Not every reduction on this list is actually an exemption, and mixing the two up leads to a real budgeting mistake. A parish council application isn’t free, it’s half price. A non-profit sports club application isn’t waived, it’s capped at a fixed amount. Only a genuinely small group of specific situations pay nothing at all. Everything else on this page is a discount, not a £0 outcome.
The applications that carry no fee at all
A handful of application types are entirely free, regardless of who’s applying or what the specific circumstances are:
- Listed Building Consent
- Certificate of Lawfulness of Proposed Works to a Listed Building
- Planning permission for relevant demolition in a Conservation Area
- Works to trees covered by a Tree Preservation Order, or to trees in a Conservation Area
- Hedgerow removal notices
These aren’t discretionary reductions decided case by case. They’re structurally free application categories, built into the fee regulations themselves, with no fee ever attached regardless of the specific project.
The one true exemption tied to circumstances rather than application type
Beyond the free categories above, there’s exactly one genuine exemption based on who the work is for rather than what type of application it is: works solely to provide access, safety, health, or comfort facilities for a disabled person. Where an application, householder or full planning, is entirely for this purpose, no fee applies at all.
Why “solely” is doing real work in that sentence
This exemption applies specifically to applications that are exclusively for disabled access or facilities, not a wider project that happens to include a disability-related element alongside other work. A ramp and widened doorway submitted as a standalone application: exempt. The same ramp and doorway included as one element of a larger general extension: likely not exempt in full, since the application as a whole isn’t solely for that purpose. Getting this distinction right matters, since it determines whether the whole application is genuinely free or not.
Now the part most guides get wrong: reductions, not exemptions
Parish and town council applications, 50% off
An application made on behalf of a parish or community council receives a 50% reduction against whatever the fee would otherwise have been, applicable across essentially any application type. It’s a genuinely useful discount, but it’s not free. A parish council submitting what would otherwise be a £610 application pays £305, not £0.
Non-profit sports clubs, capped rather than waived
Applications made on behalf of a non-profit-making sports club, specifically for works to playing fields that don’t involve buildings, have their fee capped at £610, regardless of what the uncapped calculation would otherwise have produced. For a small-scale change, this cap might not even come into play, since the ordinary fee could already sit below £610. For a larger site-area-based application that would otherwise calculate well above that figure, the cap meaningfully reduces what’s due, but it doesn’t reduce it to zero.
Alternative proposals submitted alongside a main application
Where a second, lower-cost alternative scheme is submitted on the same day, for the same site, by the same applicant as a main application, that second proposal receives a 50% reduction. This is a narrower situation than the other two, specifically for applicants hedging between two design options rather than committing to just one submission, but it’s worth knowing exists if a project genuinely has two viable versions worth putting forward together.
A worked comparison across the three reductions
A parish council submits a full planning application that would ordinarily cost £610. With the 50% reduction: £305.
A non-profit sports club submits an application for pitch drainage work, no buildings involved, that would ordinarily calculate to £850 based on site area. With the cap applied: £610, a genuine saving of £240.
The same club submits a smaller application that would ordinarily calculate to £400. The cap doesn’t apply here at all, since £400 already sits below the £610 ceiling; the concession simply never activates.
Why the distinction between exempt and reduced actually matters
Budgeting a project around an assumed £0 fee, when the real outcome is a 50% reduction or a capped figure, means starting with an inaccurate number from the outset. For a parish council or sports club specifically, checking which of these applies, and whether it’s a true exemption, a percentage reduction, or a cap, before assuming “we don’t pay” avoids that mismatch entirely.
None of these concessions apply automatically. They generally need to be claimed explicitly as part of the application, rather than being calculated in by default, so it’s worth confirming with your Local Planning Authority that the relevant concession has actually been applied before finalising payment.
For anyone whose project doesn’t qualify for any of the above, our guide to the total cost of planning permission covers what a typical, non-discounted application actually costs in full.
For the official position on fee reductions and exemptions, see Gov.uk: Fees for planning applications.
Think one of these concessions might apply to your application? Use the calculator to see the figure with and without it applied.