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BS 3632 vs EN 1647, what the build standard actually means for you

BS 3632 is the residential build standard, EN 1647 is the holiday one. The difference is insulation, glazing and ventilation, not a right to live there. Here is what each standard covers, what manufacturers publish, and what the upgrade does not buy you.

Published 2026-08-13 · updated 2026-08-13 · 10 min read · all figures sourced below

BS 3632 is the British standard for residential park homes. EN 1647 is the European standard for caravan holiday homes. A lodge built to BS 3632 has more insulation, better glass and residential levels of ventilation, so it is more usable in January. It does not change what you are allowed to do with it, and on a holiday park it does not let you live there.

That last point is where the confusion sits. Sales staff use "residential specification" and "residential" as though they were the same thing. One is a manufacturing specification for the box. The other is a planning status that belongs to the land underneath it.

What is the difference between BS 3632 and EN 1647?

BS 3632 covers homes built for permanent residence. EN 1647 covers caravan holiday homes built for temporary or seasonal use.

BSI published BS 3632:2023, "Residential park homes. Specification", on 28 September 2023. It runs to 48 pages and is maintained by BSI committee B/511. It replaced BS 3632:2015, which BSI records as withdrawn on 30 September 2024, so both editions were live for a year. BSI lists the superseded editions as 1981, 1989, 1995, 2005 and 2015.

The current European standard is BS EN 1647:2026, "Leisure accommodation vehicles. Caravan holiday homes. Habitation requirements relating to health and safety", published on 30 March 2026 and running to 44 pages. Its scope says it "specifies requirements intended to ensure safety and health of persons using caravan holiday homes as defined in EN 13878, as temporary or seasonal accommodation". The phrase "temporary or seasonal" is the whole difference. BSI records a 2004 edition with a 2008 amendment, withdrawn on 31 July 2012, followed by 2012 and 2018 editions and a 2021 amendment, so this is a standard that moves every few years.

Willerby states the difference on its own help pages. "EN 1647 is the European standard for holiday homes, which are suitable for seasonal holiday use", while "BS 3632 is the British residential standard and these homes are suitable for 12 month use (subject to the site licence)." The bracket at the end carries more weight than the rest of the sentence.

Does a BS 3632 lodge let you live on a holiday park?

No. The build standard has no bearing on whether you can live somewhere.

Residence is controlled by the planning permission and the site licence attached to the land. Section 1(2) of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 defines a protected site as land in England needing a site licence under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, then excludes land where the permission or licence "is expressed to be granted for holiday use only", or is "otherwise so expressed or subject to such conditions that there are times of the year when no caravan may be stationed on the land for human habitation". The words "in England" were inserted by the Mobile Homes (Wales) Act 2013, and Wales has run a separate regime since.

Section 5(1) of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 borrows that definition wholesale: "protected site" there "has the same meaning as in Part I of the Caravan Sites Act 1968". A holiday park is not a protected site, so the Mobile Homes Act does not apply to it, whatever the lodge on the pitch was built to.

The National Caravan Council says it in plainer words. Its consumer guide, dated February 2025, answers the question "Does the Mobile Homes legislation apply to holiday parks?" with "No. The Mobile Homes legislation protects the rights of owners of residential park homes on licensed residential parks. It does not apply to holiday caravans/holiday lodges sited on holiday parks where the park is licensed to operate as a holiday park." The NCC's holiday caravan statistics page describes the product it counts as "a caravan built to comply with British and European Standard EN 1647 or British Standard BS 3632, i.e. for use as leisure accommodation, not for full-time residential occupation". A BS 3632 unit on a holiday park is still a holiday caravan in the industry's own figures.

The same NCC guide notes that many parks cap continuous occupation anyway, giving "no longer than 60 consecutive days" as an example, and says the cap can come from the site licence conditions or from the agreement you sign. More detail is in can you live in a holiday lodge all year round and what a 12 month licence actually means.

What does BS 3632 actually change in the build?

Insulation, glazing, ventilation, heating and the chassis.

ABI lists what goes into its residential specification build: a "fully galvanised heavy-duty chassis", "residential levels of ventilation", "Low E' high performance glass fitted to all doors and windows", "full condensing boiler gas central heating", insulation to walls, floors and roofs to reach the required U values, and "sound insulation to the exterior to meet required sound reduction values". ABI says models "from the Ingleton and up" can be built this way.

Omar publishes its own numbers against the 2023 standard: a floor U value of 0.25 W/m2K, walls at 0.27 W/m2K on park homes and 0.29 W/m2K on lodges, a roof at 0.17 W/m2K, and windows typically 1.4 W/m2K. Omar describes its wall figure as "10% better than BS 3632:2023" and its roof as "a 15% improvement on BS 3632:2023". Those percentages imply the standard itself sets 0.30 W/m2K for walls and 0.20 W/m2K for roofs. Factory Cabins, a manufacturer that published a note on the revision, gives the 2015 to 2023 change as walls from 0.35 to 0.30 and floors from 0.35 to 0.26. The two accounts agree on the wall figure, which is the only cross-check available without buying the standard.

A U value measures heat loss through a square metre of structure. Lower is better. A wall at 0.30 loses about a seventh less heat than the same wall at 0.35, which is real but not transformative on its own.

Why can you not read the standard yourself?

Because both standards are sold rather than published, so nothing above can be checked at source for free.

The reseller en-standard.eu lists BS 3632:2023 at 414 euros for 48 pages, ISBN 978 0 539 16993 5. BS EN 1647:2026 is listed on the same site at 44 pages, ISBN 978 0 539 29111 7. BSI's own landing pages give the title, date and committee, and no requirement figures at all. Every U value in this article is therefore a manufacturer's account of what the standard demands, not the standard itself. Treat those figures as marketing claims that happen to be checkable against each other, and nothing stronger.

How much does the residential specification add to the price?

Manufacturers do not publish the upgrade price, and that gap is consistent across the ones that publish anything.

Willerby lists the Boston, a 40 by 20 lodge, with "Residential Specification BS 3632 (2023)" included as standard, from £110,000 excluding VAT for two bedrooms and £113,000 for three. It lists the Mapleton, also 40 by 20, from £122,300 excluding VAT for two bedrooms and £123,900 for three, with the same BS 3632 (2023) specification shown as an optional extra. Willerby does not publish what that option costs. The two lodges are not otherwise comparable, so the £12,300 gap between them is not the price of the standard.

Omar went the other way on the revision. It states that "from February 2024, all new Omar and Wessex park homes and lodges will be constructed to the revised standard BS 3632:2023 at no extra cost". That is a claim about absorbing the cost of an update, not about the gap between a holiday specification and a residential one.

All of those are list prices before VAT, delivery, siting, connection and the park's margin, and none of them is what you will pay. A more expensive unit also depreciates from a higher number, which is covered in how much a static caravan loses each year. Put your own quoted figures into the ownership cost calculator instead of the headline price.

Can you use an EN 1647 holiday caravan in winter?

Sometimes, and the industry's own thermal rating assumes you will not.

The NCC's consumer guide is blunt about it: "check that the holiday caravan/lodge you intend to buy is built with appropriate winter pack which provides a greater insulation level to deal with cooler temperatures, as not all holiday caravans/holiday lodges are intended for occupation in winter weather conditions". It adds that a holiday caravan used a lot in colder months, particularly an older one, will bring higher energy costs and more condensation.

The NCC's Structural Thermal Rating Scheme puts a number on the fabric. Its leaflet for holiday caravans built to BS EN 1647, version 4 dated January 2024, says ratings are "based on the calculated seasonal heating load per square metre of floor area", and that because holiday caravans are designed for holiday occupancy "they are given a rating that assumes that the unit isn't used during the coldest part of the year from the beginning of December until the end of February". A holiday caravan's thermal score is calculated for a nine month year.

The scheme's own descriptions disagree on the scale. The leaflet says "a score of between 1 and 10 is awarded to each unit". The NCC's Energy Efficiency Rating Scheme page says the labels "express the rating as a number between 0-10 on a circular scale". Higher is better either way, and larger floor areas score more highly than identical construction on a smaller footprint, so only compare units of similar size.

How do you check which standard a holiday home is built to?

Look for the NCC badge on the outside and the certificate in the user's handbook.

The NCC's Manufacturers Approval Scheme covers touring caravans under BS EN 1645, motorhomes and campervans under BS EN 1646, holiday caravans under BS EN 1647 and residential park homes under BS 3632. Approved manufacturers face up to 500 individual checks on a single model, must pass three consecutive formal inspections, and then get unannounced surveillance audits. A unit that passes carries the NCC Badge of Approval on the exterior with the matching certificate in the handbook.

If the badge is missing on a pre-owned unit, ask the seller for the manufacturer's declaration of compliance rather than accepting a verbal answer. Willerby's position on the older standard is worth quoting to anyone who tells you a holiday caravan is fine to live in: "A home built to EN 1647 is not suitable for living in. Homes built to this standard are only suitable for seasonal accommodation."

Does the standard change how big the lodge can be?

No. The size limit comes from statute and applies whichever standard the unit meets.

Section 13 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 sets the maximum dimensions for a twin unit assembled on site: 20 metres long excluding the drawbar, 6.8 metres wide, and 3.05 metres internal height. Go beyond those and the structure stops being a caravan for the purposes of Part I of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, which drags it into ordinary planning and building control. Those figures were amended for England on 1 October 2006, for Wales on 30 November 2007, and for Scotland on 15 November 2019.

Three questions are worth asking before you pay for a residential specification on a holiday park. Ask the park whether its licence conditions require it, because some do and some do not. Ask what the option costs in writing, since no manufacturer publishes it. Ask what the NCC thermal rating is on both versions of the model, because that is the one comparable number anybody will give you.

Sources