More expensive per square metre, yes, but almost all of that premium pays for the house itself. Band A ratings on the A to G energy efficiency scale go mostly to new detached houses, and those command higher prices than an older flat or terraced house even without the certificate. Compare a band A house with a similar band D house of the same floor area, type, build period and year of sale, and the premium shrinks to a couple of percent. On this evidence, paying for the letter A as a quality in its own right makes little sense.
Contents
↓ Band A by property type↓ Band A by region
How rare is band A and what kind of homes are they
Between January 2015 and September 2026 there were 45,770 sales with an A-rated energy certificate (Energy Performance Certificate, EPC) in England and Wales, which is 0.5% of all sales with a certificate (HM Land Registry Price Paid data, EPC register as at November 2026). More than half of them, 26,893, were detached houses. Flats and maisonettes make up just 4% of sold band A properties, against 10% for band D. When a flat does achieve an A, the median is £4,502 per m² (1,613 sales), against £3,667 for band D flats.
Where the +21% comes from and why like for like leaves +2.2%
The median for band A is £3,462 per m², for band D £2,857: a head-to-head comparison gives +21%. But band A houses are on average newer, larger and of a different type, and the market pays for that regardless of the certificate. A like for like comparison strips out these differences, leaving +2.2% with a 95% range of +0.3% to +4.2%. The range is wide because the national sample contains only 5,022 band A sales. The conclusion: the premium exists, but it is small and imprecise. How it looks against the other bands is shown in the band comparison from A to G, and the band D page covers the baseline in detail.
Regions: where the A rating shows up in the price
The head-to-head gap widens where the older stock is cheap. In the North East, band A sells at £2,591 per m² across 2,729 sales, band D at £1,649. In London, A and D barely differ per square metre: £6,039 against £6,000. The North East shows that the letter becomes noticeable where an older house is cheap in itself.
What an A certificate tells you about your gas bill
The certificate counts kilowatt-hours and contains no pound figures, so you cannot read “monthly cost” straight off it. For band A houses on gas, the certificate median is 4,042 kWh a year, and that is primary energy including lighting, so the figure is generous by design. Actual gas metered (DESNZ data for 2024) in the postcodes where such homes dominate came to 257% of that number, roughly 2.6 times more. The data do not show why. The certificate calculation remains a standardised assessment of the home, not a measurement, and building a heating budget on it is risky.
What this means for buyers
Band A appears in 0.5% of sold homes with a certificate and almost always means a new detached house. The +21% premium per m² mostly pays for newness, size and type; like for like, +2.2% remains (+0.3% to +4.2%). An A certificate guarantees nothing about your gas bill: meters in these postcodes run at 2.6 times the calculation. This site's assessment does not replace an assessment of the specific house, and the rules on letting property are set out in the GOV.UK guidance.