Cengolio · Fines · Victim surcharge
Forty per cent, or a flat rate.
Every sentence in England and Wales carries a surcharge on top, and the amount follows a published table: 40 per cent of a fine capped at £2,000, flat rates from £114 to £228 for community orders and custody, and flat £20 to £41 for under-18s, where the same £5,000 fine that costs an adult £2,000 extra costs a teenager £26.
Rates per SI 2022/584, in force 16 June 2022 for offences from that date, primary text read 18 July 2026; earlier offences keep the earlier rates. Checked 18 July 2026.
This reads the surcharge tables; the sentence itself is the court's. The surcharge is mandatory and its amount ignores means: where money is short, the court trims the fine or allows time to pay, not the surcharge, and compensation ranks first of all. It is enforced like a fine, up to the same enforcement machinery. No surcharge falls on an absolute discharge, on compensation ordered as the sentence itself, or on a hearing that only deals with a breach.
The surcharge follows the sentence by pure arithmetic; which sentence falls, and how large the fine is, remains the one thing here that is not.
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