Court Fees and Help With Fees

The fee to start a money claim depends on the amount you are claiming. Interest and costs are left out of the calculation. The bands are fixed:

• Up to £300 — £35
• £300.01 to £500 — £50
• £500.01 to £1,000 — £70
• £1,000.01 to £1,500 — £80
• £1,500.01 to £3,000 — £115
• £3,000.01 to £5,000 — £205
• £5,000.01 to £10,000 — £455

Notice how steeply the ladder climbs at the top of the small claims track. The jump between the £3,000 to £5,000 band and the £5,000 to £10,000 band more than doubles the fee, which is worth bearing in mind if the value of your claim is genuinely marginal — though you must never inflate or deflate a claim to manipulate the fee, and abandoning part of a claim to fall into a lower band means giving up that part permanently.

The fee is added to the sum claimed, so a successful claimant normally recovers it from the defendant along with the debt. That is one of the few costs that is recoverable even on the small claims track under CPR 27.14.

Above the small claims range the fee stops being a flat figure and becomes a proportion of the claim:

• £10,000.01 to £200,000 — the fee is 5% of the amount claimed. GOV.UK's own instruction is to take the amount claimed, multiply by 0.05, and round down to the nearest penny if necessary.
• More than £200,000 — the fee is capped at £10,000, which is exactly 5% of £200,000. However large the claim, the issue fee goes no higher.

The practical effect is a sharp cliff edge at £10,000. A claim for exactly £10,000 attracts the flat £455 fee. A claim for £10,000.01 moves into the percentage band and the fee jumps to over £500 — and the claim also leaves the normal small claims range, so the limited costs protection of CPR 27.14 is likely to fall away too. If your claim sits close to £10,000, work out both the fee and the costs exposure before deciding what to claim.

Remember that the amount claimed for fee purposes excludes interest and costs. A £9,800 debt with £400 of accrued interest is still a £9,800 claim for banding.

The issue fee is not the end of it. If the defendant files a defence and the case is listed for a hearing, a separate hearing fee becomes payable. Its size depends on the value of the claim and on which track the case has been allocated to, with the small claims track carrying much lower fees than the fast, intermediate and multi-tracks. The current figures are published in the HMCTS civil court fees leaflet, EX50, which is the authoritative source and is updated when fees change.

Two things matter more than the exact figure:

• The deadline is real. The court sends a notice of hearing that states the fee and the date by which it must be paid. If the fee is not paid by that date the claim is struck out. Claimants lose otherwise good cases this way.
• It is refundable if you settle in time. Where a case settles or is discontinued and the court is told far enough in advance of the hearing, all or part of the hearing fee is refunded on a sliding scale. Tell the court in writing as soon as a settlement is agreed.

Other fees you may meet along the way include the fee for an application on notice where no other fee is specified — £321 on form N244 — and the lower fee of £126 where the application is made by consent or without notice. Applying to set aside a judgment is an ordinary application on notice at £321. A certificate of satisfaction or cancellation on form N443 costs £19.

Winning does not get you paid. If the defendant does not comply with the judgment, each enforcement method carries its own fee, payable up front and added to the judgment debt:

• Warrant of control (county court bailiffs, form N323) — £96.
• Attachment of earnings order (form N337) — £139.
• Charging order on land or property (form N379) — £139.
• Third party debt order freezing a bank account (form N349) — £139.

These fees are added to the judgment debt, so in principle the debtor pays them. In practice you pay first and recover only if the enforcement works. That is why it is worth finding out what the debtor actually has before choosing a method — spending on a warrant of control against someone with no goods worth selling simply adds to a debt that will not be paid.

Help with Fees (the scheme that replaced fee remission) can reduce a court or tribunal fee or remove it altogether. Eligibility turns on two tests — capital and income — and both must be satisfied.

The savings and capital test. How much you may have depends on the size of the fee and your age. If you are 66 or over you may have up to £16,000 in savings whatever the fee. If you are 65 or under, the limit rises with the fee — your capital must be under £4,250 where the fee is £1,420 or less, under three times the fee above that and up to £5,000, and under £16,000 above £5,000.

The income test. You qualify on income if your monthly income is £1,420 or less as a single person, or £2,130 or less as a couple. Those figures increase by £425 for each child aged 0 to 13 and by £710 for each child aged 14 or over.

The benefits route. You automatically satisfy the income test if you receive income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Universal Credit with earnings of less than £6,000 a year, or the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit. You must still meet the savings test.

Where you qualify on both tests you may get the whole fee covered; where your income is above the threshold but not by much, you may get a partial reduction and pay the balance.

There are two routes:

• Online. Apply through the GOV.UK Help with Fees service when you make your court application. You receive a Help with Fees reference number to quote when you file.
• On paper. Complete form EX160 and submit it with your court application. The accompanying guidance notes explain the evidence required.

You will need evidence of income and savings — recent bank statements, wage slips, or benefit award letters. Apply for each fee separately: a reference obtained for the issue fee does not automatically cover the hearing fee or an enforcement fee later on, so you will need to apply again when each becomes due.

If you have already paid. You can apply for a refund if you paid a court fee in the last 3 months and you were eligible for Help with Fees at the time you paid. Keep the receipt and apply as soon as you realise.

One important limitation. Money Claim Online cannot process a Help with Fees application. If you need help with the fee, issue your claim on paper form N1 at the Civil National Business Centre, or check whether the newer HMCTS money-claims service will accept a Help with Fees reference. Note also that the debtor's own bankruptcy application fee paid to the Insolvency Service Adjudicator is not a court fee and Help with Fees does not apply to it.