What a Financial Ombudsman complaint costs an advice firm in 2026/27: the £680 case fee, the £2,000 allowance and when the fee is triggered

A complaint that a client takes to the Financial Ombudsman Service costs the firm money whatever the outcome. The fee is not a fine and it does not depend on the firm being wrong. For a small advice firm that expects only the odd referral, the rules changed on 1 April 2026, and the old habit of thinking "the first few are free" no longer describes the bill.

What the ombudsman publishes for 2026/27

The Service's case-fees page for businesses sets out the figures that apply to a firm as the respondent to a complaint:

• a case fee of up to £680 for each chargeable case;
• a £2,000 allowance for the financial year. Before April 2026 a firm had a number of free cases each year; the allowance replaces counting cases with a money value, and it resets at the start of each financial year;
• fees show on the firm's account once the allowance has been used up. If the year's charges stay below £2,000, the invoice for the year is £nil.

For comparison, a professional representative (a claims company acting for the client) pays up to £260 a case, falling to £80 where the outcome goes in the consumer's favour.

When the fee starts

The ombudsman describes a case as chargeable "when it goes through to investigation". The fee is then taken when the case is resolved or closed, and the invoice is issued at the end of the month the case closed in. It is payable within 30 calendar days of the invoice date.

That timing matters for a small firm for two reasons.

1. A complaint that you resolve yourself costs nothing. The fee belongs to the ombudsman's stage, not the firm's own complaint handling. A properly investigated and settled complaint inside the eight-week window never reaches it. The deadlines are in our guide to responding to a complaint within eight weeks.
2. The fee can arrive months after the complaint. A case that closes in March is invoiced at the end of March, which is the previous financial year's allowance, even if the complaint was raised the summer before. Count cases by the month they close.

The largest firms are charged quarterly in advance from 1 April 2026. A small firm is invoiced after the case closes.

What cases cost: the table

This assumes the firm has no other ombudsman charges in the year and that every case is charged at the £680 maximum. The allowance is described by the ombudsman as a discount, so the table treats it as a credit against the running total.

Two points follow from the working. A firm needs three chargeable cases in one year before the invoice is anything but nil, and the first £40 is barely noticeable. Then every further case adds the full £680. Because the allowance is a fixed sum, the fee cannot be spread: one bad year with five referrals costs £1,400, and the year after it starts again from nil.

Check the invoice against the table. If the ombudsman's account treats the allowance differently from the way we have worked it, query it in the 30 days before payment is due, not afterwards.

What the fee does not cover

The case fee is separate from the annual levy and the FCA's own fees. Those are in our guide to FCA fees and the FSCS levy for a small advice firm, and the ombudsman levy for a mortgage broker is covered in the broker fees guide. Nor does the fee include any redress the ombudsman orders, your own time, or any professional indemnity excess if the insurer pays out. Those sit on top.

What to do with this

1. Keep a list of complaints by the date each could reach the ombudsman, so you know which case could close in which financial year.
2. Treat the first £2,000 of fees as covered, and set aside £680 a case from the third case onwards. Even one case in a year is a reason to check the file against the evidence pack for ongoing advice, because a complaint about an ongoing charge usually turns on whether reviews were delivered.
3. Treat the deadline letter and the final response as the cheapest part of the process. They are the stage where a case can still be settled before an investigation begins.

Where Overlyft fits

Overlyft can set up an AI assistant for an advice firm that keeps the complaint log in date order, flags the eight-week date and the month each open case could close, and drafts the covering note for the adviser or the compliance function to review and send. It does not decide whether a complaint is upheld or what redress is fair; the adviser, and compliance where the firm's procedures require it, reviews and signs every response.

This is general information about published fees, not legal, regulatory or financial advice. Confirm the current amounts on the ombudsman's website before relying on them.