Planning Guarantee on fees

As a general rule, once you have paid the planning application fee, there is no refund. However, there are some important exceptions. The Planning Guarantee is one of these, while another applies where an application is rejected as invalid.

If your application has not been decided within the relevant Planning Guarantee period, the local planning authority may be required to refund the full planning application fee.

The Planning Guarantee

Under regulation 9A of the 2012 Fees Regulations, usually called the Planning Guarantee, the local planning authority must refund the full fee where no decision has been made within the applicable period and none of the statutory exclusions applies. This applies to applications for planning permission, permission in principle and approval of reserved matters.

The period depends on whether the proposal is major or non-major development.

Importantly, the Planning Guarantee does not apply where the applicant and local planning authority have agreed in writing to a longer determination period which extends beyond the relevant guarantee date.

For major development applications, the planning application fee must normally be refunded if the application remains undetermined after 26 weeks.

For non-major development applications, the planning application fee must normally be refunded if the application remains undetermined after 16 weeks.

Do you have to request the Planning Guarantee refund?

No formal request is made a condition of entitlement by regulation 9A. The regulation imposes the refund duty on the local planning authority where the statutory conditions are met, and Government guidance says the fee must be refunded to applicants.

In practice, some councils operate an administrative process which asks the applicant or agent to contact the planning team or finance department. Doing that can help get the payment moving, but it is not what creates the statutory entitlement.

If your application has passed the relevant Planning Guarantee date without a decision and without an agreed written extension taking it beyond that date, it is sensible to write to the council quoting the application reference and regulation 9A and ask when the refund will be paid.

How quickly must the council pay the refund?

Regulation 9A does not set a separate payment deadline such as 14 or 28 days after the guarantee period expires or after an applicant writes to the council. The statutory duty is to refund the fee once the conditions in regulation 9A are met, but the Regulations do not prescribe a further number of days within which the money must reach the applicant.

That means a council cannot properly refuse an otherwise due refund simply because nobody requested it on the 16-week or 26-week date, but there is also no statutory provision saying the refund must arrive within a particular number of days afterwards.

If an eligible refund is not forthcoming, put the request in writing and ask the council to confirm the payment date. Keep the application validation date, any extension-of-time correspondence and the decision history together, because those documents establish whether the Planning Guarantee applies.

Planning Guarantee and non-determination appeals

The Planning Guarantee does not apply where the applicant has exercised the right to appeal for non-determination before the relevant guarantee period expires. Applicants can normally appeal for non-determination once the ordinary statutory determination period has expired.

If recovering the planning fee matters, an applicant considering a non-determination appeal should therefore check the Planning Guarantee date before appealing. Appealing as soon as the ordinary 8-week or 13-week determination period expires can prevent the later Planning Guarantee refund from becoming due.

When does the clock start?

The determination period is linked to a valid application. If the disagreement is over whether the council is entitled to demand a particular validation item at all, see our guide to raising a validation dispute.

A council cannot avoid the consequences of a valid application simply by leaving it sitting unvalidated indefinitely where the statutory requirements have in fact been met. The validation position should therefore be resolved promptly and evidenced carefully.

Non-validation refunds

If the local planning authority rejects an application as invalid, regulation 3(5) of the 2012 Fees Regulations provides that the fee is to be refunded.

As with regulation 9A, the statutory wording does not make the entitlement conditional upon the applicant first making a request, and it does not prescribe a separate 14-day or 28-day payment deadline. If the authority has rejected the application as invalid but retained the fee, ask for the refund in writing and quote regulation 3(5).

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Planning Guarantee Page Updated: 2nd September 2026