So far, so tidy. The problem is that exhibitor manuals and venue technical regulations have not all caught up. It is entirely normal, in 2026, to receive a manual that asks for "all materials to be Class 1 surface spread of flame to BS 476 Part 7" — wording drafted years ago and carried forward edition after edition.
And here is the trap, because it is not intuitive: Class 0 and Class 1 do not convert to a Euroclass. There is no official equivalence table that turns B-s1,d0 into Class 1. They are different tests measuring different things. A European certificate is not "the same thing in other units" — it is a different document answering a different question.
The practical answer is short, and we give the same advice to every UK client: ask the organiser in writing whether a BS EN 13501-1 classification is accepted, and keep the reply.
In our experience the answer is almost always yes — because Euroclass is the current national route, and because the alternative would be to refuse the CE-marked materials that most of the European supply chain now ships. But "almost always" is not a document. An email from the organiser saying "Euroclass B-s1,d0 is acceptable in place of Class 1" takes them one minute to write and settles the matter at the stand inspection.
Two things make that email much more likely to come back quickly:
Whichever system you are quoting in, the starting point is the same and it is the number that decides the budget.
Untreated wood-based board is not a high classification. Solid timber, chipboard, MDF, OSB and plywood sit at the bottom of the useful range — D-s2,d0 under BS EN 13501-1 for most board products. Timber reaches a higher class only with a fire-retardant treatment, and the classification then has to be supported by evidence covering that specific timber-and-treatment combination. It is a property of the finished, treated product — never of "wood" as a material.
Under the current Approved Document B route, internal timber linings are specified by location, which gives a useful sense of the ladder:
| Where | Class required |
|---|---|
| Small rooms up to 30 m² | D-s3,d2 |
| Standard rooms and garages | C-s3,d2 |
| Circulation spaces and escape routes | B-s3,d2 |
Exhibition halls are not covered by that table — a stand is a temporary structure inside a venue, and the venue's own regulations govern it. But the ladder tells you the shape of the problem: the further up you go, the more the material has to be engineered to get there, and untreated board does not get there on its own.
One distinction worth keeping straight, because the two get mixed up in briefs: reaction to fire is about flame spread and smoke — the classifications on this page. Fire resistance is about how long a structure holds, measured in minutes. A stand wall is almost always a reaction-to-fire question, not a fire-resistance one.
The search most UK contractors actually run is not for a classification — it is for fire rated MDF, usually with a thickness attached: fire rated MDF 18 mm. Worth unpicking, because the thickness is the part that matters least.
Fire rated MDF — also sold as fire retardant MDF, and normally supplied in a red or blue tint so it is identifiable on site — is MDF manufactured with fire-retardant additives through the board rather than treated on the surface. It is the material our fire-rated panel uses for its skins.
Two things follow, and they are the reason a thickness alone does not answer the question.
The classification belongs to the board, not to the millimetres. A sheet of fire rated MDF carries a classification from its manufacturer, for that product in that thickness. Asking for "18 mm fire rated" without naming the class you need leaves the supplier guessing — and thickness is chosen for structure and fixing, not for fire performance.
And in a stand wall, the skin is not the whole build-up. This is the part that catches people. Our panel is a composite: timber perimeter frame, honeycomb core, MDF skins. A classification held by the skin material on its own is not automatically a classification for the assembled panel — the documentation has to cover what you are actually installing. Which is why we supply the fire-performance documentation for the material as delivered, and why it is worth telling us the class your show requires rather than the board thickness.
Where thickness genuinely does matter:
| Decision | Driven by |
|---|---|
| Panel thickness — 40 or 50 mm | Height, and whether the wall carries load. Not fire. |
| Skin thickness | Surface flatness and fixing depth. Not fire. |
| Fire classification | The board specification and the documentation covering the assembled panel. |
So the useful enquiry is one line: "the manual asks for X — which version covers it, and what document comes with it?" We answer that the same day.
We make the same honeycomb panel in two versions, and the choice is made position by position rather than stand by stand.
The standard PSL panel — finger-jointed timber frame, honeycomb core, wood-based skins — is a wood-based product, so it sits in the D-s2,d0 region. It is the right choice wherever no raised classification applies.
The fire-rated version is the same panel with fire-retardant MDF skins. The fire-performance documentation for the material supplied goes out with the order at no extra charge, so it is on the stand rather than in somebody's inbox — which is where an inspection wants it.
The fire-rated version also exists for stand doors, levelling platforms and RAL-lacquered panels — useful when one element of the stand has to be raised and the rest can stay standard.
What we do not do, and we would rather say it plainly: we do not issue classification reports ourselves. We supply the fire-performance documentation for the material you receive from us. If your show requires a specific class in specific wording, tell us at enquiry stage: we will tell you the same day which version covers it and which document travels with the delivery — or, if we cannot cover the requirement, we will tell you that too.
Ireland runs on BS EN 13501-1 / EN 13501-1 Euroclasses through the Irish Building Regulations Technical Guidance Documents, and Irish venue regulations are generally expressed that way. There is no widely used parallel national flame-spread vocabulary of the Class 0 / Class 1 kind still circulating in exhibitor manuals.
For a European supplier that makes Ireland the simpler of the two markets on paperwork: the classification on our documentation is already in the language the manual uses, and there is nothing to convert or negotiate.
It is simpler on freight, too — Ireland is in the EU, so there is no customs step at all, which is not the case for Great Britain. That difference is set out here.
MDF manufactured with fire-retardant additives through the board rather than treated on the surface, normally supplied in a red or blue tint so it is identifiable on site. It is the material our fire-rated panel uses for its skins. Also sold as fire retardant MDF.
Thickness is not what determines fire performance — the classification belongs to the board specification, and thickness is chosen for structure and fixing. More importantly, a stand wall is a composite: timber frame, honeycomb core, MDF skins. A classification held by the skin material alone is not automatically a classification for the assembled panel. Tell us the class your show requires rather than a thickness.
Not automatically. The documentation has to cover what you are installing, not just one component of it. We supply the fire-performance documentation for the material as delivered, which is what a stand inspection asks to see.
Not as a specification route. Class 0 and Class 1 come from BS 476 Part 7 and are legacy national terminology; Class 0 is no longer the reaction-to-fire route in Approved Document B for new building work in England. The current route is BS EN 13501-1, the Euroclass system. Exhibitor manuals, however, often still ask for Class 1, so you may well meet the old wording.
No. There is no official conversion between the BS 476 classes and the Euroclasses — they are different tests measuring different things, and a Euroclass certificate is not the same document in other units. Where a manual asks for Class 1, ask the organiser in writing whether a BS EN 13501-1 classification is accepted and keep the reply.
Untreated wood-based board — solid timber, chipboard, MDF, OSB, plywood — sits around D-s2,d0 under BS EN 13501-1. A higher class is reached only with a fire-retardant treatment, and the classification has to be supported by evidence covering that specific timber-and-treatment combination.
Reaction to fire is about how a material contributes to a fire — flame spread, smoke, flaming droplets — and is what the Euroclasses and the old BS 476 classes measure. Fire resistance is about how long an element holds, in minutes. A stand wall is almost always a reaction-to-fire question.
The classification system is the same in practice — both use BS EN 13501-1 Euroclasses as the current route. The difference is that legacy Class 0 / Class 1 wording still circulates in British exhibitor manuals, while Irish venue regulations are generally already expressed in Euroclasses. Ireland is also in the EU, so there is no customs step on the freight.
No. The fire-performance documentation for the material supplied goes out with the delivery at no extra charge, on panels as on stand doors, platforms and RAL-lacquered panels.
Send us the exhibitor manual and the stand drawing: we will tell you position by position which version covers the requirement and which document travels with the delivery. Written reply normally within 24 working hours.