Flood zone
Zone 1, 2 or 3 from the Flood Map for Planning. It only describes flooding from rivers and the sea and ignores flood defences, which is what planning decisions need. Zone 3 is the highest probability.
Free check
Check the flood risk of a property
Enter an English postcode. You get the answer on screen, free, from the same Environment Agency maps a surveyor or insurer would look at. Then drag the pin onto your own plot if you need the answer for one building rather than one postcode.
England only. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own flood maps.
Reading the result
What the answers mean
Risk of flooding: high, medium, low, very low
The annual chance of flooding at that point: high is more than 3.3% (1 in 30), medium 1% to 3.3%, low 0.1% to 1%, very low less than 0.1%. Rivers and the sea and surface water each have their own map, and defences are taken into account.
Past floods
Whether the point lies inside the outline of a flood the Environment Agency has on record, and the date and cause where known. The record is incomplete: a flood that nobody mapped is not in it.
Warning areas
The named areas for which the Environment Agency issues flood alerts and warnings near the postcode. You can sign up for free alerts for your own address on GOV.UK.
A postcode is not a front door. If the answer matters, drag the pin to the exact plot, and read how this works for what the maps can and cannot tell you.