On 27 November 2025, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) issued a consultation on its plans and budget for 2026 – 2027.
Budget
The budget that the FOS has set out in its consultation assumes £22m of cost efficiency in 2026/27 (8% of operating expenditure) – a mix of £20m casework savings and the avoidance of £2m incremental modernising redress costs by redeploying existing employees, partially offset by inflationary cost increases of £5m and an increase of £8m relating to a higher volume of complaint resolutions.
Case fee
The FOS is consulting on a proposal to increase its income through an increase to the case fee and levy.
The consultation sets out a proposal to increase the FOS’:
- Case fee from £650 to £680 (4.6% increase).
- Case fee for professional representatives from £250 to £260 (4% increase), with the credit if the case is found in favour of the complainant increasing from £175 to £180.
- Compulsory jurisdiction levy from £70m to £86m.
Billing
In the consultation the FOS also summarises the feedback to its earlier consultation on simplifying the billing process and differentiating case fees. The FOS will use the responses to shape its proposals for a consultation on differentiated case fees in November 2026, with a plan to implement any changes in 2027/28.
Before this the FOS will introduce a range of billing process changes in 2026/27 to simplify its processes and ready its systems in anticipation of introducing differentiated case fees. The simplification that will be introduced for 2026/2027 is outlined in the consultation.
Charing interest
And from 1 January 2026, the FOS is changing the interest it applies to some of the awards it directs financial businesses to make in order to better reflect market conditions.
Next steps
The deadline for comments on the consultation is 21 January 2026.