Child Arrangements Order: What It Costs in England and Wales, and When You Need a Mediator First

This is England and Wales. Scotland uses contact and residence orders under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, and Northern Ireland the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. Different forms, different fees, different words. If you're in either, this won't fit your case.

On this page

1. What a child arrangements order actually decides
2. What it costs to apply
3. Three ways to get help with the costs
4. The meeting the court expects before it reads your form
5. Filling in the C100 yourself
6. How long it takes
7. What an order gives you that a written agreement cannot
8. When paying a solicitor is worth it
9. Questions parents ask about child arrangements orders

What a child arrangements order actually decides

Most parents come to this wanting a number: half the week, alternate weekends, something fixed. The order is narrower than that. It's worth knowing its shape before you fill in anything.

The three orders that share one form

A child arrangements order regulates who a child lives with, who they spend time with or otherwise have contact with, and when. That's the whole job. It doesn't set maintenance and it doesn't punish anyone.

Two siblings sit beside it. A prohibited steps order stops the other parent doing one specific thing, such as taking your child out of the country or moving them to a different school. A specific issue order settles one question you can't agree on, such as which school your child attends.

All three come from section 8 of the Children Act 1989, and all three go on the same form: the C100.

Why the law does not promise you half the time

The court's first duty is your child's welfare. The Act calls it "the court's paramount consideration". Not your rights, and not fairness between the two of you.

In a contested case, the court starts by presuming that each parent's involvement will further the child's welfare. That presumption can be overturned. It applies only where involvement can happen without putting the child at risk of harm. Then the Act defines involvement, and everything turns on that definition. It's "involvement of some kind, either direct or indirect, but not any particular division of a child's time".

So the law doesn't guarantee you contact or a share of the nights.

When you're fighting over a section 8 order, the judge works down a checklist:

• what your child wants, read in the light of their age and understanding
• their physical, emotional and educational needs
• what any change in their circumstances would do to them
• their age, sex, background and anything else the judge thinks relevant
• any harm they've suffered or are at risk of suffering
• how capable each parent, and any other relevant carer, is of meeting their needs
• what the court actually has the power to do

One more rule catches people out. The court won't make an order at all unless making one is better for your child than making none.

That can feel unfair, and you're entitled to be angry about it. It's still the law you're applying under.

What it costs to apply

Now the money, with the court's current figures rather than the ones the internet remembers.

The fee, and the fees sitting around it

£270. One flat fee, whichever of the three section 8 orders you ask for. The same application can cover siblings or children of the same family without another fee.

It buys the court's attention, not a solicitor, a faster hearing date or an outcome. It doesn't cover what comes afterwards either. A contested case grows its own fees: an application inside proceedings already running, a warning notice, an appeal.

The divorce is separate too, with its own application and its own fee, and splitting the money and the house needs a financial order as well. Parents running all three at once usually ask divorce solicitors to quote for the package, because the fees stack.

Why so many guides still print a lower number

The fee moved from £263 to £270 on 13 July 2026. It was meant to change on 6 July, and a second order pushed the date back a week.

We read ten guides on this question. Six printed older fees: £215, £232, £255, £263. One was a charity guide with two superseded figures rather than one.

We'd rather you checked the court's own fee list than trusted any guide's number, ours included. An underpaid application can be delayed while the court asks you to pay the right amount.

Three ways to get help with the costs

Help with Fees can reduce the court fee or clear it. Legal aid helps with legal costs, and the voucher pays towards mediation.

Help with fees, and the income limit for your household

Help with Fees tests your income and savings. Meet both tests for a full remission and you pay nothing.

Income first. You report your total income before tax, not just your wages. Use the last calendar month or your average across the last three, whichever is lower. That word, lower, is worth reading twice if you've had one good month.

Savings next. For a fee this size you and your partner need less than £4,250 between you. If either of you is 66 or over, you need less than £16,000 whatever the fee. Your partner's income and savings don't count if you're permanently separated or they're opposing you in the case.

Next, check your household limit. Count children living mainly with you who are under 16. Those aged 16 to 19 qualify if enrolled or accepted for full-time education below higher education level, or approved training. You can also count children you pay maintenance for. Married children and those in a civil partnership don't qualify under the education route.

Have income above your line and part of the fee can still come off. How much depends on your income and the size of the fee. You can use GOV.UK's EX160C calculator to estimate your contribution. Don't send that amount with the form. Court staff work out what you owe and tell you how to pay.

Apply on form EX160 alongside the C100, or answer the questions online as you make the application. Asking costs nothing.

Benefits that can clear the fee

Some benefits get you past the income test without any arithmetic. Claim one of these, keep your savings under the cap, and the income side drops away:

• income based Jobseeker's Allowance
• income related Employment and Support Allowance
• Income Support
• Universal Credit, if you earn less than £6,000 a year
• Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit)

Legal aid, and the evidence that opens it

The usual route to legal aid for representation in a private children case is evidence of domestic abuse, or a child at risk of abuse from someone else. You'll also need to meet the financial and case tests. Other routes exist, including exceptional case funding. As for what counts as abuse, GOV.UK includes controlling behaviour, emotional abuse and financial control, such as being locked out of a joint account, alongside harassment, threats and physical harm, whether it comes from a partner, an ex or another family member.

You'll need evidence, and it can come from any of these:

• the courts
• the police
• a multi agency risk assessment conference (MARAC)
• social services
• a health professional, such as a doctor, nurse, midwife, psychologist or health visitor
• a refuge manager
• a domestic abuse support service
• your bank
• your employer, or an education or training provider
• the provider of any benefits you receive

Legal aid for family mediation is separate. You don't need domestic abuse evidence, so ask about it even when representation isn't covered.

For the usual route, an adviser holding a legal aid contract applies on your behalf. Find a family law practitioner who does that work first. Exceptional case funding also lets you apply yourself.

The meeting the court expects before it reads your form

Check this before you send your form.

What happens at a MIAM, and what it costs

A MIAM is a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting: one appointment, about an hour, with a mediator. It isn't mediation itself, and it isn't counselling.

Only an authorised family mediator can run one. In that hour they explain how mediation works and what the other routes are, they assess whether your case suits it, and they screen for two things: domestic abuse, and the risk of harm to your child. Since April 2024 they also have to tell you which form of out-of-court resolution fits your dispute and how to start it. That turned the meeting into triage.

Cost: around £120 a head, on both GOV.UK's figure and the Family Mediation Council's. You can attend together or separately. If either of you qualifies for legal aid, both MIAMs are free through a mediator offering legal aid.

The £500 mediation voucher, and who issues it now

The Ministry of Justice has funded the voucher scheme for the 2026 to 2027 financial year. It's worth up to £500 towards mediation sessions, and three things about it rarely make it onto a guide page.

It can't pay for the MIAM. The voucher is for mediation sessions only, so unless you qualify for legal aid, that first £120 is yours to find.

It's one claim per family, not one each, and £500 is the ceiling even where a children dispute and a money dispute run side by side.

And you never hold it. Your mediator applies, and the money goes straight to them once the sessions finish. Vouchers come from Opia Ltd now, not the Family Mediation Council, which stopped issuing them in 2023. They're limited in number, so ask whether any are left. The Council's own line: "around two thirds of families so far using the vouchers reached a full or partial settlement, without needing to go to court".

When you do not have to go

Consent-order applications fall outside the MIAM rule. So do applications involving ongoing emergency, care or supervision proceedings or an existing order of one of those kinds. The rules list twelve exemptions across children and financial cases, claimed on the form. Bankruptcy only covers financial cases. Four former grounds now read "Omitted".

• Domestic abuse, backed by one of the kinds of evidence Practice Direction 3A lists
• Your child, or another child of the family living with them, is currently the subject of a section 47 enquiry or a child protection plan
• Urgency: a risk to life, liberty or physical safety for you, your family or your home. Delay would risk child harm, unlawful removal from the UK or unlawful retention abroad. A significant risk of a miscarriage of justice, significant financial hardship for you or irretrievable problems from waiting also qualifies. Those problems include losing significant evidence. A serious risk of a foreign court taking the case first, while you arrange or attend a MIAM, is another ground. It must have a valid claim to jurisdiction.
• You went to a MIAM or another non court process about the same or substantially the same dispute in the four months before applying. For another process, provide written confirmation of attendance from the provider.
• You are applying inside proceedings still running and you went to a MIAM before starting those proceedings
• You can provide the required bankruptcy evidence and your application is for a financial remedy
• You are applying without notice to the other person
• A disability or other inability stops you attending in person without suitable facilities. The authorised mediators you must contact within fifteen miles cannot offer those facilities, and you cannot attend online or by video link.
• You are detained and facilities cannot be made available for an online or video MIAM, or your bail or licence conditions prohibit contact with the other person
• One of the parties is a child
• The authorised mediators you must contact within fifteen miles cannot see you within fifteen business days of your contact, and you cannot attend online or by video link
• There is no mediator within fifteen miles of your home, and you cannot attend online or by video link

Red flag: Three exemptions turn on distance or a mediator's diary and also require you to explain why you cannot attend online or by video. For the facilities and availability grounds, contact every authorised mediator with an office within fifteen miles of your home, or five if there are at least five. Give the court their names, addresses, contact details and the dates you tried. Claim an exemption wrongly and the court can direct you to a MIAM and adjourn your case.

Filling in the C100 yourself

The form is more manageable than it looks, and the court expects self-represented parents.

Who can apply, and who needs permission first

As a parent, guardian or special guardian, you can normally apply without permission. So can a step-parent with parental responsibility under section 4A or someone named in a current live-with order. If a special guardianship order is in force, a live-with application still needs permission. An order restricting repeat applications can require it too.

Other routes let you apply for a child arrangements order without permission too. They include a child who is part of your family through a marriage or civil partnership, even if that relationship has ended. Parental responsibility given through a contact order or the required consent can qualify too. That means consent from everyone named in a live-with order, the council if the child is in care, or otherwise everyone with parental responsibility. Three years living with you also qualifies. It needn't be continuous, but must have started within the last five years and ended no more than three months before you apply. A relative or council foster carer qualifies for a live-with order after the child has lived with them for the year immediately before applying. Otherwise, ask for permission in the C100.

What the court does when your form arrives

Online, you can save and return, with 28 days to finish once you've started. By post, send at least three copies of the C100 to the family court that handles your child's area.

Cafcass in England, or Cafcass Cymru in Wales, will contact you for safeguarding checks. Take that call seriously. Wales and some English courts use a different sequence, with a Child Impact Report before the first hearing. The court will tell you which process applies.

At the first hearing the judge or magistrates work out what you already agree, what you don't, and whether your child is at risk. Agree everything with no welfare concerns and they can end it there. Otherwise they set a timetable, and may send you to Planning Together for Children in England, or Working Together for Children in Wales. In England, you attend separately from your ex. They can also ask Cafcass for a report. You get a copy.

How long it takes

GOV.UK tells you around 10 months. The Ministry of Justice's own quarterly statistics are kinder: private law Children Act cases that closed between January and March 2026 took 35 weeks on average, about five weeks quicker than the same quarter a year before, and 52% finished inside 26 weeks.

The ten months is GOV.UK's general estimate, and it varies with where you live and how complicated your case is. The 35 weeks is the mean for private law cases that ended in that quarter. Neither is a deadline for your case.

Worth holding on to while you wait: the Act tells the court that delay in deciding is likely to prejudice your child's welfare. That's the sentence you point at when you ask for an earlier date.

What an order gives you that a written agreement cannot

Plenty of parents sort this out between themselves and never see a courtroom, and we'd take that over a hearing any day. But a parenting plan you both sign isn't a contract. Nobody can enforce it. The usual fix is to agree the terms and ask the court to approve them as a consent order, which buys three things a signed sheet can't.

Parental responsibility, and who walks away with it

Parental responsibility is the legal right to make decisions about your child. An order can hand it over.

Where the court names an unmarried father as someone the child lives with, and he doesn't already have parental responsibility, it must also give it to him. If he's named only as someone the child spends time with, the court has to stop and decide whether that's appropriate.

Same split for a step-parent or anyone else who isn't a parent or guardian. Named as a person the child lives with, they get parental responsibility while that part of the order runs. If they're named for contact alone, the court may give it or may not.

For the record: a mother has it from birth. A father has it automatically if married to or in a civil partnership with her when the child is born, or if they marry or form one later. Joint birth registration gives an unmarried father parental responsibility in England and Wales if it took place on or after 1 December 2003.

Holidays abroad, and changing your child's surname

These restrictions apply while an order covers who your child lives with, when they live with someone, or both. Nobody can change their surname or take them out of the UK without permission. That means written consent from everyone with parental responsibility, or the court's permission. Everyone means everyone, not only the parent the child lives with.

There's one exception, tighter than the version you'll hear repeated. A person named in the order as someone the child lives with may take the child abroad for "less than one month". Not a month. Less than one.

Check both against your own order before you book anything, because an order's own wording can restrict decisions you'd assume were yours.

If the other parent ignores the order

If handovers stop happening, you can ask the court to enforce the order on form C79. That costs another £270.

The court can impose an unpaid work requirement of between 40 and 200 hours. The person who broke the order must have received its warning notice beforehand. They must have been at least 18 then and live habitually in England and Wales. The work must be necessary and proportionate, and available locally. Look closely at the two standards of proof, because they don't cut the same way. The court must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, the criminal standard, that the person broke the order. If they then claim a reasonable excuse, they only have to prove it on the balance of probabilities, the easier civil standard.

You carry the hard burden, they carry the light one. So keep a dated note of every missed handover.

When paying a solicitor is worth it

Say your case is straightforward: you're both talking, there are no safety worries, and the argument is about which weekends. The DIY route works. Fill in the C100, check Help with Fees and go to your MIAM. If you qualify for a full remission, you can keep the £270 for childcare.

Get advice if any of this is true: there's domestic abuse or a child at risk, the other parent has already instructed someone, there's an international element, or the fight is about where your child lives rather than when you see them. Domestic abuse can also excuse you from a MIAM, with the evidence that exemption requires.

Before you commit, look at what solicitors actually charge by the hour, because arithmetic should decide this and not anxiety. When you're ready to pick, start with our child custody solicitors listings, or read who we are first.

We're not your solicitor, and if there's any question of safety in your case, that's the moment to stop reading and get someone who is.

Questions parents ask about child arrangements orders

How much does it cost to apply for a child arrangements order?

£270, whichever of the three section 8 orders you ask for. Siblings or children of the same family can share one application without another fee. It's been £270 since 13 July 2026, up from £263. Help with Fees can take it to nothing if your income and savings sit under the limits. Enforcing an order later costs another £270.

Can I get legal aid for a child arrangements order?

The usual route is evidence of domestic abuse, or a child at risk of abuse from someone else. You also need to meet financial and case tests. Legal aid for mediation doesn't require abuse evidence. An adviser applies through the usual route, but you can apply for exceptional case funding yourself.

Do I have to go to mediation before I can apply to court?

No. Mediation itself is voluntary. For a disputed application, you normally need a MIAM, one information and assessment meeting, or a valid exemption on your form. Domestic abuse is one exemption. Consent orders and cases involving ongoing emergency, care or supervision proceedings or existing orders of those kinds fall outside the MIAM rule.

How can I see my child without going to court?

Agree it directly and write it down as a parenting plan. Mediation is the usual next step, and the voucher covers up to £500 of it. None of that is enforceable, though, because a signed plan isn't a contract. If you want the agreement to have teeth, ask the court to approve it as a consent order.

How long does a child arrangements order take?

GOV.UK says around 10 months. Ministry of Justice figures for January to March 2026 put private law Children Act cases at 35 weeks on average, with 52% finished inside 26 weeks. Cases that settle at the first hearing end far sooner. Genuinely contested ones, especially with a Cafcass report, run longer.

Does a child arrangements order give me parental responsibility?

It can. Where the order names an unmarried father as someone the child lives with, and he doesn't already have parental responsibility, the court must give it to him. If he's named only as someone the child spends time with, the court decides whether it's appropriate. Someone who isn't a parent or guardian and is named as a live-with person gets it while that part of the order lasts.

Two things this week. If you need a MIAM, ring two or three mediators authorised by the Family Mediation Council. Book the earliest you can get and ask each whether they still have vouchers. Then open form EX160, or the Help with Fees questions inside the online application, before you go near the £270.