Important: This is a practical guide for marketing and website teams, not legal advice. Your firm and its COLP are responsible for compliance. Always check the current rules on the SRA website.
What are the SRA Transparency Rules?
They are a short set of rules, first introduced in December 2018, that aim to help people compare legal services before they instruct a firm. They do four things:
| Rule | What it covers | Where it shows on a website |
|---|---|---|
| Rule 1 | Price and service information for listed services | A price page for each listed service |
| Rule 2 | Your complaints procedure, including the Legal Ombudsman and SRA | A complaints page |
| Rule 3 | Firms with no website | Information available on request |
| Rule 4 | SRA number and digital badge on the website; SRA number and "authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority" on letterhead and emails | Header or footer of every page |
Which services need price information?
Rule 1 applies when your firm publishes that it offers any of the services below as part of its usual business. It does not apply to publicly funded work.
Services for individuals
- Residential conveyancing: freehold or leasehold sales or purchases, and mortgages or re-mortgages
- Probate: collecting and distributing a deceased person's assets in the UK, where the matter is not contested
- Immigration applications, excluding asylum
- Immigration appeals at the First-tier Tribunal on Home Office visa or immigration decisions, excluding asylum appeals
- Summary-only road traffic offences at the Magistrates' Court, dealt with at a single hearing
- Employment tribunal claims by employees for unfair or wrongful dismissal
Services for businesses
- Defending employment tribunal claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal
- Debt recovery up to £100,000
- Licensing applications for business premises
If your firm offers family law, personal injury or commercial work only, Rule 1 does not list those areas. Rules 2 and 4 still apply to every authorised firm.
What must the price information include?
Rule 1.5 lists seven elements. Here they are, with what they look like on a page.
| # | What the rule asks for | What it looks like on a website |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Total cost, or an average or range where a total is not practicable | "Our fees for a freehold purchase up to £500,000 are £1,200 to £1,800 plus VAT" |
| 2 | Basis of charges, including hourly rates or fixed fees | "We charge a fixed fee" or "Our hourly rates range from £X (trainee) to £Y (partner)" |
| 3 | Experience and qualifications of the people doing the work and their supervisors | A short "Who will handle your matter" section linking to fee earner profiles |
| 4 | Likely disbursements, with a description and cost or range | A table: Land Registry fee, search fees, ID check, SDLT (calculated separately) |
| 5 | Whether fees and disbursements include VAT, and how much | VAT shown beside each figure, not in small print |
| 6 | What the price includes, key stages and likely timescales, and what is not included | A stage-by-stage list with typical timescales and a short "Not included" list |
| 7 | For conditional fee or damages-based agreements, when the client may have to pay anything themselves | A plain explanation of what could come out of damages and when |
The figures above are illustrations of format only. Your own prices come from your firm.
Where should it go on the website?
Rule 1.6 says the information must be "clear and accessible and in a prominent place on your website". The rules do not set a page layout, so firms interpret this differently. Common good practice looks like this:
- A dedicated price page for each listed service, for example
/conveyancing/fees/or/probate/costs/. - A link from the practice-area page, close to the top, with wording a client would actually click, such as "See our conveyancing fees".
- A link from the footer or main menu, often labelled "Our fees" or "Pricing".
- HTML pages, not only PDFs. A web page is easier to read on a phone, easier to keep up to date and easier for Google to find.
What tends to cause problems:
- A single "Costs" PDF covering every service, linked only from the footer.
- Prices that went up two years ago on paper but not on the website.
- Ranges so wide they tell the client nothing.
What about the complaints procedure?
Rule 2.1 asks firms to publish on their website the details of their complaints handling procedure, including how and when a complaint can be made to the Legal Ombudsman and to the SRA.
On a website, that usually means:
- A complaints page linked from the footer of every page.
- Your own process first: who to contact, how, and how long you take to respond.
- When and how to go to the Legal Ombudsman, including the time limits.
- How to raise a concern with the SRA.
What is the SRA digital badge?
The SRA digital badge is a clickable logo that shows visitors your firm is regulated by the SRA and links to a page explaining the protections that brings. It has been mandatory since 25 November 2019. Rule 4.1 asks for your SRA number and the badge to be shown in a prominent place on your website.
How to get it, according to the SRA's digital badge page:
- Log in to mySRA, go to My Organisations, select your organisation, then Office Details.
- Make sure your website address is recorded for the right office, and save.
- Wait at least 24 hours.
- Use the "Get your clickable logo" link on the SRA page. The badge is supplied by the SRA's partner Yoshki, in three colour options and in Welsh.
- Paste the code into your website, usually in the footer so it appears on every page.
The badge only works on a website linked to a regulated firm's mySRA record. If it shows an error, the most common cause is a website address in mySRA that does not exactly match the live site, for example www missing or the old domain still listed.
What about emails and letterhead?
Rule 4.2 asks for your SRA authorisation number and the words "authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority" on letterhead and emails. That is not strictly a website item, but it is worth checking email signatures at the same time as the website, because they are usually set up by the same person.
The website checklist
Work through this with your COLP. Tick only what you can see on the live site today.
Price and service information (if you offer any listed service)
- Each listed service your firm promotes has its own clearly labelled price page
- Each page shows a total, average or range of cost
- Each page explains the basis of charges (fixed fee or hourly rates)
- Each page names or links to the people who do the work and their supervisors, with experience and qualifications
- Likely disbursements are listed with a cost or range
- VAT is shown clearly
- Key stages, typical timescales and exclusions are listed
- Where you use CFAs or DBAs, it explains when the client may have to pay
- Price pages are linked from the practice-area page and from the menu or footer
- Prices match what you actually charge today
Complaints
- A complaints page is linked from every page
- It explains your own process and timescales
- It explains how and when to complain to the Legal Ombudsman
- It explains how to raise a concern with the SRA
Regulatory information
- SRA number is shown in a prominent place
- The clickable SRA digital badge is shown and works when clicked
- The website address in mySRA matches the live site exactly
- Email signatures carry the SRA number and the "authorised and regulated" wording
Good practice beyond the rules
- Price pages are HTML, not only PDFs
- Pages read well on a phone
- Someone owns a review date for prices, at least once a year
Why this matters for marketing, not just compliance
Price pages are some of the most useful pages a law firm can publish. A client searching "conveyancing fees Croydon" or "probate solicitor cost" is close to instructing someone. A clear, honest price page answers that search, gives Google and AI tools a specific page to quote, and stops the client going back to the comparison site.
Firms that treat the rules as a box to tick usually hide the information. Firms that treat them as a sales page tend to win the instruction.
Frequently asked questions
What are the SRA Transparency Rules?
They are the Solicitors Regulation Authority's rules on what firms must publish for the public, mainly on their website. They cover price and service information for certain legal services, the firm's complaints procedure, and regulatory details including the SRA number and the clickable SRA digital badge. The current version has been in effect since 11 April 2025.
Which services need prices on a solicitor's website?
For individuals: residential conveyancing, uncontested probate, immigration applications and appeals (excluding asylum), summary-only road traffic offences at the Magistrates' Court, and employment tribunal claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal. For businesses: defending those employment tribunal claims, debt recovery up to £100,000, and licensing applications for business premises. The rule applies when your firm publishes that it offers the service.
Do we have to publish a fixed price?
No. The rules ask for the total cost, or where that is not practicable, an average cost or a range of costs, together with the basis of your charges such as hourly rates or fixed fees.
Is the SRA digital badge mandatory?
Yes. The clickable SRA logo became mandatory on 25 November 2019. Firms must display it, with their SRA number, in a prominent place on their website.
Do the rules apply to legal aid work?
The price publishing rule does not apply to publicly funded work. The complaints and regulatory information rules still apply to the firm.
What if our firm does not have a website?
Then the price, service and complaints information must be made available on request instead.
Where on the website should the price information go?
The rules say it must be clear, accessible and in a prominent place on your website. In practice that means a page linked from the relevant practice-area page and from the main navigation or footer, not a PDF buried three clicks deep.
Want us to check your website?
Send us your website address. We will go through it against this checklist and send back what we find, in writing.
Sources: SRA Transparency Rules · SRA digital badge · Legal Ombudsman
Related: Solicitor website design · Conveyancing website design · Wills and probate website design · SRA digital badge guide · Law firm website checklist