What's the most common guard height figure?

900 mm turns up repeatedly as the figure for stairs, ramps and their landings — the UK, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Spain (below a 6 m drop) and, informally, several others all sit at or near 900 mm for this specific case. Floor-edge, balcony and deck guards are usually set higher, commonly 1000–1100 mm.

Which countries have no fixed guard height requirement?

Sweden, since the 1 July 2025 reform removed its general numeric guard-height requirement outright — only child-safety opening and gap figures remain fixed. Indonesia never had a numeric figure to begin with; its rule is qualitative ('cukup rapat' — close enough). And Japan's headline 1.1 m figure is scoped so narrowly (special-use, 3+ storey, windowless-room, or >1,000 m² buildings only) that a typical 1–2 storey detached house usually falls outside it entirely, leaving no fixed guard height for the ordinary residential case.

Why does Japan have a guard height figure that doesn't apply to most houses?

Because Article 126 of the Enforcement Order sets 1.1 m for a balcony or rooftop edge, but that clause is scope-gated by Article 117 to a specific set of building types and sizes — broadly, larger, non-residential, or multi-storey buildings. A standard detached house rarely meets that scope, so in practice there's no guard-height figure that applies to it, even though 1.1 m is the number most commonly quoted for Japan.

Do stair guards and floor/balcony guards use the same height?

Often not. Several countries — the UK, Ireland, Norway and New Zealand among them — set a lower figure for a stair/landing guard (typically 900–1000 mm) and a higher one for a floor edge, balcony or roof edge (1000–1200 mm), because the fall risk and typical use of the two locations differ.

Guard & Barrier Heights Compared: 14 Countries, Two Genuine Holdouts

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Guard height is one of the few figures on our building-code hubs that almost every country still nails down to a hard number — which makes the exceptions genuinely interesting. Twelve of the fourteen countries we cover fix a specific guard or barrier height, most clustering around a familiar 900–1100 mm band. The two holdouts are worth knowing about before you build: Sweden abolished its numeric guard-height requirement outright in the 2025 reform, and Japan’s well-known 1.1 m figure turns out not to apply to most ordinary houses once you read the scope-gating clause behind it — leaving Japan with, in practice, no fixed guard height for a typical 1–2 storey detached home either.

Guard & barrier height, by country

Country	Guard height	Governing standard / clause
Australia	1000 mm (floor/deck/balcony/landing); 865 mm above a stair (from the nosing line)	NCC 2025 Housing Provisions 11.3
USA	36 in / 914 mm, required where a walking surface is >30 in above grade/floor within 36 in horizontally	IRC 2021 R312.1.1/.2
New Zealand	900 mm (stairs/ramps & their landings); 1000 mm (balconies/decks/internal floor edges)	NZBC F4/AS1 Table 1
UK (England)	900 mm (stairs/landings/ramps/internal floor edges); 1100 mm (external balconies & roof edges)	Approved Document K (2013)
Canada	900 mm (within a dwelling & on stair flights); exterior 900 mm where ≤1800 mm above grade, else 1070 mm	NBC 2020 9.8.8.3
Ireland	900 mm (stair/ramp/landing); 1100 mm (floor/balcony/roof edge)	TGD Part K 2014, Diagram 6
France	≥1.00 m, reducible to 0.80 m if the guard element is >50 cm thick — the one codified guard figure, but its own text names balconies/terraces/galleries/loggias, not stairs by name	CCH art. R134-59
Germany	MBO model baseline: 900 mm (1.00–12.00 m fall height, residential), 1100 mm above 12 m — but only Nordrhein-Westfalen states this in statute; Bavaria’s law requires only “sufficiently high and sturdy,” no number	MBO §38 model / statute varies by Land
Spain	0.90 m (drop ≤6 m); 1.10 m (drop >6 m) — one rule for both stair/landing and floor/balcony edges	CTE DB-SUA 1 §3.2.1
Indonesia	No numeric figure anywhere. A baluster/guard is mandatory on any open stair side, spacing required only to be “cukup rapat” (close enough) — qualitative only	Permen PUPR 14/2017, Lampiran II §1, pts 19–20
India	1.0–1.2 m at a balcony, roof-terrace or verandah edge; no dedicated stair-guard height figure found	NBC 2016 Part 3 §12.11 (“Parapet”) — bis.gov.in
Japan	1.1 m — but only for a 2nd-storey-or-higher balcony/rooftop edge, and only in special-use / 3+ storey / windowless-room / >1,000 m² buildings; no guard-height figure exists for stairs at all, and an ordinary 1–2 storey detached house typically falls outside this scope entirely	Building Standard Law Enforcement Order, Art. 126 (scoped by Art. 117)
Norway	900 mm (stairs/ramps & landings); 1000 mm (balconies/floor edges, ≤10 m drop); 1200 mm (>10 m drop); exempt below a 3.0 m drop to ground	TEK17 §12-15
Sweden	No fixed general guard height — removed in the 1 Jul 2025 reform; only child-safety opening/gap figures remain fixed (≤100 mm vertical gap, 0.8 m anti-climb zone)	BFS 2024:9, Kap 2 §11

Sweden dropped the number, but kept the child-safety detail

Sweden’s 2025 reform (BFS 2024:9, in force 1 July 2025) removed the general guard-height figure entirely — there’s no longer a Swedish equivalent of “900 mm at a stair, 1000 mm at a balcony” to cite. What survives is narrower but still hard-numbered: a maximum 100 mm vertical gap and a 0.8 m anti-climb zone, both aimed specifically at stopping a young child getting through or over a guard. It’s a useful reminder that “no fixed height” and “no rules” aren’t the same thing — Sweden simply moved the enforceable detail from the overall height down to the openings within it.

Japan’s 1.1 m figure is famous, but rarely applies to a house

Ask most people what Japan’s guard height rule is and you’ll hear “1.1 m” — and that number is genuinely in the Enforcement Order, at Article 126. But Article 126 is scope-gated by Article 117 to a specific set of larger or non-residential buildings: special-use buildings, anything 3+ storeys, windowless rooms, or floor areas over 1,000 m². A typical 1–2 storey detached house sits outside that scope in practice. Read narrowly and literally, that means the country most people associate with a specific, fixed 1.1 m guard figure has, for the ordinary house case, effectively no fixed guard height at all — and no dedicated stair-guard figure exists in Japanese law regardless of building type. It’s the same pattern as Sweden, arrived at from the opposite direction: not a repeal, but a scope clause that quietly excludes the most common building type.

Stairs and floor edges usually get different numbers — check which one you need

Most of the remaining twelve countries don’t use one guard height for everything. New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and Norway all set a lower figure for a stair, ramp or landing guard (typically 900 mm) and a higher one for a floor edge, balcony or roof edge (1000–1200 mm) — the reasoning being that a stair guard is braced against and gripped differently than a balcony rail, and the fall consequences differ too. Spain and Canada instead band their figure by drop height rather than location. Before you build a guard to “the” figure for your country, double-check which specific case — stair, landing, floor edge, or balcony — the number you’ve found actually covers.

Check your own country’s full guard rules

The table above is the headline figures. Each country’s stair page covers handrail heights, opening/gap limits, and the full clause text:

Get your baluster spacing right along with the height

A compliant guard isn’t just the right height — the gaps between balusters matter just as much, especially where a child-safety figure applies. Chippy Tools’ baluster spacing calculator works out even spacing across any run in seconds, so you can nail both the height and the gap in one pass instead of two.