Indian Stair Rules: Riser, Going, Width & Headroom (NBC 2016)

The requirement

For a house stair in India, the max rise is 190 mm and the min going is 250 mm. Headroom is 2.2 m and clear width is 1.00 m. No more than 12 risers in one flight. The rules sit in the National Building Code 2016, Part 3 §12.18.

Part 4 restates the same numbers in its fire and life safety chapter. This page uses the figures for a one or two family home. NBC files that under occupancy A-2.

• Rise. Each step can be at most 190 mm high (§12.18.1.3). Other building types are stricter at 150 mm.
• Flights. No more than 12 risers in a single flight (§12.18.1.3).
• Going. Each tread must be at least 250 mm deep, not counting the nosing (§12.18.1.2). Other building types need 300 mm.

Keep every rise the same and every going the same. The stair then climbs evenly.

Two more figures round it out:

• Headroom. At least 2.2 m clear over the stair, and in any passage that runs under a landing (§12.18.2).
• Width. At least 1.00 m clear for a house stair (§12.18.1.1(a)). Row housing of two storeys gets a narrower exception: 0.75 m.

Guards, barriers and the handrail gap

Guarding at a balcony, roof-terrace or verandah edge has a real NBC figure. The parapet or handrail there must sit between 1.0 m and 1.2 m above the finished floor level (Part 3 §12.11, “Parapet”). NBC gives no separate guard height for the stair flight itself beyond that parapet clause.

Handrail height for a normal house stair is simply not set. Worth being blunt here. Two handrail figures get passed around for NBC. Neither one applies to a normal inside stair.

• 1000–1200 mm is for external fire-escape stairs on larger buildings (Part 4 §4.4.2.4.3.4(h)).
• 850–950 mm comes from Annex B, NBC’s access rules. Annex B’s own scope line says it “does not apply to private residences” (§13.1.2).

NBC does require a handrail on a house stair. It just sets no height for it. Want a firm number instead of a gap? Maharashtra’s UDCPR fills it locally at a minimum of 1.0 m from the centre of the tread. See the Maharashtra page.

Work it out on site

Say your floor-to-floor height is 2800 mm and you are setting out a house stair.

1. Pick the riser count. 2800 ÷ 190, the tallest rise allowed, gives 14.7. Round up to 15 risers. But the cap is 12 risers per flight, and 15 is over it. So split the stair into two flights with a landing between, or drop the riser height. Flights of 8 and 7 risers keep you under the cap.
2. Set the going. Try 250 mm, the minimum. 15 risers means 14 goings across both flights. Check that the total run fits your stairwell.
3. Check width and headroom. Hold the layout against the 1.00 m and 2.2 m minimums.

The calculator rounds the riser count for you. It checks the 12-riser cap too.

Do it in 5 seconds

Related

• The India building code hub explains how the NBC model code and state bye-law adoption works.
• The Maharashtra page covers where UDCPR sets its own stair width and handrail figures.
• The Delhi page covers where Delhi’s UBBL grades stair width by dwelling-unit size.

Sources

• National Building Code of India 2016 (NBC 2016 / SP 7:2016), Bureau of Indian Standards — Part 3 §12.18 (rise, going, width, headroom, parapet) and Part 4 §4.4.2.4.3 (occupancy-specific restatement, external stair and handrail figures). Full text is gated behind a paid BIS webstore login; check the current status at bis.gov.in.

Read this first. These figures are from NBC 2016, which BIS has withdrawn and replaced with SP 7:2026 (“National Building Construction Standards 2026”), gazette-notified in 2026 (reported 30 April 2026) and now BIS’s current national standard. NBC is also a model code: it has no legal force until your state or municipality adopts it into its own bye-laws, and every state bye-law checked for this hub still names NBC 2016 specifically, not SP 7:2026. Confirm which edition your local bye-law currently adopts before you build to any figure above.