04/03/2026
From 1 April 2026 the cost for applying for an SIA licence for any sector will be £204, as the temporary £20 rebate scheme comes to an end.
Over the last six years, we have been able to use historical reserves, accrued before April 2020, to provide a £20 per licence rebate towards the application fee cost. In practice, this is currently reducing the amount paid by an applicant from £204 to £184 a licence. Those historical reserves are now fully exhausted and so the cost to apply for a licence will revert to the statutory fee of £204.
The statutory licence fee itself is not increasing. It has remained at £204 since it was reduced from £210 in April 2023. The change means applicants will no longer benefit from the £20 rebate.
Both first-time applications and renewals will cost £204 from 1 April 2026.
Our Chief Executive, Michelle Russell, said: "Since 2020, we were allowed to subsidise the cost of an SIA licence from previous historical reserves which had been built up. Those reserves are now gone, and we have a responsibility as a self-funding regulator to charge the full cost of the services we deliver.
"We have worked to keep the licence fee as low as possible and have absorbed rising third-party costs along the way. At £204, the fee remains considerably lower in real terms than when we introduced licensing more than two decades ago. We will continue to drive efficiency and productivity so we can keep costs down for the people we regulate.”
We are largely self-funding and committed to keeping people safe and secure. The application fee covers all operating costs including licensing, identity and criminality checks, customer service, and compliance and enforcement.
Read the full announcement here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sia-licence-fee-rebate-ends-in-april-2026
For further information on this change, please view our question-and-answer page here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/change-to-the-sia-licence-fee-your-questions-answered/april-2026-change-to-the-sia-licence-fee
