The family court in England and Wales can order a parent to pay a child's private school fees, whether or not the parents were ever married. Within a divorce, a school fees order forms part of the financial settlement; for parents who never married, the route is Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989, which can also deliver housing for the child, lump sums and an allowance for the caring parent.
Two numbers now dominate these disputes. Since 1 January 2025, private school fees have carried VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent, which turns a £6,000 term into a £7,200 one and has made affordability the first question in almost every case. And the Child Maintenance Service formula stops at £3,000 of gross weekly income, roughly £156,000 a year, so above that level only a court can order more.
School fees are a long income commitment negotiated alongside the capital split, and promising to pay them changes what a fair division of everything else looks like. Before you commit income to a decade of termly bills, the settlement range estimator shows how the rest of your settlement might reasonably divide, so you can see the fees promise in its proper context.
School fees orders within a divorce settlement
On divorce, the court's powers to provide for children sit inside the wider financial remedy jurisdiction. A school fees order is treated as a species of child maintenance: the court can order one parent to pay all or part of the fees, either to the other parent or direct to the school, and because it is a maintenance order it can be varied later, up, down or off, if circumstances change.
The test is practical rather than technical. The court examines both parents' incomes, outgoings and earning capacity and asks whether the fees are genuinely affordable after housing and everyday needs are met. Where private education was the established pattern of the marriage and the resources exist, an order or an agreed provision is the usual outcome. Where paying fees would leave one household unable to rehouse or meet basic needs, the school ranks behind the roof. Most school fees provision is agreed rather than fought, and it should always be recorded in a sealed order: see our guide to consent orders and clean break orders for why an unrecorded promise is worth little.
Child maintenance, the CMS formula and the school fees carve-out
For day-to-day child maintenance, the default regime is the Child Maintenance Service, not the court. The formula takes the paying parent's gross weekly income and applies 12, 16 or 19 per cent for one, two or three or more children on income up to £800 a week, then 9, 12 or 15 per cent on the slice from £800.01 to £3,000, with adjustments for shared care and other children. Using Collect and Pay rather than Direct Pay adds 20 per cent for the payer and deducts 4 per cent from the recipient. The full mechanics, with worked figures, are in our CMS formula guide, and you can run your own numbers on the official gov.uk child maintenance calculator.
School fees sit outside that formula entirely. Under section 8(7) of the Child Support Act 1991, the court keeps the power to make an order to meet expenses connected with a child's education even where the CMS would otherwise have exclusive jurisdiction. That carve-out is why a school fees order can be made in an ordinary case without anyone's income going near the cap.
Top-up child maintenance above £3,000 a week gross
The CMS assessment is capped at £3,000 of gross weekly income. Once a maximum calculation is in force at that cap, section 8(6) of the same Act lets the court order top-up periodical payments above the formula amount. At the cap, the formula for one child produces £96 a week on the first £800 plus £198 on the remaining £2,200, a total of £294 a week or about £15,288 a year before any shared-care reduction. For a payer earning £300,000, that unadjusted figure is plainly not the ceiling of what a court might consider reasonable, which is exactly what the top-up jurisdiction exists to address. For married couples the top-up question is usually packaged together with spousal maintenance in the overall settlement; for unmarried parents it runs through Schedule 1.
VAT on school fees and the divorce affordability squeeze
Since 1 January 2025, education and boarding services supplied by private schools have been subject to VAT at 20 per cent, and charitable business rates relief for private schools in England ended in April 2025. HMRC's guidance on VAT on private school fees sets out the regime; the government's own costing assumed schools would pass on around 10 per cent on average after reclaiming input VAT, though pass-through varies school by school.
For separating parents the effect is straightforward: the same commitment costs more, at exactly the moment one household is becoming two. Courts scrutinising affordability now routinely stress-test fees against the post-VAT figure for every remaining year of schooling, not the historic one. For existing orders, wording matters. An order to pay the fees of a named school as they stand from time to time tracks increases automatically; an order fixed at a cash amount leaves the shortfall unallocated. Either way, a school fees order is variable maintenance, so a squeezed payer can apply to vary rather than default, and a receiving parent should never assume the order self-adjusts.
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Schedule 1 Children Act claims: child maintenance, housing and lump sums for unmarried parents
Unmarried parents cannot use divorce law, but Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 gives the court a serious toolkit for the child's benefit:
| Order | What it does | Key limit |
|---|---|---|
| Periodical payments | Regular maintenance, which can include school fees and a carer's allowance for the parent looking after the child | Top-up amounts need the payer to be at the £3,000 weekly CMS cap; fees orders do not |
| Lump sum(s) | Capital for the child's needs, such as equipping a home, a car for school runs or clearing child-related debts | Must relate to the child's benefit; can be applied for more than once |
| Settlement or transfer of property | A home for the child, usually held on trust while the child grows up | Normally reverts to the paying parent when the child finishes full-time education |
The unifying principle is that everything is for the child. The caring parent gets no capital of their own, no pension claims and no support beyond the child's dependency, although the carer's allowance recognised in Re P (2003) means the maintenance can properly fund the household the child lives in. That boundary is the sharpest difference between separating cohabitants and divorcing spouses, and it is worth understanding before any negotiation: our resources for separated parents cover the wider picture.
Worked example: school fees inside the maintenance numbers
Suppose the paying parent earns £180,000 gross, about £3,462 a week, so the CMS maximum applies. One child attends a day school charging £6,000 a term before VAT.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| School fees with 20 per cent VAT | £7,200 a term, £21,600 a year |
| CMS maximum for one child (capped at £3,000 a week) | £294 a week, about £15,288 a year |
| Fees plus formula maintenance | About £36,888 a year, before any top-up |
The fees alone exceed the entire CMS maximum. Without a school fees order or a recorded agreement, nothing obliges the higher earner to pay them, and a parent who relies on goodwill carries the termly bill the moment goodwill runs out. That is the practical case for putting fees on a proper legal footing rather than leaving them to informal arrangement.
Agreeing school fees in your financial settlement
Most school fees arrangements are agreed, and the agreement is only as good as the document recording it. Within a divorce, build the fees into the consent order alongside the capital split, and be precise: which school, fees or fees plus extras such as trips, uniform and music lessons, payment direct to the school or between parents, what happens on a fee increase, and a review trigger if either income changes materially. Under Schedule 1, the same terms go into the order or a recorded agreement. If you are negotiating the wider division at the same time, our financial settlement guide sets out where fees sit among housing, pensions and income claims.
School fees disputes reward early, realistic numbers: the post-VAT cost of every remaining year, both parents' true disposable incomes, and a clear legal route, a school fees order within the divorce or a Schedule 1 claim outside it, if agreement fails. A specialist can stress-test the affordability numbers on both sides before anyone commits to a decade of fees; reach one through our contact page. This article is information, not legal advice, and every family's circumstances differ.