Renewal runs from 1 to 31 October 2026. The confirmed figures are the 2025/26 ones, the compensation fund contributions for 2026/27 are proposals pending Legal Services Board approval, and the date you apply decides whether you renew again a few days later.
Article · 3 August 2026
Very few firms can say what they pay the SRA in a year without looking it up, because it arrives in three separate pieces: a fee per individual, a fee for the firm based on turnover, and a compensation fund contribution charged at both levels. Renewal for practising certificates and the firm periodic fee runs from 1 to 31 October 2026.
The figures below in the first section are the confirmed 2025/26 ones. The 2026/27 compensation fund figures are proposals published on 16 July 2026 and are subject to Legal Services Board approval; the 2026/27 individual practising certificate fee had not been published at that date. Both are flagged where they appear.
An individual practising certificate or registration costs £396. That is made up of a regulatory fee of £326 and a compensation fund contribution of £70, and it includes a £48 administration fee.
Part-year applications are pro-rated: £327 for January to March, £257 for April to June, and £188 for July to October. That matters when a firm takes on a newly admitted solicitor part way through the practising year.
The firm compensation fund contribution is £1,950. It is payable by every authorised body that held or received client money during the period from 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025, or, for a new firm, that intends to hold or receive client money during the practising year.
Read that trigger carefully. It is held or received, at any point in the period. A firm that closed its client account in March still held client money during the period and still pays the contribution for that year.
The firm periodic fee is calculated by formula rather than published as a flat figure. It is (Turnover − C) × B + D, applied across ten turnover bands, with an additional £200 per overseas branch office. The SRA publishes worked examples: a firm with turnover of £200,000 pays £1,116, and a firm with turnover of £800,000 pays £3,846.
Practising fees are currently split 60/40 between firms and individuals, and compensation fund contributions 50/50.
Take a firm with turnover of £800,000, four solicitors holding practising certificates, no overseas office, and a client account. On the confirmed 2025/26 figures:
The figures are illustrative and a real firm's periodic fee depends on its own turnover within the banded formula, but the shape holds. Two things are worth reading off it. The £7,380 is 0.92% of that firm's £800,000 turnover — 7,380 ÷ 800,000 — so as a rule of thumb the SRA takes just under a penny in the pound at this size. And £1,950 of it, a little over a quarter, is compensation fund money triggered purely by holding or receiving client money.
These are proposals, not confirmed figures. As at 16 July 2026 the SRA proposed moving the compensation fund split from 50/50 to 70% individuals and 30% firms, producing contributions of £170 per individual and £2,170 per firm. Both are pending Legal Services Board approval. The individual practising certificate fee for 2026/27 had not been published at that date, so the total cost per solicitor cannot yet be stated.
Two things follow from the published numbers. First, both contributions are higher than their 2025/26 equivalents — £170 against £70 per individual, and £2,170 against £1,950 per firm — so the change is not purely a redistribution between the two. Second, the increase falls disproportionately on firms with more practising solicitors relative to turnover, which in practice means firms with several qualified fee earners and modest fee income.
For the illustrative firm above, the proposed contributions would add £400 across four individuals and £220 at firm level — around £620 more before any change to the practising certificate regulatory fee, which has not been published.
Renewal runs from 1 to 31 October 2026. Applying in October gives a renewal date of 31 October 2026 — which means renewing again almost immediately. Applying from 1 November gives a renewal date of 31 October 2027. It is an easy thing to get wrong for a newly admitted solicitor or a new firm application, and the cost is a second fee and a second application within weeks.
The £1,950 firm contribution is not charged for being a law firm. It is charged for holding or receiving client money during the relevant period. That puts it in the same category as several other costs that follow the client account rather than the practice: the annual Accountant's Report under Rule 12.1, the bookkeeping to support a three-way reconciliation every five weeks under Rule 8.3, and the COFA time that goes with both.
Very few firms add those up. When they do, a firm whose only client money is money on account of its own costs sometimes finds that the Rule 2.2 route — not operating a client account at all, in the narrow circumstances that rule permits — is worth examining properly. It is not available to a firm handling completion monies or estate funds, and it is a decision about what work the firm does rather than a cost-saving exercise, but the arithmetic is worth seeing. Our exemption arithmetic article sets out where the thresholds sit.
All the dates that make up a law firm's compliance year are collected on our tax and compliance calendar. If you want the SRA cost, the Accountant's Report and the client account work planned as one budget rather than three surprises, that is what law firm accounts and tax covers, and our guide to the Accounts Rules explains the obligations these fees attach to. Firm owners is the page that sets out how we work with the person carrying all of it.
What has changed in the Accounts Rules, the dates coming up, and one number worth checking in your firm. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
On the confirmed 2025/26 figures, an individual practising certificate or registration costs £396. That is a regulatory fee of £326 plus a compensation fund contribution of £70, and it includes a £48 administration fee. Part-year applications are pro-rated at £327 for January to March, £257 for April to June and £188 for July to October. The individual practising certificate fee for 2026/27 had not been published as at 16 July 2026, so the confirmed 2025/26 figures are the ones to budget from, with the proposed change to compensation fund contributions noted separately and treated as subject to Legal Services Board approval.
By formula rather than as a flat charge. The firm periodic fee is (Turnover minus C) multiplied by B, plus D, applied across ten turnover bands, with an additional £200 for each overseas branch office. The SRA publishes worked examples that give a sense of scale: a firm with turnover of £200,000 pays £1,116, and a firm with turnover of £800,000 pays £3,846. Because the calculation is banded, the marginal cost of additional turnover is not constant, so a firm close to a band boundary should work from its actual figure rather than interpolating between the two published examples.
Every authorised body that held or received client money during the relevant period. For the confirmed 2025/26 contribution of £1,950 that period was 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025, and a new firm pays where it intends to hold or receive client money during the practising year. The trigger is held or received at any point in the period, so a firm that closed its client account part way through still pays for that year. For 2026/27 the SRA has proposed a contribution of £2,170 per firm alongside £170 per individual, moving the split to 70% for individuals and 30% for firms, pending Legal Services Board approval.
Yes, and this catches people out every year. Renewal runs from 1 to 31 October 2026. If you apply during October, your renewal date is 31 October 2026, which means renewing again almost immediately for the following year. If you apply from 1 November, your renewal date is 31 October 2027. The trap usually bites on a first application rather than a routine renewal, so it is worth flagging for newly admitted solicitors and for new firm authorisations timed around the autumn. Check the application date before submitting rather than afterwards, because the consequence is a second fee within weeks.
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