What the planning application fee buys and what it does not

The planning application fee buys you one thing: a decision on the application you submitted, by the local planning authority, under the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012. What the planning fee covers stops there. It does not pay for advice before you apply, for the drawings and reports you have to supply, for discharging the conditions afterwards, for the Community Infrastructure Levy, or for Building Regulations approval. It does not even buy a decision within eight weeks, because that period is a target the council can ask you to extend.

How the national fee schedule is structured

Fees are set nationally, not by the council, so the figure for a given application is the same in Cornwall as in Cumbria. The regulations sort applications into categories and then price each one by a different measure.

A householder application for alterations or extensions to a single dwellinghouse is a flat fee, whatever the size of the extension. New dwellings are priced per unit, with a lower marginal rate once the number passes a threshold and an overall cap. Non-residential buildings are priced by bands of gross floorspace created. Some categories, such as changes of use, outdoor sport and the erection of plant, are priced by site area in hectares. Prior approval applications under the General Permitted Development Order have their own, much lower, fees.

Lawful development certificates follow the parent application. A certificate for an existing use or operation under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 attracts the same fee as an application for planning permission for that development would. A certificate for a proposed use under section 192 is half that.

Annual indexation and the date it applies from

Planning fees were uplifted in December 2023 and the regulations now provide for annual indexation, with the revised figures taking effect from 1 April each year. That single fact matters more than any specific number, because a figure quoted in a blog post or an old council leaflet is wrong by the next April.

So do not budget from a remembered figure. Take the current amount from the council's published fee page or the Planning Portal fee calculator on the day you submit, and note that a fee calculated correctly on 28 March will be short if the application lands on 2 April.

Councils also hold local discretion in two places that look like fees but are not. Pre-application advice charges and section 106 monitoring fees are set by each authority under separate powers.

What the fee does not pay for

This is the list that catches householders out, and almost none of it is optional:

• The drawings. Scaled existing and proposed plans, elevations and a location plan are yours to produce.
• The supporting documents on the council's local validation list, which can include a Planning Statement, a heritage assessment in a conservation area, an arboricultural report where a protected tree is nearby or a drainage note.
• Pre-application advice, charged separately on a published scale.
• Building Regulations. A separate application to a building control body, with its own plan-check and inspection fees, covers structure, insulation, fire safety and drainage. Planning permission says you may build it. Building Regulations approval says you built it properly.
• Discharge of conditions, which carries its own fee per request.
• The Community Infrastructure Levy, where the council charges it, and any section 106 contributions.
• Highway works. A dropped kerb or an access alteration needs separate consent from the highway authority, with its own charges.
• Party wall matters, which sit entirely outside planning and are covered in our note on budgeting a party wall award alongside an extension.

Appeals are the one thing that is free. Lodging an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate costs nothing, though preparing it rarely does.

Invalid applications and whether the fee is returned

An application that does not meet the national and local validation requirements is not refused. It is simply not valid, and the statutory clock never starts.

Most councils will hold the fee while they wait for the missing items, and most will refund it, sometimes minus an administrative deduction, if the application is withdrawn before validation. That is practice rather than entitlement, and it varies, so check the authority's published policy before you assume a refund.

Once an application is validated the fee is spent. A refusal does not generate a refund, and neither does a withdrawal after registration. The money bought the determination process, not the outcome.

Where a second fee becomes payable

Four situations commonly trigger another payment. A fresh application after a refusal, where the rules on repeat applications have been amended more than once in recent years and should be checked against the current regulations rather than assumed. A change to an approved scheme that goes beyond what section 96A allows as non-material, which has to be made under section 73 or as a new application. A new application after the council failed to determine the first one and you chose not to appeal. And any additional consent regime the scheme triggers, such as advertisement consent.

Amendments are where budgets quietly slip. Each section 73 application and each discharge of conditions request has its own fee, and a build that generates six separate condition discharges over a year has paid six times. We look at how that compounds in our piece on the cost of a pre-commencement condition you cannot discharge.

Free and reduced fee categories

Several categories carry no fee at all, and they are worth knowing because councils do not always volunteer them.

Listed building consent is free, which surprises people who assume the most restrictive consent must be the most expensive. Applications for works to trees protected by a Tree Preservation Order are free. Where an application is required only because an Article 4 direction or a condition has removed permitted development rights, no fee is payable. Works to provide access to or facilities within a dwelling for a disabled occupant, and works to improve access to a building open to the public, are exempt, and the detail of that exemption is set out in our guide to planning fee exemptions for disabled adaptations.

Note that a free application still has to be valid. The exemption removes the fee, not the document list.

Paying through the portal against paying the council

Submitting through the Planning Portal is convenient and keeps everything in one place, but the Portal may apply its own service charge on top of the statutory fee for some application types. Many councils also run their own submission route, or will take a payment directly, and the statutory fee is identical either way.

For a single householder application the difference is small. For an architect submitting dozens a year it is not, which is the kind of arithmetic worth doing once.

Checking the figure before you submit

Three places, in this order. The council's own fee page, because it will reflect the current indexed figures and any local administrative charges. The Planning Portal fee calculator, which takes the application type and the measure and returns the amount. Then the 2012 Regulations as amended, if the category is unusual and you want to see the wording.

Get the category right before you worry about the number. A proposal that is really a change of use priced by site area, submitted and paid for as a householder application, will be invalid and will cost you weeks.

PlanScope drafts the supporting statements for a householder or minor application and flags what it cannot know with a "TO BE CONFIRMED" marker, which keeps the document cost separate from the statutory fee. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. If you want to see what the drafting side costs, PlanScope pricing sets out one free report, £50 per report, or Professional for unlimited reports.