Guide
How much does CQC registration cost?
Updated
The commonly searched question has a surprising answer: the application itself costs nothing. The money goes on annual fees once registered, and on getting the application right.
No application fee, then an annual fee
The CQC does not charge to process a registration application. Once registered, every provider pays an annual fee under the CQC's fees scheme, due each year for as long as the registration exists (cqc.org.uk: fees).
How the annual fee is worked out
- Community social care (home care and similar): banded by the number of locations and service users.
- Residential care: banded by the number of registered beds per location.
- GP and healthcare providers: banded by patient-list size or locations.
- The scheme is revised periodically after consultation, use the current fee tables and the CQC's own fee calculator on cqc.org.uk rather than any third-party figure.
We deliberately do not print fee amounts here: the scheme changes and a stale number is worse than none. The structure above is stable; the pounds are not.
The costs that are not the fee
- Registered manager time, most applications need a registered manager who meets the fit-person requirements, with an enhanced DBS check (currently charged per check by the Disclosure and Barring Service).
- Policies, statement of purpose and evidence, written in-house or bought as templates; either way, they must describe what you will actually do.
- Waiting time, you cannot trade the regulated activity while you wait, so months of pre-registration running costs are part of the real price.
Budgeting question answered, the next question is usually timing. See how the registration process works.