Flood risk check for any UK property
The Environment Agency's river, sea and surface water bands for any address, with the planning-zone status alongside, in plain English.
26.1%
of properties checked sit in some level of surface water flood risk.
Surface water flooding, the kind that pools after heavy rain rather than coming from a river or the sea, is the most underrated flood risk by buyers. About 13.3% of the same properties show a known low or higher band on the Environment Agency's river and sea map. River and sea risk gets the headlines, but it is geographically narrower than surface water, and the two often do not overlap.
Source: Environment Agency Risk of Flooding maps, refreshed 1 May 2026.
Two types of flooding covered
Flooding has more than one cause and the maps that cover each cause are separate. These are the two that matter most to buyers.
River and sea
Water arriving from a watercourse or the coast. The "headline" flood category, the one news bulletins talk about. Geographically concentrated near rivers, estuaries, and the coast.
Surface water
Heavy rain overwhelming drains and running across the surface. Hits inland and urban areas the river maps barely touch. The most underrated of the two by buyers.
Flood Zones 2 and 3 versus RoFRS bands
There are two ways the Environment Agency expresses river and sea flood risk, and they answer different questions.
Flood Zones 2 and 3 are the planning system's view: a binary in/out classification used when a council is deciding whether to grant a planning application. If a property is in Zone 3, building extensions, basements, or new dwellings becomes harder. We show whether the address sits in Zone 2 or Zone 3.
The RoFRS bands (very low, low, medium, high) come from the same flood model but express the chance of a flood in any given year. Zone 3 corresponds roughly to the high band; Zone 2 to medium. We show both because each is the right answer to a different question. The bands are what your insurer is pricing off; the zones are what your council and lender's surveyor will look at.
What the bands mean in practical terms
The Environment Agency uses four bands. Here is what each means for a buyer.
| Band | Annual chance |
|---|---|
| High | Greater than 3.3% per year |
| Medium | 1% to 3.3% per year |
| Low | 0.1% to 1% per year |
| Very low | Less than 0.1% per year |
Surface water bands across the properties we've checked
Of the properties on Move Insights that show a surface water risk band, here is how that risk distributes. The remainder show no surface water risk at all.
| Band | Share (of properties with known band) |
|---|---|
| High | 18.6% |
| Medium | 23.5% |
| Low | 57.8% |
Source: Environment Agency Risk of Flooding from Surface Water, refreshed 1 May 2026.
The Flood Re scheme: what buyers should know
Flood Re is a reinsurance pool, set up in 2016, that lets ordinary insurers offer affordable cover on properties that would otherwise be uninsurable or unaffordable. It works in the background: you buy a normal home insurance policy from a normal insurer, and Flood Re takes on the flood-claim risk behind the scenes for properties that qualify.
Eligibility: homes built before 1 January 2009, residential only, council tax bands A through G (Band H is excluded as the scheme is aimed at typical homes, not the most expensive). Buy-to-let properties are eligible. Flats and leasehold homes can be eligible too, with some conditions.
What it does in practice: caps the flood element of your insurance premium and limits the excess on flood claims. It does not stop your insurer asking lots of questions, and it does not cover the building works you might want done. The scheme is set to wind down in 2039, after which the market is expected to handle flood cover commercially.
Mortgages and insurance in plain English
Most lenders will lend, provided insurance is in place
High-street lenders do not generally refuse a mortgage on flood grounds alone. What they require is evidence of buildings insurance covering flood, which is the gate. If you can get a quote, the mortgage usually follows.
Get an insurance quote before you exchange, not after
For any property that sits in a high or medium flood band, get a real quote from an insurer (not a comparison estimate) before you commit. Quotes can come back with eyebrow-raising excesses on the flood element. Better to know up front.
Past flooding history matters more than the band
An insurer will ask whether the property has flooded in the last 10 to 20 years. A "yes" reshapes your premium more than the EA band does. Ask the seller. Ask the neighbours. Look at the EA's recorded flood outlines if your report includes them.
A high band is not a deal-breaker
Plenty of properties in high flood-risk bands change hands every year and live perfectly well with the risk, especially with property-level resilience measures (raised electrics, flood doors, sealed brickwork). What a high band changes is how much you should pay, what insurance will cost, and what you ask the seller about flood defences.
What we don't show (yet)
- Groundwater flooding. Slow rises from saturated ground, especially relevant in chalk areas of the south. The EA does not publish a national probability map equivalent to RoFRS for this.
- Reservoir failure beyond the EA's standard "Risk of Flooding from Reservoirs" dataset. If you want a deep dive into specific reservoir scenarios, that's a specialist environmental survey.
- Sewer flooding. Risk of foul or combined sewers backing up under heavy rain. Held by the local water company, not the Environment Agency.
Common questions
Know before you offer
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