The short answer
Sometimes. If you are financially eligible for legal aid, mediation is genuinely free: no contribution, no bill, and nothing recovered afterwards. If you are not, the £500 voucher may cover a large part of it where children are involved, but not the MIAM. Otherwise mediation is a paid service, and still much cheaper than the alternatives.
Key points
- Free if you qualify for legal aid, which is means tested only.
- Free to a point if you get the £500 voucher, which is not means tested but only covers child arrangements.
- Beware anyone advertising a “free MIAM” without saying who it is free for.
- If one of you qualifies for legal aid, the MIAM and first joint session are covered for both.
- Where nothing is funded, mediation is still far cheaper than a contested court case.
Free because of legal aid
If your income and capital are inside the limits, legal aid pays for your MIAM and your mediation sessions. You are not asked for a contribution, because controlled work and family mediation are non-contributory. And the statutory charge, the mechanism that lets the government recover legal aid out of what you keep, does not apply to mediation at all.
So free means free. Not deferred, not recovered later out of the house sale. The full position.
This one is free
Mediation legal aid is not a loan
The statutory charge is how the government gets its money back out of what you keep at the end of a funded case. It is the reason legal aid for a solicitor can feel like a loan rather than a gift.
It does not apply to family mediation. Mediation is excluded outright. It is also, unlike legal help, not one of the services that gets pulled back into the charge if you later need a solicitor. So the cost of your mediation is never recovered from you, whatever happens next.
One qualification. If you use Help with Family Mediation and then go on to full representation on the same dispute, the cost of that legal advice can be added to the charge. The mediation itself still cannot.
Source: Civil Legal Aid (Statutory Charge) Regulations 2013, regulation 4. Family mediation is excluded by regulation 4(1)(d) and is not listed in the regulation 4(2) claw-back. Checked 5 August 2026.
Free because of the voucher
Up to £500, not means tested, and only for cases involving child arrangements. It does not cover the MIAM, so the assessment is still payable unless you are legally aided.
The figures
The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How much | Up to £500 per family, including VAT |
| Means tested? | No. Your income and savings are irrelevant |
| What it is for | Mediation about child arrangements, or about finances where there is also a child dispute |
| What it does not cover | The MIAM, and preparing documents |
| A finance-only case | Does not qualify |
| Who claims it | Your mediator, who must be authorised by the Family Mediation Council. The money goes to them, not to you |
| Status | Funded for the 2026 to 2027 financial year. No fixed end date, and subject to availability |
Sources: the £500 amount, the child arrangements scope and the fact that it does not cover the MIAM are all confirmed by the Family Mediation Council. That it is not means tested comes from the Ministry of Justice’s own Family Mediation Voucher Scheme Analysis, which states that “access to the voucher scheme is not based on a family’s income or finances and those who are eligible for Legal Aid are not excluded from the scheme”. Checked 5 August 2026. This scheme has been extended several times and could end, so please confirm it is still running before relying on it.
Important information
A MIAM is a paid service. Some providers advertise a “free MIAM” without qualification, and a reader reasonably assumes that means free for them. It usually means free for people who qualify for legal aid.
Always ask: free for whom, and on what basis? A straight answer to that tells you a good deal about the provider.
What if nothing is funded?
Then you pay, and it is still the cheapest route that actually resolves anything. Set a few mediation sessions against a contested financial case, where each side can spend five figures and where the costs frequently exceed what is being argued about.
Ask any mediator for their full price list before you book: the MIAM, the cost per joint session per person, and what documents cost. Ask specifically whether an agreement summary and an open financial statement are included, because those are what your solicitor will need afterwards.