UK independent school fees 2026/27: day and boarding costs at the leading schools
Independent school fees for 2026/27 run from around £27,000 a year at the lower end of the London day schools to just over £69,000 for a boarding place at Westminster. This guide sets out what seventeen of the best known schools in the UK charge, split into boarding schools and London day schools, with day and boarding fees shown separately for every school that takes both.
Every figure includes VAT and comes from the school’s own published fees for 2026/27, checked at the time of writing.
It also covers what sits outside the headline fee. Most school websites give you a number per term and leave you to work out the rest, and it is the deposits, the extras and the annual rises that catch families out.
What VAT changed
From January 2025, independent school fees became subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20%. Nursery provision stayed exempt.
Schools handled it in different ways. Some absorbed part of the increase, some passed it on in full and some moved things in or out of the core fee at the same time. For parents that means published fees now include VAT, so the number on the page is much closer to the number on the invoice.
Boarding schools
Most of these schools take day pupils as well as boarders, and the gap between the two is substantial, often £5,000 or more a term. Eton and Harrow are the exceptions: both are full boarding, with no day option at all.
| School | Day (term) | Boarding (term) | Day (year) | Boarding (year) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harrow School | No day places | £21,990 | No day places | £65,970 |
| Eton College | No day places | £21,891 | No day places | £65,673 |
| Wellington College | £15,930 | £21,690 | £47,790 | £65,070 |
| Wycombe Abbey | £16,400 | £21,500 | £49,200 | £64,500 |
| Marlborough College | £17,076 | £21,345 | £51,228 | £64,035 |
| Charterhouse | £16,369 | £21,015 | £49,107 | £63,045 |
| Winchester College | £15,318 | £20,700 | £45,954 | £62,100 |
| Cheltenham Ladies’ College | £12,840–£14,460 | £20,400–£22,740 | £38,520–£43,380 | £61,200–£68,220 |
| Sevenoaks School | £12,514–£14,461 | £20,472–£22,383 | £37,542–£43,383 | £61,416–£67,149 |
| Canford School | £14,315 | £19,073 | £42,945 | £57,219 |
All figures include VAT. Every figure is the school’s own published fee for 2026/27.
A few points worth knowing. Winchester’s day places exist only in the sixth form, so the day figure does not apply lower down the school. Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Sevenoaks both step their fees by year group and charge new sixth form entrants more than pupils continuing from lower down, which is why they show a range. Wycombe Abbey is a girls’ boarding school with a small number of day places, limited to families living within fifteen miles.
London day schools
London day fees look lower than boarding fees and often are, but the gap narrows once you account for travel, lunches where they are not included and the fact that several London schools now offer boarding too.
| School | Day (term) | Boarding (term) | Day (year) | Boarding (year) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westminster School | £16,456–£17,482 | £23,094 | £49,368–£52,446 | £69,282 |
| St Paul’s Girls’ | £12,854–£13,880 | No boarding | £38,562–£41,640 | No boarding |
| St Paul’s School | £10,221–£12,905 | £19,181–£19,420 | £30,663–£38,715 | £57,543–£58,260 |
| Godolphin & Latymer | £11,698–£12,341 | No boarding | £36,380 | No boarding |
| North London Collegiate | £8,925–£10,365 | No boarding | £26,775–£31,095 | No boarding |
| KCS Wimbledon | £10,129–£11,940 | No boarding | £30,387–£35,820 | No boarding |
| Latymer Upper | £10,675 | No boarding | £32,025 | No boarding |
| Dulwich College | £10,662–£10,706 | £21,001–£22,472 | £31,986–£32,118 | £63,003–£67,416 |
All figures include VAT. Every figure is the school’s own published fee for 2026/27.
Westminster charges more for sixth form day pupils than for those entering at 13+, which is what the range reflects, and its boarding fee is the highest of any school in this guide. Dulwich offers weekly boarding as well as full boarding, which is the lower end of its boarding range, and its day fee for Years 3 to 8 includes lunch while the fee for Years 9 to 13 does not. St Paul’s Girls’ School is day only, and the range reflects the higher fee it charges girls joining the sixth form from outside the school.
Godolphin and Latymer is the one to read carefully. Its range is not a year group range like the others: the school reviews its fees each January rather than each September, so the autumn term costs less than the spring and summer terms within the same academic year. The annual figure is the one to budget against.
St Paul’s School and Dulwich both run from Year 3 through to Year 13 under one fee structure, so their day ranges cover a wider span than the others. At St Paul’s the bottom of the range is the Prep School and the top is a boy joining the sixth form from outside. Its boarding fee includes tuition, and boarding starts from Year 9.
North London Collegiate is the least expensive school in this guide and includes textbooks, stationery and examination fees in the tuition figure. Worth noting that its coach service is charged separately at up to £3,084 a year, which for a family travelling in from a distance is a meaningful addition to the headline fee.
What the fee usually covers
Most schools include tuition, lunch, textbooks and the majority of games and curriculum activities. Boarding fees add accommodation, all meals and laundry.
The detail varies more than you would expect. Canford includes lunch, textbooks, exam entry fees, house parties and all compulsory trips. Harrow includes textbooks, a stationery allowance and laundry. Sevenoaks includes lunch on every school day including Saturdays. Westminster includes lunches and most clubs and societies. Cheltenham Ladies’ College includes care for day pupils until 7pm. St Paul’s Girls’ School goes the other way, including lunch and personal accident insurance but charging textbooks and public examination fees as extras. Godolphin and Latymer includes textbooks, stationery and public examination fees. Latymer Upper charges lunch separately altogether, at between £310 and £443 a term depending on which term it is. A school that bundles more into the fee looks more expensive on a comparison table and often is not, so it is worth reading what each fee actually buys before you rank them.
The costs that sit outside the fee
This is where budgets slip. There are three kinds of cost that do not appear in the headline figure.
The first is one-off costs at entry, and it is worth separating two things that often get lumped together. Most acceptance deposits come back. Marlborough asks £2,500 and returns half at the end of the first term and half on leaving. Canford asks £1,500, Latymer Upper £2,400, Godolphin and Latymer £3,300 and Dulwich £2,500 for day pupils or £5,000 for boarders, all credited back when the child leaves. Treat these as money parked rather than money spent, though it is still cash out several years before the first fee bill, held without interest for the whole of a child’s time at the school.
What does not come back is smaller but real. Registration fees are non-refundable everywhere, ranging from £210 at Godolphin and Latymer to £480 at Eton. On top of that, some schools charge a separate entrance or acceptance fee that is not credited against future bills: Westminster’s £2,400 entrance fee is explicitly not offset against the final term, Harrow’s acceptance fee is £1,200 at 13+ and £600 at 16+ and is non-refundable, and of Eton’s £3,840 acceptance fee only £500 comes back. Budget those as a genuine cost of applying. Budget the deposits as a cash flow question instead.
The second is termly extras: music lessons, individual coaching, optional trips and similar. Canford estimates extras average around £250 a term, with music or private tuition adding roughly £300 on top. Eton puts its range at £500 to £1,500 a Half, which is £1,500 to £4,500 across a year. Music tuition is charged separately almost everywhere and it adds up: a weekly half hour lesson at Eton is £548 a Half.
The third applies to international families. Schools that sponsor Child Student Visas charge for the compliance work, and the amounts are not comparable. Marlborough charges £550 as a one-off, Canford £600, Westminster £1,200, Dulwich £200 plus VAT per term and Eton £3,000 a year. Overseas families are also generally asked for an additional deposit of a full term’s fees, held until the child leaves.
Fees rise every year
Every school here reviews its fees annually and most say so plainly. Eton sets the following year’s fee each May. Westminster reviews by the end of the summer term and publishes in early July. Canford and Dulwich both reserve the right to review fees at any time.
That matters more than it sounds. A family joining in Year 9 is committing to five years, and the fee in the final year will not be the fee in the first. Budget against the whole journey rather than the number on the page today, and assume the figure will move each year.
Bursaries, scholarships and the difference between them
Scholarships and bursaries are often discussed together and they do very different jobs.
Bursaries are means-tested and are where the meaningful money is. Awards range from a small percentage to full fee remission depending on circumstances. Eton spent £10.06m on financial aid in 2024/25. Cheltenham’s Beale Awards run from 1% to 100%. Westminster, Dulwich, Canford, Marlborough and St Paul’s Girls’ School all run means-tested schemes, and several are members of wider fee assistance consortia.
Scholarships are a different matter. At a number of schools they now carry little or no fee reduction and are largely honorary, conferring the title and access to enrichment rather than a discount. Sevenoaks is explicit that its scholarships are honorary, with the exception of music scholars, who receive free tuition in one instrument. Winchester states that its scholarships and exhibitions do not automatically carry a fee remission. Canford’s are worth between 5% and 20% and can be topped up with a bursary. Westminster’s King’s Scholars board but pay only day fees, which is a real saving of a different kind. If financial support is the goal, the bursary route is almost always the one that matters.
Bursary deadlines usually sit well ahead of the main admissions timeline, sometimes a full year earlier, and they are strictly applied. Check the dates early rather than assuming they run alongside registration.
Hear from the heads
Fees tell you what a school costs. They tell you very little about what it is like. For several of the schools above, the person running it has sat down with us on the Heads & Tales podcast and answered the same seven questions we ask every guest.
Simon Henderson at Eton on balancing tradition and modernity. Alastair Land at Harrow. James Dahl at Wellington on wellbeing and co-ed boarding. Jesse Elzinga at Sevenoaks on building an American-style endowment in the UK.Jo Duncan at Wycombe Abbey on why all-girls education still matters. Su Wijeratna at Latymer Upper on London day schooling and the 11+. Vicky Bingham at North London Collegiate on teaching girls to own the room without thinking they know everything.
They are worth twenty minutes if a school is on your list. A head talking about what they are actually trying to build is a better guide to fit than any fee table, this one included.
Before you compare
Fees change, and this guide is updated once a year. Always check the school’s own fees page for the figure that applies to your child’s year of entry, and ask the admissions or finance team what the fee includes and what is billed separately. Two schools a thousand pounds apart on paper can be several thousand apart in practice.