CMCs: fees

The FCA is funded by fees that it charges firms it regulates. Find out about the fees you will need to pay.

Claims Management Companies (CMCs) will be asked to pay for their regulation in 2 main ways: 

  • application fees - one-off fee when you apply 
  • periodic fees - annual charge 

CMCs will also need to pay fees for the Financial Ombudsman Service, which will resolve complaints about CMCs – details on this can be found in our policy statement

Application fees 

When firms apply to be authorised by us, they pay a fee towards the costs of processing their applications. They make the payment when they submit their application. When setting the level of fees, we look at the complexity of the authorisation process and the amount of work involved. 

There are two application fees for Claims Management firms: 

If you are applying only to seek out persons who may have a claim, you will pay a Category 4 fee. 

For all other claims management permissions, you will pay a Category 6 fee. 

You can find the charge for each category in FEES 3 Annex 1A. For more information please see pricing categories for application fees.

Periodic fees 

Periodic fees are the cost of regulation for a year. Periodic fees are calculated on revenue: the more money a firm earns directly from claims management activities, the higher the fee will be. Firms pay a minimum fee if their revenue is £100,000 or less and a variable rate above that. Details of the current rates are in FEES 4 Annex 2A. In your first year, you will pay only a proportion of the fee (based on the number of months remaining in the fee-year).   

The number of claims management permissions held by a CMC does not affect how much that firm will have to pay in periodic fees. 

If a firm cancels its permission during the financial year, or if it has its permission taken away for any reason, the FCA will not refund the fee. 

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