By the eLitigant Editorial Team · Reviewed for current forms, fees & procedure — September 2026
Where money claims are filed: the official portal is www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk — HMCTS’s own Money Claims service. It is new (still badged beta), and following the 181st Practice Direction update there is no upper limit on the amount you can claim through it — and if you qualify for Help with Fees, the issue fee itself can be reduced to zero, whatever the size of the claim. New to the portal? Read our step-by-step walkthrough.
Last reviewed: September 2026 · For use in England & Wales · eLitigant is a Community Interest Company (No. 16566612), not a law firm. Always check the current official form on GOV.UK before you file, and sign the statement of truth yourself.
What Help with Fees is
Help with Fees (HWF) is HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s official fee remission scheme. It is not a loan and not means-tested by us or anyone private — it is the court’s own system for making sure a court fee never stands between a person and their claim. Depending on your income, savings and benefits, the fee is waived in full or reduced. You can apply online in minutes, or on paper using form EX160. Our step-by-step guide to the application itself is here: how to apply for Help with Fees.
Who qualifies
Broadly, two doors in: you receive a qualifying benefit (such as income-based benefits or the guarantee element of Pension Credit), or your income and savings fall below the scheme’s thresholds. The thresholds are updated by HMCTS, so check the current figures on the official page rather than relying on any article’s numbers — including ours. If you are unsure, court staff and Citizens Advice can help you with the application free of charge.
How it fits your money claim, step by step
- Send a letter before claim first. Prevention is better than cure — the courts expect it, and a well-drafted letter often gets you paid with no fee at all. Start with our letter before claim guide.
- Apply for Help with Fees at the official page and note your reference number.
- Start your claim at GOV.UK — make a court claim for money, signing in with an HMCTS account.
- Enter your Help with Fees reference when the service asks about the fee — this happens before any payment is taken. If your application covers the whole fee, you pay nothing; if it covers part, you pay the balance.
- Repeat for later fees. Each court fee — issue, hearing and so on — has its own Help with Fees application, so keep applying as your case progresses.
Help with Fees is optional at every step: you can always choose to pay the fee and continue without it — and if you win, the court normally orders the defendant to repay the fees you paid on top of what they owe you.
If you have already paid the fee
Most people assume Help with Fees is something you have to sort out beforehand, and that once the money has gone it is too late. It is not. GOV.UK is explicit that you can apply before or after you pay: if you paid a court or tribunal fee in the last 3 months and you were eligible for help at the time you paid it, you can apply to have that money refunded. Both conditions have to be met — the payment must be recent, and the eligibility must have existed on the day you paid, not just today. The rule is set out on the official Help with Fees guidance, and it is the single most overlooked part of the scheme: a great many people who could have their fee back never ask, because nobody told them the door was still open.
An application is not a claim — and it carries its own fee
Issuing your claim is one fee. Asking the court to do something once the case is running — extend a deadline, set aside a judgment, put off a hearing, allow an amendment — is an application, and that is a separate step with a separate fee. Applications are governed by CPR Part 23 and are made on form N244; if you are heading that way, our guide to completing the N244 takes the form box by box.
The fee depends on whether the other side is told about the application. Per EX50, the court fees leaflet (updated 13 July 2026), an application on notice where no other fee is specified is £321, and an application by consent or without notice is £126. Because it is a different fee, it needs a fresh Help with Fees application — a grant on your issue fee does not carry across to it. That is worth knowing before you need it, because applications are usually made against a deadline.
How it looks in practice
An illustration with invented facts, to show the order of operations.
Maria is owed £1,800 for a job she invoiced in March. She is on a low income and receives a qualifying benefit. She does not have the issue fee sitting in her account, and she has been putting the whole thing off because of it.
- She sends a letter before claim and gives the customer a fortnight. Nothing comes back.
- She applies for Help with Fees at the official online service and writes down the reference number it gives her, exactly as shown.
- She starts her claim, and when the service reaches the question about the fee she enters that reference before any payment screen. Her fee is covered, so she pays nothing to issue.
- Months later the customer files a defence and Maria needs longer to file her directions questionnaire. That is an application on form N244 — a new step, a new fee, and so a new Help with Fees application, made the same way.
Nothing in that sequence requires a lawyer, and nothing in it requires money up front. It requires knowing the order.
No upper limit — the fact most guides still get wrong
Many articles — including some written by law firms — still say online money claims are capped at £25,000. That is out of date. The cap was removed from Practice Direction 51R by the 181st CPR Practice Direction Update, in force 27 February 2025, which omitted the words “not exceeding £25,000 including interest” from the eligibility condition. There is no upper limit on the value of a specified money claim you can issue online; the £25,000 figure now matters only to how the court manages the case afterwards. Full detail in our OCMC and PD 51R guide.
Doing it with Chris
Chris drafts what the portal asks for — your reason for claim, timeline of events, evidence list and interest wording — to a professional standard, in minutes rather than hours. You then sign in to the official service and copy each answer across, question by question; the portal turns your answers into the issued claim and its PDF, ready to check and submit. Chris will also remind you to check Help with Fees before the payment step. Draft my claim with Chris →
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The Money Claim Series: This guide is one chapter of the series. Start at the hub — Make a Money Claim Yourself: the complete guide — then go deeper: make a money claim online (OCMC) · the step-by-step walkthrough of every screen · OCMC vs County Court: which route to use · what happens after you file · how OCMC replaced the paper N1.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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