The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026 were made on 23 June 2026, laid before Parliament on 29 June 2026 and come into force on 20 July 2026. According to the statutory instrument, the change applies in England and Wales and alters the information recorded for money judgments on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. In straightforward terms, the register will now carry the claimant's full name in most cases. This is a data and transparency change rather than a rewrite of the law on enforcement or liability.
The amendment works by changing regulation 10 of the 2005 Regulations. The court return sent to the Registrar must, subject to stated exceptions, include the full name of the claimant for whom the register entry is to be made. The effect is narrow but important. A case that already falls within the registration system remains within it on the same basis, but the recorded entry will now identify the party who brought the successful money claim.
The Regulations also set out three groups of exceptions. First, claimant names must not be included where the claimant's identity is protected by a court anonymity order under rule 39.2(4), or by any enactment that grants anonymity. Secondly, the rule does not apply to administration orders made under section 112 of the County Courts Act 1984. Thirdly, it does not apply to tribunal decisions of the First-tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, Employment Tribunal or Employment Appeal Tribunal where a sum of money is payable. That means the new naming rule is limited rather than universal. The drafting keeps existing anonymity protections in place and leaves several tribunal-based monetary decisions outside scope.
Implementation is staged rather than immediate in full. Regulation 3 creates a transitional period running from 20 July 2026 to 19 October 2026. During that three-month window, the Registrar's duty to record details from court returns does not extend to recording the claimant's name on the Register. The Explanatory Note states that this creates a period between data sharing and publication. In practice, claimant names can begin moving through the reporting process from 20 July 2026, but for returns received during the transition they are not due to appear on the Register until 20 October 2026.
For court users, the practical effect is easiest to see in ordinary money claims. From late October 2026, many entries should make clear not only that a debt has been reduced to judgment, but also who obtained that judgment. That is likely to reduce ambiguity where claimants have similar names or where related entities pursue debts through connected proceedings. The reverse is equally important. Claimants with anonymity protection, and parties involved in the excluded tribunal and administration order categories, will not be brought into the new naming rule. The instrument therefore widens identification in most covered cases without removing existing privacy safeguards.
The Explanatory Note states that no full impact assessment has been prepared because no, or no significant, effect on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen. Even so, the addition of a new data field, combined with a delayed publication period, points to a modest operational adjustment in how court data are passed to and recorded by the Registrar. The Regulations were made by the Lord Chancellor under sections 98 and 108 of the Courts Act 2003 and signed by Sarah Sackman, Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice. That legal basis matters because the instrument is administrative in form: it adjusts how judgment data are supplied and published, rather than creating a new category of case.
In policy terms, this is a targeted amendment with a clear timetable. The first key date is 20 July 2026, when courts begin operating the new reporting rule. The second is 20 October 2026, when claimant names can start appearing on the Register for returns received during the transition. For practitioners, data users and advice services, the main point is simple. The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines will become more descriptive for most money judgments in England and Wales, but the law deliberately delays publication for three months and keeps anonymity cases and several tribunal decisions outside the claimant-name requirement.