Fee indexation on 1 April and how to check the current figure

English planning fees now move on 1 April every year, which means the figure you quoted a client in February may be wrong by the time they instruct you in April. The uplift in December 2023 was the large one, raising fees by a substantial margin across the board. What followed it matters more for day-to-day practice: an annual indexation mechanism that adjusts the whole schedule each April in line with inflation, subject to a cap. There is no announcement letter, no transitional relief and no grace period.

Why the schedule moves annually now

Planning fees are set nationally in the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012, as amended. For most of the last decade they changed only when a new statutory instrument was laid, which happened rarely and produced sharp step increases.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 provided for a different approach, and the amending regulations that followed introduced annual adjustment from 1 April. The intention is to stop the real value of fee income falling between uplifts, which in turn is meant to support authority resourcing.

For a consultancy running a fee ledger, the effect is straightforward. Every figure in every fee proposal now has a shelf life that ends on 31 March.

Which fee applies: submission or validation

The fee that applies is the one in force when the application is made. In practice authorities take the date the application is received, which for online submissions is the date the submission completes and the payment is taken.

The complication arises with applications received in the last week of March and validated in April. An application received on 28 March with the correct fee for that date should not attract a top-up because the validation officer opened it on 3 April. Some authorities handle this well. Others issue an invalidity notice asking for the difference.

Two habits deal with it. First, submit and pay together rather than submitting and paying later, because a fee paid in April against a March submission invites the argument. Second, where you submit in the last fortnight of March, email the validation team the same day with the submission reference and the fee calculation you have applied. A dated email resolves in five minutes what a dispute resolves in three weeks.

Where the current figure lives

Take the number from a source that updates, and take it on the day you submit.

• The fees regulations as amended, on legislation.gov.uk, are authoritative but are the slowest to read.
• The national guidance on fees for planning applications sets out the categories and is updated when the schedule changes.
• The Planning Portal's fee calculator is the quickest working tool, and it carries the Portal's own service charge separately from the statutory fee.
• The council's own fee page is useful for local pre-application charges, which are set locally and are not part of the national schedule.

Where two of those disagree, the regulations win. Where the council's page is out of date, say so politely and cite the current instrument. Officers are usually as pleased as you are to have the right number.

When a fee is underpaid

An application with the wrong fee is not valid, and an invalid application has no determination clock running against it. That is the real cost of a fee error: not the shortfall, but the fortnight of programme lost while the correspondence goes back and forth.

There is no general right of appeal against a validation decision, so a fee dispute is resolved by argument rather than by adjudication. Make it a short argument:

1. Identify the category in the schedule you have applied and quote it.
2. Set out the measurement basis you used, whether that is dwelling numbers, gross floor space created or red line site area.
3. Ask which category and which measurement the authority has applied.
4. Escalate to the validation team leader if the exchange goes past two emails.
5. Pay under protest where the programme matters more than the money, and reserve the position in writing.

Overpayment is worth watching too. Councils refund overpaid fees on request, but they will not usually spot the error for you.

Budgeting across a financial year boundary

For a project running several applications, the indexation date is a programme item, not just an accounting one.

An outline application in March and reserved matters in June sit on different schedules. A phased development submitting discharge applications quarterly will pay a different amount for the same exercise in the second half of the year. Variations under section 73, non-material amendments under section 96A and prior approval applications all carry flat fees that move with the rest of the schedule.

Where you are quoting a client for a multi-application programme, quote the disbursements as an estimate with an explicit note that statutory fees are indexed annually on 1 April and will be charged at cost. That single sentence prevents a difficult conversation later.

There is one situation where the date really does change behaviour. A large outline application with a substantial fee, ready in the third week of March, is worth submitting rather than holding for a tidy start to the next quarter.

Keeping the record

The fee paid is evidence, and it gets used more often than people expect.

Keep the calculation, the category applied, the payment reference and the validation confirmation together in the application file. You will want them when claiming the fee concession for a further application of the same character within 12 months, when reconciling disbursements at the end of a project, and when a client asks two years later why the same application cost more the second time.

The other reason to keep it is the planning guarantee. National guidance provides for a refund of the application fee where an authority fails to determine an application within 26 weeks, with a shorter period for householder applications, unless an extension of time has been agreed in writing. Agreeing an open-ended extension of time in an email signs that entitlement away. Where an authority asks for an extension, agree a specific date rather than an indefinite one, and note the guarantee position in the file when you do.

An illustrative example: a scheme submits a major application in early February with an agreed extension of time to the end of July, then a second extension by email with no end date. The fee is substantial, the decision arrives in October, and nobody thinks to ask about the guarantee because the extension was open-ended. That is a recoverable sum lost to a two-line email.

The statutory fee is rarely the largest line in a planning budget. Supporting documents usually are, and PlanScope's pricing sits alongside those: one free report, £50 per report, or £150 per month for the Professional tier aimed at architects, planning agents and consultants. Work through the report types a scheme needs before fixing the budget, and set the statutory fee out as a separate, indexed line. A Planning Statement is the one document almost every application carries.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Fee figures change annually and are set nationally, so check the current schedule before relying on any number.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.