The Lifelong Learning (Fee Limits) Regulations 2026 set the tuition fee cap rules for England’s new lifelong learning funding model. The statutory instrument was made on 22 July 2026, comes into force on 1 September 2026, extends to England and Wales, and applies in relation to England. Its charging rules apply to qualifying courses that begin on or after 1 January 2027. The Department for Education states in the instrument that the draft was approved by both Houses of Parliament and that the increases to the higher fee amounts are limited to what is needed to preserve their value in real terms. The practical change is that fee limits are no longer framed only as a single annual cap for a conventional degree. They are tied to credits, course structure and the type of learning activity taking place in a course year.
One immediate effect is that the older fee-cap rules are switched off for new entrants to the lifelong learning regime. The 2017 fee limit condition regulations, the 2018 fee limits regulations and the 2019 accelerated courses regulations will not apply to courses beginning on or after 1 January 2027. The new rules apply to providers in the Office for Students’ ‘Approved (fee cap)’ category and to courses designated for lifelong learning student support under section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998. Regulation 19 then makes a consequential amendment so that courses designated under the new lifelong learning route are not also treated as designated under the older student support system. That separation matters because it prevents two fee regimes from operating on the same course.
Regulation 8 requires the credit-based method in every case. For this purpose, each attached credit must represent 10 notional learning hours, and providers must notify the Secretary of State in advance of the number of credits they intend to charge for in a course year. If the pattern of study changes during the year, the notification must be repeated and the fee limit recalculated. This is not a single model for every subject. Regulation 9 excludes several categories from having credits attached in that way, including first degrees in medicine, dentistry, nursing, veterinary science and midwifery, certain postgraduate pre-registration courses, and one-year full-time equivalent teacher training courses. Where credits are attached, the per-year amount is 180 credits. For years without attached credits, the Regulations use separate default rules elsewhere in the instrument.
The Regulations also allow a course year to be broken into separate chargeable activities where more than one type of study takes place in the same year. ‘Credit-differentiated activities’ include normal taught study, higher-fee and lower-fee foundation year study, sandwich placements, study abroad, Turing mobility and repeat study. That means a mixed year does not have to be priced as though every part of it is the same kind of provision. Foundation years receive special treatment. Regulation 10 defines a foundation year as a 120-credit, or 1,200-hour, period integrated at the start of an undergraduate course and designed to prepare a student for progression to year one. Whether it is charged at the lower or higher foundation-year rate depends on the Common Aggregated Hierarchy 3 subject codes in Schedule 2. If more than half of the linked CAH3 codes fall within the listed subjects, the lower-fee rate applies; otherwise the higher-fee rate applies.
Part 3 then sets two control points for charging. A ‘per-course amount’ limits the number of credits that may be charged across the course as a whole, while a ‘per-year amount’ limits the number of credits that may be charged in a given course year. For course years with attached credits, the annual cap is 180 credits. There is no per-course amount for repeat study or for modules, and where several chargeable activities would otherwise take the total above 180 credits, the provider chooses which credits to charge for within that ceiling. The drafting is written to cope with non-standard study patterns. Top-up courses are capped by reference either to the comparable full course or to the course’s full-time equivalent duration multiplied by 120 credits. Transfer cases are also covered. If a student joins after the month in which the course year starts, the provider must reduce the chargeable learning to reflect prior study that removes part of the learning requirement, described in the Regulations as ‘relieved learning’.
The cash values appear in regulation 18 as per-credit limits expressed against 120 credits. Where a provider has an access and participation plan in force at the start of the course year, the higher amount applies; where it does not, the basic amount applies. For normal taught study and higher-fee foundation year study, the higher amount is £9,790 for course years starting before 1 August 2027 and £10,050 for course years starting on or after that date. The equivalent basic amounts are £6,525 and £6,695. Other activity types are set at lower rates. Lower-fee foundation year study is £5,760 on the higher amount and £3,835 on the basic amount, with no change from 1 August 2027. Sandwich placements rise from £1,955 to £2,010 on the higher amount and from £1,305 to £1,335 on the basic amount. Study abroad and Turing mobility rise from £1,465 to £1,505 on the higher amount and from £975 to £1,000 on the basic amount. The Regulations also set floor amounts slightly below each ceiling, and repeat study takes the same per-credit rate as the activity being repeated.
Eligibility largely carries forward the existing fee-limit condition approach, but it is rewritten for the lifelong learning regime. Regulations 5 and 6 and Schedule 1 cover settled students, people with protected rights under the post-Brexit citizens’ rights framework, refugees, people with humanitarian protection or stateless leave, and people covered by the Afghan and Ukraine schemes, section 67 leave, Calais leave, domestic abuse provisions and bereaved partner routes. The timing rules are strict. If a person enters one of those categories part-way through a course year, regulation 6 provides that they are not a qualifying person for that same year. In most cases, the change will only affect the next relevant course year. The Regulations also preserve eligibility where a person’s leave expires but further leave is granted, is pending under the immigration rules, or the person becomes a British or Irish citizen. For courses beginning on or after 1 January 2028, three transitional residence categories in paragraphs 19, 20 and 23 of Schedule 1 drop out of the prescribed categories list.
For providers, the administrative burden begins well before the first affected courses start in January 2027. Institutions will need systems that can record notional learning hours, assign credits, identify mixed-activity years, map foundation year subject codes, and notify the Secretary of State when a student’s course pattern changes. Charging decisions on transfer credit, repeat study and in-year amendments now feed directly into the fee-cap calculation rather than sitting at the edge of it. For students, advisers and compliance teams, the main effect is that the fee cap follows the volume and type of study more closely than the older annual-fee model. A course year made up of classroom teaching, placement activity and overseas study may now produce a blended charging limit rather than a single headline cap. The Department for Education’s explanatory note makes clear that this instrument is only one part of the wider package and must be read alongside the amended fee-limit provisions in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 and the companion Lifelong Learning (Student Support) (Amendment of Fees and Awards etc.) Regulations 2026.