Pre-Equipping Car Parks With Charging Stations: What the Law (LOM) Says

For a property manager, a landlord or a company director, pre-equipping car parks with charging stations is no longer an option: it is a regulatory obligation that applies, to varying degrees, to many buildings. Anticipating this issue means avoiding costly emergency works and securing the value of your property portfolio. Here is a clear overview of what the law provides for — without guesswork, and with the right reflexes to check which obligation applies to your building.

What is car park pre-equipping?

Pre-equipping is a concept often confused with installing charging stations. It is in fact a separate, earlier step: preparing the car park's infrastructure so that a charging station can be connected quickly and at lower cost, the day the need arises.

In concrete terms, pre-equipping a parking space means putting in place the passive components required for future charging:

• Cable routing: ducting, cable trays or conduits running from the electrical panel to the spaces concerned.
• Electrical provisions: the pathway that lets you pull the supply cables later on without reopening floors or drilling through structures.
• Sizing the plant room and the panel so they can ultimately accommodate the power required for several charge points.

The idea is simple: the heavy structural work for the connection is done up front. When a user wants a charging station, all that remains is to fit the equipment and pull the cable through the ducting already in place, without breaking up the surface or undertaking major works. Pre-equipping is therefore a preparatory investment, not an immediate commissioning.

Pre-equipping and installed charge points: an essential difference

The regulations distinguish between two requirements that must not be confused, because they do not carry the same obligations or the same costs.

• Pre-equipping concerns passive infrastructure: a certain percentage of spaces must be made “ready to receive” a charging station, via the ducting and provisions described above.
• The actual installation of charge points corresponds to charging stations physically fitted and operational, in a minimum number, on certain car parks.

Depending on the type of building, its use (commercial, multi-unit residential, public-facing) and the size of its car park, the regulations may require one, the other, or both. A building may thus be required to pre-equip a large share of its spaces and to install a minimum number of active charging stations. Understanding this distinction clearly is essential to correctly assess your obligation — and its cost.

Who is affected by the obligation?

This is the central question, and the answer depends on several criteria. The principle set out by the law is that, beyond a certain number of parking spaces, the car parks attached to certain buildings must be pre-equipped, or even fitted with charge points.

The following are covered, according to thresholds and rules specific to each case:

• Non-residential buildings: office buildings, business premises, shops, public-facing buildings whose car parks exceed a certain number of spaces.
• Multi-unit residential buildings: condominiums and collective housing with a car park above a threshold number of spaces.
• New and existing buildings alike: the regulations treat new construction (and major renovations), where the requirement is built into the project, differently from the existing stock, which is subject to its own obligations with their own deadlines.

The level of obligation — the proportion of spaces to pre-equip, the number of charging stations to install — varies according to these categories and according to the size of the car park. It is therefore not a single rule but a set of requirements. This is precisely why a case-by-case assessment is necessary: two neighbouring buildings may fall under different obligations.

The regulations set numerical thresholds (number of spaces, proportion to pre-equip) that depend on the nature of the building and its construction date. These values change: do not rely on a figure “heard somewhere”. Have the exact obligation applicable to your building verified against the regulations in force.

The role of the LOM law and its decrees

The framework for these obligations comes from the Mobility Orientation Law (LOM), which made the development of electric charging a structuring pillar of mobility policy. The LOM sets out the principles; it is then the implementing decrees and orders that set the practical arrangements: space thresholds, proportions to pre-equip, minimum number of charge points, and the compliance timetable.

Several texts combine and interlock with other provisions, in particular those arising from construction law and from European regulations transposed into French law. For the manager, grasping the essentials is enough: the obligation exists, it is progressive, and its precise parameters are set by regulation and liable to change. This is why we stress checking at the time of your project rather than memorising a given threshold.

Regulatory deadlines: a timetable to verify

Bringing a building into compliance cannot be done overnight. The regulations provide for deadlines, that is, dates before which the buildings concerned must meet their obligations for pre-equipping and, where applicable, for installing charge points.

These deadlines differ depending on the situation:

• New buildings incorporate the obligation from the design and construction stage.
• Existing buildings are subject to their own deadlines, sometimes staggered according to the size of the car park or the nature of the activity.

Because these dates are set by decree and may be subject to adjustments, it would be unwise to put forward a fixed timetable here. The right approach is to have the deadline applicable to your building established by a professional, based on its category and its situation. The stakes are real: once the deadline has passed, a non-compliant building faces compliance obligations, and urgency always drives up the cost of works.