Planning Application Fees 2026: Every Cost of Consent in London

Planning application fees 2026: the council fee by application type

The fee depends on what you apply for and how much of it. Full applications are charged per home or per 75 m² of new floorspace. Outline applications are charged per 0.1 hectare of site. Part of a unit counts as a whole unit, so 80 m² of new floorspace pays for two lots of 75 m².

The table shows the fees in force since 1 April 2026, with the proposed figures for applications made from 8 December 2026 alongside them.

Four things in the schedule catch developers out.

1. Schemes above 49 homes change formula. Today the fee is £32,578 plus £196 for each home above 50. The draft keeps £818 per home for the first 49 and adds £236 for each home above that.
2. Mixed schemes are not simply added up. Homes over shops, or offices with a gym, follow the Planning Portal's combination rules. Get the figure confirmed before you submit.
3. Conversions count the homes you create. One house becoming three flats pays for two additional homes, not three.
4. Two proposals on the same day cost less. An alternative scheme for the same site, submitted by the same applicant on the same day, pays half the fee. That applies to the cheaper of the two.

The proposed increase from 8 December 2026

The Government has published draft amending regulations, updated on 1 September 2026. They come into force on 8 December 2026 only if Parliament approves them. Until then the April 2026 fees apply, and the draft figures can still change.

The draft applies the new fees to applications made on or after that date. An application made on 7 December pays the current fee, even if the decision comes in 2027. The draft also resets the annual inflation adjustment, so the next routine change would fall on 1 April 2027.

Where the draft bites hardest

In money terms the biggest steps fall on developers rather than homeowners. A Section 73 application on a major scheme goes from £2,076 to £3,150. Each new home in a full application goes from £610 to £752. Discharging a condition goes from £309 to £435, and the maximum fee on one application rises to £513,512.

Pre-application advice charges in London

Application fees are national. Pre-application charges are set by each borough, include VAT, and are not refundable. They buy a meeting with a case officer and a written view of what the council will resist. Two 2026/27 schedules show the range.

Lambeth includes one meeting in each fee and charges £5,352.00 for a follow-up meeting on a scheme of nine to twenty homes. Schemes of 51 homes or more are quoted individually, and most boroughs offer a planning performance agreement for large or complex sites.

Is it worth it? On anything beyond the routine, yes. Officers tell you what they will resist before you pay for a full design. The advice is not binding, so it has to be tested against policy and precedent. Our guide to pre-application planning advice in London covers what to bring and what to ask.

The costs the fee table hides

A ten-home scheme in London pays the council £6,590 for the application and perhaps £7,000 to £13,000 for pre-application advice. Neither figure is the budget. The money goes on what the validation checklist demands and on what the consent obliges you to pay.

1. Technical reports. Daylight and sunlight, transport, noise, contamination, flood risk, heritage, ecology, energy and a fire statement on taller buildings. Each one is a consultant's fee, and a block of flats in London rarely needs fewer than five.
2. Drawings and the planning case. Existing and proposed drawings, a design and access statement and a planning statement. Thin submissions are the usual cause of a refusal, so this is not the place to save.
3. CIL. The Community Infrastructure Levy is charged per square metre of new floorspace by the borough and by the Mayor. It is payable once work starts and is often many times the application fee. Our guide to CIL and Section 106 explains how both are calculated.
4. Section 106 and affordable housing. Negotiated obligations, and on larger schemes the biggest line in the viability appraisal. They should be in the numbers before the application, not discovered at committee.
5. Time. Rent, finance and a lender's deadline run while the council decides. Our guide to how long planning permission takes sets out the real timescales.

Small fees, same evidence

The routes with the smallest fees are not always the cheapest. A full application for change of use planning permission costs £610 per flat, while prior approval for office to residential costs £260 per home. Both still need daylight, noise, transport and flood evidence, and prior approval has to be decided in 56 days.

How to avoid paying the fee twice

The free second attempt has gone. Until 6 December 2023 an application resubmitted within twelve months of a refusal or withdrawal paid no fee. That exemption was removed, so every resubmission now pays the full fee again. Five habits keep the fee to one payment.

1. Vary rather than reapply. If a condition is the problem, a Section 73 application costs £608 on a non-major scheme. A small change to the approved drawings is a non-material amendment at £309.
2. Do not sign away the refund without thinking. The fee is refunded if the council fails to decide within 26 weeks on a major application, or 16 weeks on a smaller one. Agreeing an extension of time in writing removes that refund.
3. Submit alternatives together. Two proposals for the same site on the same day pay one full fee and half of the other.
4. Use the pre-application meeting for the hard questions. Height, massing, affordable housing and daylight. Those are the reasons London schemes are refused.
5. Cost the scheme while it is drawn. A consent that cannot be built for the appraised cost gets redesigned and resubmitted, with a second fee and a second year.

Where we start

The last point is where we start. At Allitsen Road in St John's Wood we appraised a derelict club as four costed schemes, in four weeks. Each came with a planning strategy, before any application was made. Our Development Director has taken more than 10,000 homes through planning, and the construction team prices every option while it is being drawn.

What a London scheme should budget before consent

The council fee is the one cost in this guide you cannot negotiate. Everything else can be reduced by getting the scheme right before it is submitted. That means an officer's view before the design is fixed. It means a report list agreed with the validation team, and CIL and Section 106 in the appraisal from day one.

We take development schemes from £3M to £150M GDV and run planning, design, cost and construction as one team. Craftex has built that way since 2016, with around 60% of labour in-house and every project delivered ahead of programme and on budget.

If you want the full cost of consent on your site before you pay the first fee, get a free site appraisal.