The cliff nobody points at
Money Claim Online will accept a claim up to £99,999.99. The small claims track stops at £10,000.
Those two numbers are nowhere near each other, and nothing on the way through the online form tells you which side of the line you are on. A £40,000 claim goes through as smoothly as a £900 one.
So what changes at £10,000?
Two things, and only one of them is the fee.
The fee. Up to £10,000 it is a flat £455. Above it, the fee becomes 5% of the claim. A £15,000 claim costs £750 to issue, which is a 65% jump for a claim half again as big.
The costs. This is the one that matters. On the small claims track, CPR 27.14 means the court generally cannot order you to pay the other side's costs. It allows fixed issue costs, court fees, limited travel and witness expenses and capped expert fees, and that is broadly it. Lose a £9,000 claim and you are out your own fees.
Above the track, the ordinary costs rules apply. Lose a £12,000 claim and you may be paying their solicitor as well as your own, and their costs are not capped by the size of your claim. A modest claim can produce a costs bill several times its value.
There is one exception on the small claims track worth knowing: the court can still order costs against a party who has behaved unreasonably. Protection is not a licence.
The trade nobody offers you
If your claim is just over the line, you can cap it. Sue for £10,000 rather than £15,000 and you give up £5,000, save £295 in issue fee, and buy costs protection back.
Whether that is a good deal depends on how strong your claim is and how likely the defendant is to spend money defending it, which is your judgement and not a calculation. What this page does is put the numbers where you can see them, because the alternative is finding out at the end.
Note the direction of travel. You can choose to claim less at the start. You cannot reduce a claim later to escape the costs rules once it has been allocated.
Rounding up costs real money
Below £10,000 the fee is banded, so a claim of £4,100 and a claim of £5,000 both cost £205. Above £10,000 it is a straight percentage, so every pound you add costs another 5p.
Adding £1,000 to a figure "to be safe" adds £50 to the fee before anybody has looked at whether you are owed it. Claim what you can evidence.
The fee is not the whole bill
On the small claims track there is a hearing fee as well, due later if the claim actually gets to a hearing: £27 up to £346 depending on the value. So getting a £9,000 claim in front of a judge is £455 to issue plus £346 to be heard.
Both are recoverable from the other side if you win, which makes court fees one of the very few things the small claims track does let you claim back.
England and Wales only, and that is a real limitation
Scotland runs simple procedure. Northern Ireland runs its own small claims system. Both have different limits and completely different fee scales, and neither could be verified from a primary source when this tool was built.
Every fee tool on the internet is England and Wales only and most of them do not say so, which is the more dangerous version of the same limitation. If your defendant is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, none of the figures on this page are yours, and you should be looking at that jurisdiction's own fee order.
Fees also move, usually annually. These are EX50 as at 13 July 2026, which is stated on the tool itself so that a figure you read here in two years announces its own age.
Common questions
How much does it cost to start a money claim?
It depends on the value and the steps go up sharply. £35 up to £300, £70 up to £1,000, £205 up to £5,000, £455 up to £10,000, and then it stops being a band: above £10,000 the fee is 5% of the claim, up to a cap of £10,000 in fees at a claim value of £200,000. So a £15,000 claim costs £750 to issue. These are the EX50 fees for England and Wales as last revised on 13 July 2026.
What is the small claims limit?
Ten thousand pounds. CPR 26.9(4) makes the small claims track the normal track for any claim with a value of not more than £10,000. Above that it is the fast track to £25,000, the intermediate track to £100,000, and the multi-track beyond. The court allocates, and while a judge can move a case up for complexity, nothing moves a claim down to escape the costs rules once its value is over the limit.
Why does £10,000 matter so much?
Because of what happens if you lose. On the small claims track, CPR 27.14 means the court generally cannot order you to pay the other side's costs beyond fixed issue costs, court fees, limited travel and witness expenses and capped expert fees. Above the track, the ordinary costs rules apply and losing can mean paying their solicitor as well as your own. Those costs are not capped by the size of your claim, so a £12,000 claim can produce a costs bill considerably larger than £12,000.
Money Claim Online let me enter £40,000. Is that fine?
It will take it, and it will not warn you. MCOL accepts claims up to £99,999.99. The small claims track stops at £10,000. Those two numbers are nowhere near each other and nothing in the online form flags the gap, so a £40,000 claim goes through as smoothly as a £900 one while carrying a completely different risk.
Should I reduce my claim to stay under £10,000?
It is a real option and almost nobody is shown the arithmetic. Capping a £15,000 claim at £10,000 gives up £5,000, saves £295 in issue fee, and buys back costs protection. Whether that trade is worth it depends on how good your claim is and how likely the other side is to run up costs, which is your judgement rather than a calculation. The point is that it should be a decision, not something you discover afterwards.
Is the issue fee the only fee?
No. On the small claims track there is also a hearing fee due later if the claim goes to a hearing, from £27 up to £346 depending on value. So the real cost of getting a £9,000 claim in front of a judge is £455 plus £346. The good news is that court fees are among the few things you can recover from the other side on the small claims track if you win.
Does this work for Scotland or Northern Ireland?
No, and this page says so rather than quietly assuming. Scotland runs simple procedure and Northern Ireland has its own small claims system, both with different limits and entirely different fee scales. Neither was verifiable from a primary source when this tool was built, and a wrong fee for a Scottish user is worse than no fee at all. If your defendant is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, none of these figures are yours.