What an NRCC is, and which ones your project needs

One certificate per building system

NRCC stands for nonresidential certificate of compliance — the design-phase Title 24, Part 6 form for commercial buildings, and the counterpart to the residential CF1R. It is completed by the project proponent and submitted to the building department during plan check. The California Energy Commission created it and publishes the blank forms itself, in a set scoped to nonresidential, hotel/motel and high-rise multifamily buildings.

There is no single NRCC. It is a family of documents, one per building system, and a project files the ones its scope touches. Under the 2025 code there are eleven:

• NRCC-ENV-E — envelope, component approach.
• NRCC-LTI-E — indoor lighting.
• NRCC-LTO-E — outdoor lighting.
• NRCC-LTS-E — sign lighting.
• NRCC-MCH-E — mechanical system.
• NRCC-PLB-E — domestic water heating.
• NRCC-ELC-E — electrical power distribution.
• NRCC-PRC-E — process systems.
• NRCC-SAB-E — solar and battery.
• NRCC-CXR-E — building commissioning.
• NRCC-PRF-01 — the performance compliance method, produced by compliance software.

The middle letters are the part worth learning. Most of them carry over to the installation forms — NRCI-ENV-E and NRCI-MCH-E cover the same systems their NRCC counterparts do. The match is not exact: there is no NRCI for commissioning or for the performance method, and NRCI-ELC-E covers electrical-ready requirements rather than power distribution. The acceptance and verification forms drop the scheme entirely and are numbered by test instead, like NRCA-MCH-04-A for duct leakage. A full map of the Title 24 compliance forms is on its own page.

Four families, one letter apart

The CEC created four categories of nonresidential compliance document, and only the fourth character separates them.

• NRCC — certificate of compliance. Completed by the project proponent, submitted during plan check. The design-side document, approved before a permit issues.
• NRCI — certificate of installation. Completed by the installing technician or contractor during construction, submitted during field inspection.
• NRCA — certificate of acceptance. Completed by the technician who performs the CEC acceptance tests. For lighting controls and mechanical systems, that technician must be certified by a CEC-approved Acceptance Test Technician Certification Provider (ATTCP).
• NRCV — certificate of verification. Required only in some instances. Completed by an independent third-party Energy Code Compliance (ECC) rater, recorded on a data registry, and submitted before the certificate of occupancy.

Registration is one place residential habit misleads. Among the nonresidential families, the NRCV is the one the CEC describes as going through a data registry; NRCC registration is written into Part 1 §10-103(a)1D as contingent on the Commission approving a data registry. So in most cases an NRCC is not registered the way a CF1R is.

Which projects use NRCC instead of a CF1R

Under the Energy Code, a nonresidential building is one the California Building Code identifies as Occupancy Group A, B, E, F, H, I, L, M, S or U — assembly, business, educational, factory and industrial, high hazard, institutional, laboratory, mercantile, storage and utility. High-rise residential buildings and hotels and motels are handled in the nonresidential sections of Part 6 and use the nonresidential form set.

A single-family building under the 2025 code is an R-3 building with two or fewer dwelling units, a townhouse, an R-3.1 building, or a Group U building on a residential site. Three-plus-unit low-rise multifamily uses the LMCC certificate instead — see the multifamily page. Conditioning sets the depth: the CEC’s own summary is that a directly or indirectly conditioned building must meet the mechanical, envelope, indoor lighting and outdoor lighting requirements, while one that is neither must meet only the indoor and outdoor lighting requirements. That is why an unconditioned warehouse shell still files lighting forms.

How a tenant improvement gets scoped

NRCC documents are required for newly constructed buildings and for additions and alterations to existing buildings. A tenant improvement is new construction inside an existing building, and can involve envelope, mechanical or lighting work.

A TI does not drag the rest of the building up to current code. The only time systems outside the permit application get pulled in is when the tenant improvement conditions previously unconditioned space. Alterations scope the same way: the code applies to the components being altered, and untouched portions need not comply. A commercial HVAC change-out follows that logic — the mechanical portion of the work.

Lighting is the line most tenant improvements land on. Under §141.0(b)2I, an alteration to an indoor lighting system that includes 10 percent or more of the luminaires serving an enclosed space has to take one of three compliance paths — two measured against the §140.6 indoor lighting power allowance, one a small one-for-one swap that cuts wattage by at least 40 percent — and in every case the control requirements in Table 141.0-F. The section carries six written exceptions, including an alteration limited to adding controls or replacing lamps, ballasts or drivers, so a straight relamp is not automatically a trigger. More on Title 24 lighting. And a change of occupancy alone, with no tenant improvement work, requires no action under the Energy Code.

Who signs an NRCC

Every applicable NRCC is signed twice — once by a documentation author, once by a responsible person. There are no licensing requirements on the documentation author; the responsible person must be eligible under Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code to accept responsibility for the design. The CEC gives the worked example itself: a technician may complete the NRCC-MCH-E, but only the engineer of record can sign as responsible person.

That split is the arrangement here. I am the documentation author; you stay the responsible person. One form is a real exception: NRCC-CXR-E, the commissioning certificate, has to be reviewed and signed by a licensed professional engineer or licensed architect, or by a licensed contractor representing services performed under the direct supervision of one. I am none of those. Acceptance testing and field verification are separate trades with their own credentials; I do neither.

What plan check does with them

The certificates go in with the permit application and must be approved by the building department, by stamp or authorized signature, before the permit issues; where plans are required, they are incorporated into the plan set. During energy plan review the checker reads the forms against the drawings — lighting wattages and controls on the NRCC-LTI-E against the electrical plans, U-factor and SHGC on the NRCC-ENV-E against the window schedule, equipment efficiencies on the NRCC-MCH-E against the mechanical schedule. A form that disagrees with a schedule is where energy comments usually start; when one lands it is a plan-check correction, not a restart. Later in the job, a change that reduces the efficiency recorded on an approved NRCC generally requires a new one.

What I do on a commercial or TI job is the model and the NRCC set, prepared as documentation author. Send the plans and a flat quote comes back the same business day. The glossary covers the rest.

Prices

Flat fees, in writing before I start. No hourly, no bid package, no change-order games — the number on the quote is the number on the invoice.

One honest note

NRCC questions

If yours isn’t here, see the full FAQ or call and ask.