Planning application fees by unit count and floorspace

Planning application fee bands are set nationally by the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012 as amended, so the amount does not vary between councils. What varies is which band your application falls into, and that turns on three measures: the number of dwellings, the gross floorspace created, or the site area.

Fees were uplifted in December 2023 and are subject to annual indexation, so any pound figure you read in an article or an old fee note is likely to be out of date. Take the number from the Planning Portal fee calculator or the current regulations on the day you submit.

The three bases the regulations use

Almost every band reduces to one of three counting rules.

Dwellings drive the fee for full applications creating new homes. The regulations set a flat amount for each dwelling up to and including 50, then a lump sum plus a lower marginal amount for each dwelling above 50, subject to an overall cap.

Site area drives outline applications. The fee is charged per 0.1 hectare up to 2.5 hectares, then a lump sum plus a reduced rate per additional 0.1 hectare, again capped. Round up: 0.31 hectares counts as four units of 0.1 hectare, not three.

Gross floorspace drives most non-residential development, charged per 75 m² created up to a threshold, then a lump sum plus a marginal rate above it. Floorspace means the gross internal area created, so a mezzanine counts and a rearranged existing floor does not.

Householder applications for alterations or extensions to a single dwellinghouse sit outside all three on a flat fee.

Where applicants get the count wrong

Three errors turn up repeatedly, and each one produces an invalidation.

Counting net rather than gross dwellings on a full application. Demolishing one house and building four is a four-dwelling fee, not three.

Using the developable area rather than the application site area on an outline. The fee follows the red line, including access strips, landscape buffers and attenuation land. If you drew a generous red line for highway works, you paid for it.

Forgetting that a mixed scheme attracts fees on more than one basis. A development of eight flats over a retail unit is charged on the dwellings and on the commercial floorspace, and the two are added.

Where an application covers land in two authorities, the fee position is set out in the regulations and the councils will tell you which of them collects it.

Prior approval, certificates and other flat fees

Several submissions carry fixed fees regardless of scale.

• Prior approval applications under the GPDO, with different amounts for different Parts and Classes, including the larger home extension procedure, Class MA commercial to residential, Class Q agricultural to residential and telecommunications under Part 16
• Applications under section 73 to vary or remove a condition, and section 96A non-material amendments, each at a flat rate
• Approval of details reserved by condition, charged per request, with a lower amount where the permission relates to a dwellinghouse
• Advertisement consent, at a flat rate per application

Lawful development certificates work differently. A certificate for a proposed use or operation under section 192 is charged at half the fee that would apply to a planning application for the same development. A certificate for an existing use under section 191 is charged at the full equivalent rate, which reflects the evidential work involved rather than any policy judgement.

Listed building consent carries no fee. That surprises people who assume the more sensitive consent must cost more.

Reserved matters and staged submissions

Where outline permission has been granted, the reserved matters fee is calculated as the fee that would have been payable for a full application for the whole development. If reserved matters are submitted in stages, each submission is charged, and once the aggregate paid reaches that full amount, subsequent submissions attract a flat fee instead.

Plan the staging with that in mind. Splitting reserved matters into five parcels to suit a build programme is a legitimate commercial decision, but it front-loads fees against a cash flow that has no sales in it yet.

Indexation and the free repeat application

Since April 2025 planning fees have been subject to annual adjustment, so the figure changes on a fixed date each year rather than only when regulations are amended. Two consequences for a project programme. Submitting the week before an adjustment date saves the difference. And a fee quoted in a consultant's appointment six months earlier is an estimate, not a price.

The regulations have long included a concession allowing one further application of the same character on the same site by the same applicant, free of charge, within a set period after a withdrawal or refusal. That provision has been amended, and it should not be assumed. Check the current regulations before planning a resubmission strategy around it.

The fee is the small part of the budget

For a self-builder the application fee is rarely the number that decides anything. The supporting documents are.

A single-dwelling application on an unconstrained plot might need a design and access statement, a location and block plan, and little else. Add a watercourse, a mature oak, a bat-friendly barn or a busy junction and the evidence base grows quickly. Where a site crosses the major thresholds, an Affordable Housing Statement and a Statement of Community Involvement may be required at validation, and a Transport Assessment rather than a short statement. Where an Environmental Impact Assessment is required, the evidence base is an order of magnitude larger and a competent expert is legally required to prepare the environmental statement.

Consultant quotes for narrative documents commonly run into hundreds or thousands of pounds each. That is the gap PlanScope is built for, and PlanScope pricing sets out the free report, the single report price and the Professional tier for architects and agents.

Working out what you owe

1. Decide the application type: full, outline, reserved matters, householder, prior approval, certificate, section 73 or section 96A.
2. Count the relevant measure: gross dwellings, gross internal floorspace created, or red line site area rounded up to the next 0.1 hectare.
3. Check whether the scheme spans more than one basis and add them.
4. Run the Planning Portal fee calculator on the day of submission and keep the printout with the application.
5. Check the authority's own validation page for any local requirement that changes the document schedule, since that affects cost far more than the fee band.

Illustrative example: a plot with an existing bungalow, proposed for demolition and replacement with three houses and a detached annexe. The fee is calculated on three new dwellings, since the annexe is ancillary rather than a separate dwelling, and the demolition of the bungalow does not reduce the count. Had the annexe been designed as a self-contained unit with its own access and facilities, it would have been a fourth dwelling for fee purposes and a different proposition for policy purposes too.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; fee levels change and are indexed annually, so check the current regulations and the Planning Portal fee calculator, and confirm the position with your local planning authority. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.