How to sue a business
Suing a business means a claim in the civil courts of England and Wales, and the first thing the court does with it is sort it into a track. The track decides how long the case takes, what you file, who can give evidence and, above everything, how much of your spend you get back. This guide is for one business claiming against another, and it walks the route in order, with the court fees and fixed costs as they stand today.
- The court sorts every defended claim into one of four tracks by value and complexity: small claims up to £10,000, fast track to £25,000, intermediate to £100,000, and multi-track above that or where the case is complex.
- On the fast and intermediate tracks you recover fixed sums, not what you actually spent. Winning does not mean being repaid.
- A company can run its own claim with advice behind it. If it does, the most it can recover in costs is two-thirds of the fixed figure.
- Before you issue, the court expects a proper letter, a fair time to reply and a genuine look at settlement. Skip it and you can pay for it in costs, even if you win.
- A judgment is not payment. Check the other side can pay before you start, not after you win.
The claim starts with a letter
Court is the last step, and the court knows it. Before you issue, the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct expects you to write to the other side setting out what you say happened, what you want and how you have worked the figure out. They are entitled to a reasonable time to reply: 14 days in a straightforward case, up to three months in a very complex one. Both sides are expected to look seriously at settlement, mediation included.
Ignore this and the court can penalise you in costs, in interest or in both, even if you go on to win. It is the cheapest part of the whole route and the part most often done badly.
There is one variant. Where a business is chasing a debt from an individual, a sole trader included, the separate Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims applies instead, with its own information sheet and a longer reply period. From 1 October 2026 it expects the letter to go by email where appropriate. Between two companies the general practice direction is the one to follow.
Then there is the clock. For a contract claim you have six years from the breach, or twelve if the contract is a deed, and writing letters does not stop it running. If time is short, issue first and talk afterwards.
Whether you have a claim at all, and how serious the breach is, are covered in the contract disputes guide, and the claim check will give you a first read in a few minutes. This guide starts where those end: you have decided to go ahead.
The court sorts your claim by value and weight
Once the defence is in, the court allocates the claim to a track. The dividing lines are mostly financial: up to £10,000 is small claims, over £10,000 and up to £25,000 is fast track, over £25,000 and up to £100,000 is intermediate, and anything bigger or more complex is multi-track. Value means what is actually in dispute. Amounts the other side admits, interest and costs are left out, and a counterclaim is looked at separately rather than added on to yours.
Answer the questions below in order and you will land on the track your claim is most likely to be given.
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Is the amount in dispute £10,000 or less?
Yes Small claims track. Usually one short, informal hearing, built to be run without lawyers. It is not the work we take on, and we will say so.
No Go to the next question.
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Is it £25,000 or less, with a trial of one day at most?
Yes Fast track. Standard directions, a trial of a day at most and fixed recoverable costs.
No Go to the next question.
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Is it £100,000 or less, with a trial of three days at most, no more than two or three parties and no more than two experts a side?
Yes Intermediate track. Lighter case management, tight limits on paper and experts, and fixed costs set by complexity band.
No Multi-track. The default for everything bigger or heavier, managed by the court case by case.
Small claims
Up to £10,000. One short hearing, and no expert evidence without permission. Almost no legal costs recoverable.
Fast track
£10,000 to £25,000. A trial of a day at most. One expert a side in each of two fields, no more. Fixed recoverable costs.
Intermediate
£25,000 to £100,000. A trial of up to three days. Fixed recoverable costs, set by complexity band.
Multi-track
Over £100,000, or anything complex. The court manages the case, usually with costs budgets.
The court also weighs complexity, the number of parties, how much oral evidence there will be and how important the case is to anyone else. It listens to what the parties think but is not bound by it. A claim over £100,000 can start in the High Court. Below that it belongs in the County Court.
The limits above are as at 1 October 2026. The Civil Justice Council announced on 8 June 2026 a review of all four, and of the line between the County Court and the High Court, though no new figures have been proposed.
Every track starts the same way, then they part
After the defence, each side completes a directions questionnaire: form N180 on small claims and form N181 on the other three tracks. It is due within 14 days of the notice of proposed allocation on small claims and 28 days on the rest, and the parties cannot agree to move the date. You can ask for a one-month stay to try to settle, and the questionnaire is where you say which complexity band you think applies. After that the tracks part company.
| Feature | Small claims | Fast track | Intermediate | Multi-track |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | Up to £10,000 | £10,000 to £25,000 | £25,000 to £100,000 | Over £100,000, or complex |
| Trial | One short hearing | A day at most (five hours) | Up to three days | As long as the case needs |
| Experts | Only with permission | One a side per field, two fields at most | Two a side at most | As the court allows |
| Paper limits | None set | None set | 30 pages of witness statements and 20 of expert reports, per party | Set by the court |
| Case management | Standard or special directions | Directions to trial, usually within about 30 weeks of allocation | Optional case management conference, then directions | Case management conference, budgets, pre-trial review |
| Legal costs | Almost none recoverable | Fixed | Fixed, by complexity band | Budgeted, then assessed |
Small claims is the lightest. It is a short, informal hearing, usually without expert evidence, and a free telephone mediation of up to an hour is built into the process. That mediation service is still a pilot, extended to April 2027. Fast track gets standard directions and a trial of a day at most.
The intermediate track is the one that suits the way we work. It arrived in October 2023 for claims between £25,000 and £100,000 and it keeps case management deliberately light: an optional case management conference, directions agreed between the parties where possible, and a trial of no more than three days. The page limits change how a case is prepared. You build the evidence you will actually use, not the evidence you might. Each claim is placed in one of four complexity bands, and a defended debt is band 1. Once directions are given the claim is hard to move to another track, and it takes exceptional reasons.
Multi-track is the default for everything else. The court runs a case management conference and, for most claims, approves a costs budget on Precedent H. File none and the court limits you to your court fees. Larger commercial claims go to specialist lists. From 1 October 2026 the Chancery Division is replaced by the Business and Property Division of the High Court, which takes in the Commercial Court and the Circuit Commercial Courts. Its disclosure rules (Practice Direction 57AD) apply there: key documents go in with the statements of case, then extended disclosure in the form the court orders, issue by issue.
The forms you will actually meet, in the order you meet them:
- N1, the claim form. Online if the claim qualifies, which it will not if the amount is unknown, there is more than one claimant, there are three or more defendants, a party has no address in England or Wales, or the defendant is a government department. Otherwise on paper.
- N180 or N181, the directions questionnaire, as above.
- N244, the application notice, for anything you need the court to decide between hearings.
- N260, the statement of costs, used for summary assessment at the end of a fast track trial or a short hearing.
- Precedent H, the costs budget, on the multi-track.
And what you get back
Dated figures Court fees as at 13 July 2026. Fixed recoverable costs as uprated on 6 April 2024. Track limits as at 1 October 2026. The Ministry of Justice committed to review fixed costs in October 2026 and no outcome has been published, so check the date before you rely on a number.
Start with what you pay the court. The issue fee is scaled to the claim, and interest you claim counts towards it: £455 for a claim of £5,000 to £10,000, then 5% of the claim up to £200,000, then a flat £10,000 above that. The hearing fee comes later, £619 on the fast track and £1,334 on the intermediate and multi-track. An application costs £321 on notice and £126 by consent or without notice. There is no separate allocation or listing fee, and court fees are usually recoverable from the loser.
Then there is what you pay your own advisers, which the court never asks about, and this is where the track matters. On small claims you recover almost nothing. On the fast and intermediate tracks you recover only the fixed sums set out in the rules, by stage and by complexity band, however much you actually spent. On the multi-track you recover costs the court finds reasonable and proportionate, held to the budget it approved.
If you run the claim yourself with advice behind you, the ceiling drops again. A company conducting its own case recovers no more than two-thirds of the fixed figure, and only the time and loss it can prove. It also needs the court's permission for an employee to represent it at trial. Plenty of businesses choose this route knowingly. They simply need to see the number before they start, not after.
Small claims track
Court fees run from £35 to £455 to issue depending on the amount, and up to £346 for the hearing. Legal costs are not recoverable beyond a few fixed items, and Part 36 offers do not apply. This is where to think hardest about whether any adviser is worth paying, and where we will usually tell you to run it yourself.
Fast track
Issue fee of 5% of the claim, £500 to £1,250, and a hearing fee of £619. On a £20,000 claim that is £1,619 in court fees. A represented claimant who wins at trial recovers £13,433 in fixed costs on a typical band 3 money claim, or £6,091 on a defended debt in band 1. Settle before issuing and the band 3 figure is £4,097. Running it yourself, the most you can recover is two-thirds: £8,955, £4,061 and £2,731.
Intermediate track
Issue fee of 5% of the claim, £1,250 to £5,000, and a hearing fee of £1,334. On a £60,000 claim that is £4,334 in court fees. A represented claimant who wins after a two-day trial in band 2 recovers £34,918 in fixed costs, or £19,116 in band 1 for a one-day, single-issue case, assuming the trial bundle was prepared. Running it yourself, the most you can recover is two-thirds: £23,279 and £12,744. A mediation or joint settlement meeting adds £1,239.
Multi-track
Issue fee of 5% up to £200,000, then a flat £10,000, and a hearing fee of £1,334. On a £400,000 claim that is £11,334 in court fees. There is no table. You recover what the court approves in your budget and finds reasonable and proportionate at the end, which is commonly materially below what was spent.
| Claim | Court fees | Fixed costs if you win, represented | Most you recover running it yourself | Illustrative spend, represented, to trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000, fast track, band 3 | £1,619 | £13,433 | £8,955 | £15,000 to £25,000 |
| £60,000, intermediate, band 2, two-day trial | £4,334 | £34,918 | £23,279 | £45,000 to £80,000 |
| £400,000, multi-track | £11,334 | The approved budget | Not a fixed figure | £150,000 to £300,000 |
Illustrative, not a quote. Fees are for a defended claim with no interest added, fixed costs are before VAT, and the last column is a rough indication of what a fully represented case to trial can cost, not a published figure. Your own figure will depend on the case.
The gap is the point. On the £20,000 claim a represented claimant who wins recovers £13,433 against a spend that may well be more. Run it yourself and the most you recover is £8,955, but you spend far less. Either way you are not repaid in full, and the sum belongs on the table before you issue.
Most of the money moves before the trial
A formal Part 36 offer is the strongest tool you have, and on the fast and intermediate tracks it works differently from the rest of the rules. Accept an offer in time and you get fixed costs to the stage you reached. A claimant who beats their own offer at trial gets an extra amount equal to 35% of the difference in fixed costs between the stage when the offer expired and the stage of judgment, in place of the usual indemnity costs. Part 36 does not apply on small claims.
The court can also order the parties to engage in alternative dispute resolution, and refusing without good reason counts against you on costs. That follows the Court of Appeal's 2023 decision in Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil. On the intermediate and multi-track, expect the judge to ask what you tried, and expect an answer of "nothing" to cost you.
Then there is getting paid. A judgment is a piece of paper until someone acts on it. A warrant of control costs £96, and a third party debt order or a charging order costs £139 each. None of them helps against a defendant with nothing to find, so look at their accounts, their charges and their position before you issue. If the debt is a commercial one, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act adds interest at 8% over the Bank of England base rate and fixed compensation of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the debt.
We advise. You go on the record.
We are a legal consultancy, not a law firm, and we do not conduct litigation. If a claim is issued you go on the court record, we manage the strategy and Counsel alongside you, and an advocate appears where advocacy is needed.
Everything around that is ours: reading the contract, working out which track you are heading for, the honest sum of cost against recovery, the letters and the particulars of claim, the evidence, and the settlement approach. Our sweet spot is the intermediate track and above, where judgement and a feel for the business change the result. Small claims are designed to be run without lawyers, and we would rather say so than take the instruction.
The cheapest claim is sometimes the one you do not bring, and the second cheapest is the one you settle from a position someone has actually costed. If you want to see where yours sits, our litigation page explains how we work, and what we cannot help with is straightforward about the edges.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four court tracks in England and Wales?
Small claims for disputes of up to £10,000, fast track for £10,000 to £25,000, intermediate track for £25,000 to £100,000, and multi-track for anything larger or more complex. The court allocates a defended claim to one of them, and the track sets the procedure, the length of trial and how much of your legal spend you can recover.
What is the intermediate track?
A track introduced in October 2023 for claims over £25,000 and up to £100,000 that need a trial of no more than three days, with limited experts and up to three parties. Case management is light, witness statements are capped at 30 pages and expert reports at 20, and recoverable legal costs are fixed by complexity band rather than assessed.
How much does it cost to sue a business in the UK?
The court issue fee is 5% of the claim between £10,000 and £200,000, and £10,000 above that, with a hearing fee of £619 on the fast track and £1,334 on the intermediate and multi-track. Legal costs come on top and depend on the track and who runs the case. On a £60,000 claim, court fees are £4,334 and a represented win recovers fixed costs of up to £34,918, which may be well below the spend.
What are fixed recoverable costs?
Set sums, in tables in the Civil Procedure Rules, which a winning party recovers for its legal costs on the fast and intermediate tracks. They depend on the stage reached and on the complexity band, and they are paid however much was actually spent. A company running its own case recovers no more than two-thirds of the figure.
Do I need a solicitor to sue a business?
No. A company can bring its own claim, though it needs the court's permission for an employee to represent it at trial. Advice before you start usually pays for itself, because the track and the costs sum decide whether the claim is worth bringing. We advise on strategy, evidence and drafting, and you go on the court record.
Tell us what you are owed
Most business claims turn on the contract and the first fortnight of correspondence. Silva reads both, tells you which track you are heading for, and gives you the honest arithmetic, including whether the claim is worth bringing at all.