Employment tribunal fees and fee remission



Since July 2013, to bring any claim in the employment tribunal you must pay tribunal fees, unless you qualify for means-tested fee remission (that is, full or partial reduction of the fee), which the government has renamed “Help with fees”. 



To bring a claim for unlawful deduction of wages to recover your unpaid sick pay, you must pay £160 to issue your claim, followed by a further £230 for your claim to be heard by a tribunal judge. There are extra fees for any appeal. The fee amount is fixed and does not take into account the size of your claim. 



The remission rules are very complicated and not very generous. Both capital savings and income are taken into account, and both your means and those of your partner are assessed. In practice, only a small minority of claimants qualify for fee remission. 


You can find more detail about fee remission in LRD’s annual employment law guide Law at Work (www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=BK&iss=1827). 



Make sure you allow enough time to collect all the information you need to prepare your application for fee remission in time. You will not be allowed to bring your tribunal claim without having paid the fee or submitted a valid “Help with fees” form.

Some unions have put in place arrangements to loan members the tribunal fee as long as certain conditions are met. Contact your union to find out the position. Even if your union has made this kind of arrangement, you must always apply for “Help with fees” under the government’s scheme if you think you may qualify for it.

The government’s long awaited review of the impact of the fees was published at the end of January 2017 and showed a 70% drop in the number of cases taken to an employment tribunal since 2013. 


Public services union UNISON is pressing for a judicial review of the introduction of tribunal fees and by March 2017 its case had gone as far as the Supreme Court. Judgment is expected with the next six months.