AGFS legal aid fees rise in Crown Court on 28 July 2026

The government has formally laid the legal change that will raise some Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, or AGFS, payments. If that phrase means nothing to you, start here: AGFS is the scheme used to pay many criminal defence advocates for legal aid work in the Crown Court. The new rules will apply to cases with a representation order dated on or after 28 July 2026. That date matters because the representation order is the formal legal aid order in the case, so it decides whether the old rates or the new rates apply.

Only certain fees are changing, but the changes are quite clear. The fixed fee for additional preparation will rise from £62 to £81, the additional preparation fee will be extended to guilty plea cases, and the minimum trial length needed for a wasted preparation claim will fall from five days to two. **What this means:** more advocates should be able to claim for work done before a hearing, including in cases that end earlier than a full trial. This is a technical fee update, but it affects the everyday economics of criminal defence work.

That matters because preparation is not some optional extra tagged on at the end. It can include reading evidence, testing the prosecution case, advising a client on plea, and getting ready for hearings that may never run in the way first expected. A guilty plea case can still involve serious preparation before anyone stands up in court. By extending the fee to those cases, the government is recognising that the work does not suddenly become less real simply because a case does not go all the way to trial.

The rule change on wasted preparation is just as important, even if the wording sounds dry. A wasted preparation claim is there for cases where an advocate has done trial preparation that later turns out not to be used in the usual way, often because the case changes course. Cutting the threshold from five trial days to two opens that route to a much wider group of cases. According to the government announcement, the aim is to make sure advocates are properly paid for preparation and to encourage earlier, more thorough case work across more of the Crown Court system.

These are not the full AGFS reforms. According to the government, most of the wider package will still go out to public consultation. These three changes are being brought in first because ministers say they are especially important to the criminal Bar and have already been shaped by extensive talks with the sector, including through the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board. For readers trying to make sense of justice policy, that is a useful clue. When a government brings forward a few fee changes before the bigger reform arrives, it usually means pressure has been building around those points for some time.

There is also a practical point for anyone making claims. The additional preparation fee should be claimed through the Claim for Crown Court Defence billing tool by going to the "miscellaneous fees" page, opening the fee drop-down, choosing "additional preparation fee", and then submitting the claim. The catch is that the digital update may not be ready on 28 July 2026 for the higher fee and the new guilty plea coverage. If that happens, the government says it will set out how claims should be sent in the meantime. That is a reminder that a legal rule can change before the software fully catches up.

If you want the detailed wording, the key documents are The Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026 and the updated Crown Court Fee Guidance. The AGFS calculator is also due to be updated. The bigger lesson is simple. Small numbers on a fee sheet can tell you a lot about how the justice system values work that the public rarely sees. In this case, the government is not changing every part of criminal legal aid, but these early measures suggest ministers accept that preparation work needs better recognition in the fee system.