How to get help with court and tribunal fees

Help with Fees applies to fees charged by courts and tribunals in England and Wales. That includes the issue fee and hearing fee on a civil money claim, the application fee for a divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership, the probate application fee, fees in the family court, fees for enforcing a judgment, and fees in tribunals that charge them.

It covers each fee separately. A civil claim that goes to a hearing generates an issue fee and then a hearing fee, and each needs its own application — a grant of remission on the first does not carry over automatically. The same applies to enforcement fees later on. Keep the reference number you are given, because subsequent applications will refer back to it, but do not assume one application covers the whole case.

The Court of Protection uses a different form, COP44A, for help with its fees. Applications to be appointed a deputy, and applications for one-off decisions, both attract fees, and both can be remitted.

Some proceedings have no fee at all, so there is nothing to remit. Employment tribunals in Great Britain do not currently charge claimants a fee — fees were introduced in 2013 and quashed by the Supreme Court in 2017 — but this has been consulted on again since, so check the current position before assuming. Most social security and child support appeals to the First-tier Tribunal are also free, which is why an appeal against a benefit decision costs nothing to bring.

Some fees are outside the scheme. Fees charged by bodies that are not courts or tribunals — for example, a professional regulator, a private arbitration scheme, or a solicitor's own charges — are not covered. Nor are the costs of representation, expert reports, translation or travel, though some of those can be covered by legal aid where it is available.

Immigration and asylum tribunal fees have their own arrangements, including exemptions for certain categories of appellant. Where you are appealing an immigration decision, check the specific exemption rules for that tribunal as well as the general scheme.

Eligibility turns on three questions applied in order: what savings and investments you have, whether you receive a qualifying benefit, and what your gross monthly income is.

The savings test comes first and is the one that most often disqualifies people who would otherwise pass. You must have less than a set amount in disposable capital — savings, investments, stocks and shares, and money in accounts, but generally excluding your home, your household furniture, your car and certain compensation payments. The threshold rises with age and with the size of the fee, so an older applicant facing a large fee is allowed more savings than a younger applicant facing a small one. If you are over the threshold you are refused regardless of income.

The benefits test comes second. Receipt of certain means-tested benefits — including Universal Credit within an income limit, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Pension Credit guarantee credit and Scottish Civil Legal Aid — generally gives full remission provided the savings test is passed. Non-means-tested benefits such as Personal Independence Payment, Attendance Allowance, contribution-based ESA and Carer's Allowance do not qualify on their own, which surprises many applicants.

The income test comes last, for people not on a qualifying benefit. It looks at gross monthly income, with allowances for a partner and for each child, and produces either full remission, a partial remission where you pay a reduced contribution, or no remission. Because the allowances for dependants are meaningful, a household with children can pass on an income that a single applicant could not.

Both partners' income and capital count if you live with a partner, unless you are on opposite sides of the case. This trips up applicants who assume only their own finances matter.

The three tests are applied to your circumstances on the date of the application, not over an averaged period, so a month with unusually low income can matter — and so can a lump sum that has just arrived in the account.

Apply online through the GOV.UK Help with Fees service, or on paper using form EX160 if you cannot use the online service. The guidance notes, EX160A, explain the tests in detail and are worth reading before you start — they set out the current thresholds, which change.

Apply before or at the same time as the fee falls due. If you are issuing a claim online, the service asks whether you want to apply for Help with Fees as part of the process. If you are filing a paper application, send the EX160 with it. If you have already paid, a refund is possible only within a limited period after payment, and you will need to apply and ask for the refund explicitly.

Have your evidence ready. You will normally need proof of any qualifying benefit — an award letter or a Universal Credit statement — and evidence of income such as payslips or bank statements, along with details of savings. The online service asks for figures rather than documents up front, but the court can and does ask for evidence afterwards, and applications are checked.

Give accurate figures. Providing false information to obtain a fee remission is an offence, and the practical consequence is that the fee becomes payable in full, your application or claim can be struck out, and you may face further action. If your circumstances are complicated — irregular self-employed income, a partner whose finances you do not fully know — explain rather than guess.

Note the reference number you are given. It is used to link the remission to the case, and to subsequent applications in the same proceedings. Losing it causes delay.

If you are applying for probate, divorce or a Court of Protection matter, check which form the service wants — the general EX160 covers most court and tribunal fees, but the Court of Protection uses COP44A. Sending the wrong form is a common cause of the fee being demanded before the application is processed.

Where a deadline is close, do not delay filing while waiting for a decision on the fee. Submit the application or claim with the Help with Fees application attached; the court treats the case as issued on the date it receives both together, and missing a limitation deadline is far worse than paying a fee you might have avoided.

Ask why. A refusal usually names the test you failed. If it is the capital test and the figure was wrong — a joint account you do not control, a sum held for someone else, a compensation payment that should have been disregarded — write back with the correction and the evidence.

Ask for the decision to be reviewed. Help with Fees decisions can be reconsidered, and errors about which benefits qualify and how income is calculated are not rare. Put the correction in writing with documents attached rather than by phone.

There is also an exceptional route. The Lord Chancellor retains a discretionary power to remit a fee where there are exceptional circumstances, even if the standard tests are not met. It is used sparingly, it must be asked for explicitly with an explanation of the exceptional circumstances, and it is worth invoking where a strict application of the thresholds would produce an obviously unjust result.

Separately, consider whether legal aid is available. Legal aid is a different scheme covering advice and representation rather than fees, and it remains available in England and Wales for a defined list of areas including most family cases involving domestic abuse, housing where the home is at immediate risk, community care, mental health, discrimination, asylum and some debt matters. Where legal aid is granted, it will normally cover the court fee too.

Check for fee-free alternatives before paying anything. Ombudsman schemes, statutory redress schemes, internal complaints processes and free mediation all resolve disputes without a court fee. Benefit appeals and most employment tribunal claims are free to bring. In many cases the fee is avoidable because the court is avoidable.

If you are representing yourself, use the free support that exists: Citizens Advice, law centres, university law clinics, the Support Through Court service in some court buildings, and GOV.UK's own guidance on representing yourself. None of it removes the fee, but all of it reduces the chance of paying a fee for a case that was never going to work.

Scotland has a separate system and none of the England and Wales forms apply. Court fees in Scotland are set by Scottish Ministers in fees orders for the Court of Session, the sheriff courts, the sheriff appeal court and the justice of the peace courts, and are published by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.

Exemption rather than remission is the Scottish concept, and it is closer to all-or-nothing than the English partial remission model. Exemption is generally available to people in receipt of qualifying means-tested benefits, and to people who have been granted civil legal aid or advice and assistance for the matter. There is no equivalent of the English income-based sliding scale for most fees.

Applying is done at the court rather than through a central online service. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service publishes fee exemption forms which you complete and lodge with the relevant court, together with evidence of the qualifying benefit or legal aid certificate.

The link to legal aid matters more in Scotland than in England. Because a civil legal aid grant carries fee exemption with it, and because the Scottish Legal Aid Board's scope and financial limits differ from those in England and Wales, checking legal aid eligibility is a more productive first step for a Scottish litigant than it is for an English one.

Scotland's Simple Procedure for low-value civil claims has its own fee, and the same exemption arrangements apply. Because the procedure is designed for party litigants, fee exemption combined with Simple Procedure is the main route by which a person on a low income brings a small money claim in Scotland.

mygov.scot summarises court fees and the exemption position, and the Scottish Legal Aid Board publishes eligibility guidance. Use those rather than GOV.UK, which describes a scheme that does not exist in Scotland.

Northern Ireland operates its own fee structure and its own remission arrangements, administered by the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service within the Department of Justice. Court fees are fixed by Northern Ireland legislation and are not the same as the fees charged in England and Wales for equivalent proceedings.

Remission of fees is generally available on the basis of receipt of qualifying benefits or low income, and is applied for through the court office handling the case rather than through a GOV.UK service. Because the arrangements are administered locally, the court office is the correct first point of contact for a Northern Ireland applicant.

Legal aid in Northern Ireland is administered by the Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland, and the scope of civil legal aid there differs from Great Britain — some categories cut back in England and Wales by the 2013 reforms remain available in Northern Ireland. Anyone assuming that legal aid is unavailable because it would be unavailable in England should check the Northern Ireland position specifically.

The Northern Ireland small claims process carries its own fee, and the enforcement of any resulting judgment through the Enforcement of Judgments Office carries a further fee, so a claimant should budget for both stages rather than only the first.

nidirect and the Department of Justice publish the Northern Ireland guidance. As with Scotland, GOV.UK content about Help with Fees, EX160 and COP44A describes an England and Wales scheme and should not be relied on in Northern Ireland.

Across all three jurisdictions the underlying principle is the same — a person who cannot afford a fee should not be shut out of the court — but the mechanism, the forms, the thresholds and the body you deal with are all different, and applying the wrong one costs time you may not have if a deadline is approaching.