How many appliances does the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) star label cover, and how many are mandatory?
The Ministry of Power's January 2026 review says the programme covers 41 appliances: 18 mandatory and 23 voluntary. BEE's own earlier counts were 26 in March 2020 and 34 in March 2023. Lists differ by date, so check the product against the latest list.
The counts, release by release
- 2 March 2020: 24 appliances covered, 10 of them mandatory. Adding deep freezers and light commercial air conditioners makes 26.
- 1 March 2023: the programme covers 34 appliances, including four new ones (multi-door refrigerators, table and wall-mounted fans, pedestal fans, induction hobs), voluntary from 1 March 2023.
- 1 March 2024: packaged boilers and commercial beverage coolers (visi coolers) launched, both voluntary.
- Year End Review 2025 (16 January 2026): electric vehicle (EV) chargers and evaporative air coolers added in financial year (FY) 2025-26. The programme now covers 41 appliances, 18 under the mandatory phase and 23 under the voluntary phase.
Check of the arithmetic
18 + 23 = 41. In 2020 the release gives 26 in total, 10 of them mandatory (the rest voluntary, my subtraction: 26 minus 10 is 16). From 26 in March 2020 to 41 is 15 more appliances in under six years, on the releases' own counts.
Why the answer pages differ
The answer on mandatory and voluntary labels lists 11 mandatory products and names factory items such as industrial motors, pumps, compressors, diesel generator sets and chillers as voluntary. The 2020 release counts 10 mandatory and the 2026 review counts 18. The releases do not list the 18, so I cannot match the lists product by product. Counts depend on the date and on whether variants of one product are counted once or separately, which is my reading and not stated in the releases. For a purchase, take the product name to the latest Bureau of Energy Efficiency list rather than relying on any total.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the kilowatt hours on your bills before and after a change sit in one place.
- BEE star label: mandatory or voluntary
- BEE star labels and your emissions
- Packaged boiler star label
- Visi cooler star label
Sources: Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Power: star rating for deep freezers and light commercial air conditioners (2 March 2020), Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Power: Bureau of Energy Efficiency 21st Foundation Day (1 March 2023), Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Power: packaged boilers and visi coolers programmes (1 March 2024), Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Power: Year End Review 2025 (16 January 2026)
Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Counts are quoted from four Press Information Bureau releases of 2 March 2020, 1 March 2023, 1 March 2024 and 16 January 2026. The 2024 release prints no total. Differences with the older answer page on mandatory labels are explained on the page, not resolved product by product. The older answer page on mandatory labels still says 11 with no date, so it needs a dated note and a link to this page before this one goes live.