We get some version of this question most weeks now: “we make [X], does that qualify for BICS?” It’s a fair question, because the honest answer is that eligibility isn’t decided by what industry you’d describe yourself as being in over a coffee — it’s decided by two specific codes, and both have to line up.

The first is your SIC code. Every company registered at Companies House has one or more Standard Industrial Classification codes attached to it, and BICS eligibility runs off those codes, split into two tiers. “Frontier” sectors — things like automotive and aerospace — need to clear an electricity intensity threshold of 0.9%. “Foundational” sectors, which cover industries like chemicals, need to clear a higher threshold of 2.7%. Those percentages refer to how electricity-intensive the sector is as a whole, not your individual business, so it’s a sector-level test rather than something you can influence company by company. If your registered SIC code isn’t on the published list, that route to eligibility is closed, full stop — which is exactly why it’s worth checking your company’s registered code at Companies House rather than assuming it matches what you actually do day to day. Codes drift, especially in businesses that have grown or diversified since incorporation.

The second test is about what you actually produce, using Harmonised System commodity codes — the six-digit codes used internationally to classify traded goods. Here’s a detail that trips people up: you don’t need to export anything to qualify on this test. What matters is that you manufacture a product that falls under one of the eligible HS codes; whether it then gets sold domestically or shipped abroad doesn’t affect the test itself. The government has described this as the final list for the scheme’s first year, with no further changes planned to the SIC or HS code lists once applications open — so this is worth treating as settled rather than checking back periodically hoping something changes.

Both tests have to pass. A business in an eligible sector making an ineligible product doesn’t qualify, and neither does the reverse. That combination is deliberately restrictive, and it’s the single biggest reason applications get filtered out before they even reach the electricity-mix calculation. If you’re not sure where your business lands, checking both codes against the published lists — properly, not from memory — is the first and most useful thing you can do before the application window opens in October.