CQC Annual Fees for Care Homes and Home Care: How Much, When and How to Pay

CQC Annual Fees for Care Homes and Home Care: How Much, When and How to Pay

The annual fee table for care homes and homecare, a worked home care calculation, invoice and direct debit rules, refunds and what happens if you fall behind.

Every registered provider pays CQC an annual fee. A care home’s fee depends on its maximum registered number of service users (from £313 for fewer than 4 people up to £15,710 for more than 90 in CQC’s 2024/25 table), and a home care provider’s fee is £239 plus £54.305 per service user. CQC invoices once a year around the anniversary of your last invoice, and you pay within 30 days or by direct debit over up to 10 months. Your invoice states the exact amount.

CQC’s fee pages are clear but spread across several screens, and many “cost” articles online mix up annual fees and start-up costs. This guide pulls the annual fee rules for adult social care into one place, using CQC’s own pages (CQC: Fees) and its care and community social care fee table.

Check the date. CQC’s table is headed 2024/25 and was last updated on 10 June 2024, while CQC says its 2019/20 fees scheme “remains valid until further notice”. Use the figures below as a guide, and treat your invoice as the final word. For the registration process itself, see how to register with CQC.

What Do CQC Annual Fees Cover?

CQC says every registered provider must pay fees each year. They fund its statutory functions: registering, monitoring, inspecting and rating providers, and civil or criminal enforcement when necessary. The fees cover the costs of initial registration, changes to your registration, and monitoring, inspection and rating activities.

Fees depend on the type and scale of your services. Charities pay the same fee as an equivalent provider. If you are registered for more than one regulated activity, more than one fee may apply. Your annual fee covers all locations registered on your anniversary date.

How Much Does a Care Home Pay?

For a care or nursing home, the fee is set by the maximum number of people you can accommodate for nursing or personal care, as stated in a condition on your registration certificate. CQC’s 2024/25 table:

Because the fee follows the registered maximum, not your occupancy, reducing registered capacity is the only way to change the band. Do that through CQC’s process for changing your registration, and remember that CQC says your annual fee does not take account of an application in progress.

How Much Does a Home Care Provider Pay?

For community social care, including home care agencies, the fee is calculated from the number of service users you support with regulated activities, per location:

£239 + (number of service users × £54.305), up to a maximum of £92,558 (reached at 1,700 service users or more).

Worked example

A location supporting 60 service users: 60 × £54.305 = £3,258.30, plus £239 = £3,497.30. With 120 service users: 120 × £54.305 = £6,516.60, plus £239 = £6,755.60.

CQC finds the number of service users by emailing registered managers and nominated individuals the month before the invoice. If you do not reply it keeps sending reminders, but it may use inspection reports and capacity tracker data. So reply promptly and accurately: a wrong figure either costs you money or triggers a correction later.

When Will the Invoice Arrive and Who Gets It?

• CQC issues invoices once a month, on or around the 15th.
• New providers are invoiced in the month their registration takes effect, or soon after.
• Existing providers are invoiced in the month of the anniversary of their last annual fee invoice.
• CQC may need extra data to calculate your fee, which can delay the invoice.
• The invoice goes to the invoice address you gave CQC. It is not updated automatically if your registered address changes.
• CQC can email invoices if you give it an address. Keep that address current. To change address or email, contact NCSC.Finance@cqc.org.uk quoting your registration number.

How to Pay: Invoice or Direct Debit

CQC only accepts electronic payment. It no longer accepts cheques, postal orders or cash. The default is to pay in one payment within 30 days of the invoice date, using the details on your invoice.

Direct debit

• Payments are collected in equal instalments over a maximum of 10 months, on the 5th of each month.
• You receive an invoice at least five working days before the first payment, showing the total and the dates of your instalments.
• If you ask for direct debit after the invoice is issued, the number of instalments reduces so the fee is paid by the time your next invoice is due.
• The instruction stays in place, so next year’s invoice is paid automatically.
• If you cancel while a balance is outstanding, the remaining balance becomes payable immediately.

Put the invoice month in your diary and set a task for finance to check the address and number of service users beforehand.

Changing Your Registration, Refunds and Queries

• If you think CQC has calculated your fee incorrectly, email NCSC.Finance@cqc.org.uk or phone 03000 616161 quoting your Provider ID and invoice number.
• A dormant provider, one no longer carrying out regulated activities but still registered, is still charged fees.
• You may be entitled to a part refund only if you stop carrying out all regulated activities and apply to cancel your registration as a service provider. The refund is due once CQC has processed that application.
• No refund if you only cancel a registered manager’s registration, remove one or more locations, or cancel individual regulated activities while continuing others.

Selling or closing a service? See buying and selling a care home before you make registration changes, because the timing affects what you pay.

What Happens If You Do Not Pay?

CQC says non-payment is a reason it may cancel a provider’s registration. Its process is: its finance team contacts you several times; a finance enforcement team then takes over, reviews what support you have had and sends a final letter that explains next steps and asks why you have not paid; if the account remains outstanding it begins the process of cancelling your registration, taking into account the amount owed and any explanation you gave. CQC says it will always give you every opportunity to pay first, though in some circumstances it may go straight to cancellation.

If you face financial difficulty, contact NCSC.Finance@cqc.org.uk before the due date. For wider enforcement context, see CQC enforcement action explained.

Budgeting and Keeping Track

Treat the CQC fee as a fixed annual cost and keep it separate from other regulatory costs such as DBS checks and training. CQCLogic’s task tracking lets you assign the fee check, invoice approval and payment to named people with due dates. It is a reminder tool; payment itself is made directly to CQC.