What you pay after approval: annual fees, audits and renewals by regulator

Sources: each regulator's or body's own published documents, linked below. Checked 5 October 2026.

What does an MFHEA licence cost to keep?

Maltese regulations require every licensed provider to go through a provider and programme quality audit every five years, and a licence lapses if the provider does not apply for the audit in time. MFHEA charges for it in two parts. The first is an administrative fee by licence category, paid before the audit starts. It is 2,000 euro for a Higher Education Institution, 3,000 euro for a combined institution and 1,000 euro for a Further Education Institution. The second is the review panel, billed per day of the site visit at 750 euro for the chair and 700 euro each for a peer reviewer and a student reviewer. Flights for an international reviewer, interpreters and financial due diligence are added at cost and invoiced when the audit ends.

So a Higher Education Institution with a three-person panel on site for one day would pay 2,000 euro and then 2,150 euro in reviewer fees, before any costs. Your programmes are on the same five-year clock, and each one is re-accredited through the same process and fee scale as the first time.

Smaller charges apply between audits. Since 1 October 2024 MFHEA has charged 50 euro to register a change of head of institution, legal representative or name, 100 euro for a new teaching venue in Malta and 300 euro for one abroad.

What does an approved centre pay its awarding organisation each year?

A centre's recurring costs are the annual fee, the fees for each learner and, sometimes, extra quality assurance visits. The annual fees on the 2026 to 2027 lists we read run from 475 pounds at Gatehouse Awards to 1,890 pounds for a full CMI partner. NCFE charges 1,190 pounds and includes one monitoring review a year at no charge. If NCFE has to come back, an additional review costs 390.50 pounds for a half day on site and 781 pounds for a full day.

Two lists tie the annual charge to your activity. TQUK's fee is 3,000 pounds less whatever the centre spent in the period. Qualifi charges 1,950 pounds for reapproval where a centre has registered fewer than 25 learners. OTHM does it differently and charges 1,950 pounds once every five years. Whichever model applies, the registration fee for each learner is likely to be your biggest line once you are busy, and that is the one to build into your course price. The full comparison is on our page about the awarding organisation route.

Do Ofqual and the other UK regulators charge annual fees?

The qualifications regulators do not send an annual invoice. We found no annual fee from Ofqual, Qualifications Wales or CCEA Regulation, and the Scottish Accreditation Licence states that no fees are payable. What they require instead is evidence, every year. Ofqual and CCEA Regulation each ask for an annual statement of compliance. Qualifications Scotland Accreditation expects an annual self-assessment and audits each awarding body at least once every three years, depending on its risk rating.

The cost of getting this wrong is real. Ofqual can fine an awarding organisation up to 10 per cent of its annual turnover, and its accounts show 2.52 million pounds of income from fines in 2025 to 2026.

Higher education is the exception among the UK routes, because the Office for Students does charge every year. The annual registration fee starts at 14,775 pounds for a provider with 25 or fewer full-time-equivalent students. Registered providers also subscribe to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, whose core fee for 2026 is 572 pounds for up to 200 students and 1,180 pounds for 201 to 500.

What do CPD marks and SCQF credit ratings cost to keep?

CPD certification is a subscription more than a one-off. Membership of the CPD Standards Office runs for a minimum of two years and then rolls on a year at a time. IOSH charges an annual licence renewal for each approved course title, from 172 pounds in its Core Skills category to 370 pounds for Executive Education, and it reviews the course itself every five years at the original approval rates.

An SCQF credit rating expires as well. The SCQF Partnership's guide says the period of credit rating is usually three to five years, and that there is a cost at each renewal as well as at the start.

How do you budget for a full accreditation cycle?

It helps to put a whole cycle on one line. Take a Higher Education Institution in Malta with one 60 ECTS diploma at Level 5. At the start it pays MFHEA 4,850 euro for the licence and 2,680 euro for the programme. Five years later it pays about 4,150 euro for the audit, on the assumptions above, and 2,680 euro to re-accredit the programme at today's rates. That is 14,360 euro in regulator fees across the first cycle, or a little under 2,900 euro a year. The staff time to run the quality system and get ready for the audit is likely to cost more than that, so plan it first.

Apollo Accreditation is a consultancy. It is not a regulator or an awarding organisation and does not award qualifications. Fees and rules change, so confirm them with the body named before you act on them.