The short answer
Sometimes, in two completely different ways. Legal aid for mediation is means tested, and if you qualify your MIAM and your sessions are free with nothing to pay back. The £500 mediation voucher is not means tested at all, but it only covers child arrangements and it does not cover the MIAM. They are separate schemes and you may be able to use both.
Key points
- Legal aid for mediation is means tested and nothing else. It does not depend on abuse, on who left, or on the type of dispute.
- It survived the 2013 cuts. Mediation was deliberately kept in scope when most private family work was taken out.
- If you qualify it is genuinely free. No contribution, no bill, and the statutory charge never applies, so nothing is recovered from you later.
- The voucher is not means tested. Your income is irrelevant to it. It is capped at £500 per family and only covers child arrangements.
- If one of you qualifies for legal aid, the MIAM and first joint session are covered for both of you.
- The voucher does not pay for the MIAM. That catches people out constantly.
Legal aid for mediation and the mediation voucher: the difference in one table
These two get confused more than anything else in family law funding, including by people who ought to know better. They are not the same scheme, they are not assessed the same way, and one of them is not means tested at all.
| Legal aid for mediation | The mediation voucher | |
|---|---|---|
| Means tested? | Yes, and that is the whole test | No. Income and savings are irrelevant |
| How much | The full cost of your mediation | Up to £500 per family, including VAT |
| Covers the MIAM? | Yes | No |
| Covers the sessions? | Yes | Yes, up to the £500 |
| What disputes | Any family dispute suitable for mediation, including finance only | Child arrangements, or finances where there is also a child dispute. A finance-only case does not qualify |
| Paid to | The mediation service | The mediator, who claims it for you |
| Anything to pay back? | No, ever | No |
| Can you use both? | Not for the same cost, but yes in the same case. See below | |
Correct as at 5 August 2026. Sources are given against each figure further down this page.
What is legal aid for mediation, and who qualifies?
It is public funding that pays a mediation service to mediate your case. The test is financial and it is the only test. If your income and your capital are inside the limits, you qualify.
It does not depend on there having been abuse. It does not depend on the kind of dispute. It does not depend on who started the separation. Those things matter for solicitor legal aid, which is a different scheme with a different test, and confusing the two puts people off applying for something they would get.
Mediation kept its place when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act took most private family work out of scope in April 2013. It is written into Schedule 1 of that Act in terms.
The figures
Legal aid means test limits, from 6 April 2026
These apply to controlled work and to family mediation. They are the same test.
| Test | Limit |
|---|---|
| Gross monthly income | £2,657 |
| Extra allowed for the 5th and each further child | £222 |
| Disposable monthly income | £733 |
| Disposable capital | £8,000 |
| Allowance for a partner | £237.25 |
| Allowance for each dependant, any age | £381.86 |
| Employment expenses, if you are employed | £45 |
| Housing cap, if you have no partner or dependants | £545 |
In force from 6 April 2026. Source: Legal Aid Agency, civil legal aid eligibility keycard 62. Checked 5 August 2026. Limits change without much notice, so please confirm the current position before relying on this.
Is the MIAM covered?
Yes, if you qualify financially. The MIAM, the Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting, is the first appointment, where a mediator explains the options and works out whether mediation is suitable for your case. For a legally aided client it costs nothing.
Two things worth being straight about. A MIAM is a paid service for everyone else, so beware of anyone advertising a “free MIAM” without qualification. And the £500 voucher does not pay for the MIAM, so someone relying on the voucher alone still has the assessment meeting to pay for.
Are the mediation sessions covered?
Yes. If you are financially eligible, legal aid covers your mediation sessions, not just the assessment. There is no session limit written into the scheme in the way people often assume; the mediator works to what the case needs and to the Legal Aid Agency’s rules.
You are not asked for a contribution. Controlled work and family mediation are what the rules call non-contributory forms of civil legal services, which is the official way of saying you pay nothing at all.
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.
What happens if only one of you qualifies?
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it is barely known outside the profession.
If one of you is financially eligible, the legal aid covers the MIAM and the first joint session for both of you, whichever order you are seen in. The person who is not eligible is not asked to pay for those.
Then, if your case involves child arrangements, the person who is not eligible can claim the £500 voucher in their own right, because the voucher is not means tested and their income does not matter to it.
MIAM free. All sessions free. Nothing to pay, nothing to repay.
MIAM covered by the other side’s legal aid. First joint session covered. Then up to £500 of voucher on child arrangements, which is roughly three further sessions.
Put together, a couple where only one person qualifies can often get the assessment and three or four sessions before anybody is asked for money. For a lot of families that is the whole case. The sequence, step by step.
What is the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme?
A government contribution towards the cost of mediation, introduced in March 2021 and extended several times since. It is administered through the Family Mediation Council and claimed by your mediator on your behalf.
The important thing about it, and the reason it belongs on a legal aid site even though it is not legal aid, is that it is not means tested. People who are nowhere near legal aid eligibility can use it. Higher earners can use it. It is the one piece of family funding with no financial test at all.
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.
What can the voucher be used for, and what can it not?
It can be used for mediation about child arrangements, and for mediation about finances where there is also a dispute about the children.
It cannot be used for the MIAM, for preparing documents, or for a case that is only about money. A couple who agree about the children and are arguing about the house do not qualify for a voucher, however much they need one.
It is capped at £500 per family, not per person. You do not get £500 each.
Common and costly mistake
Assuming the voucher makes mediation free. It does not. It does not touch the MIAM, so the first appointment is still payable unless you qualify for legal aid, and once the £500 is used the sessions are chargeable again.
The other frequent mistake is a couple with a finance-only dispute planning around a voucher they are not entitled to. If children are not part of what you are mediating, there is no voucher. Check that before you budget on it.
Is the voucher means tested?
No. Your income, your savings, your house and your benefits are all irrelevant to it. Eligibility is about the type of dispute, not about you.
That is worth saying plainly because it is the opposite of how every other piece of family funding works, and people rule themselves out of it on the assumption that they earn too much.
Can you use both?
Not to pay for the same thing twice, but yes, within the same case, and usually where the two of you are funded differently.
Where one of you is legally aided and the other is not, the legally aided person’s funding covers the MIAM and first joint session for both, and the other person’s voucher then covers their share of the sessions that follow. That is the combination described above, and it is the most efficient use of the two schemes together.
If you are both legally aided, you do not need a voucher. If neither of you is, and children are in issue, the voucher is what you have.
Who decides whether your case is suitable for mediation?
The mediator, at the MIAM. Funding is one question and suitability is another, and passing the means test does not oblige anyone to mediate you.
Mediation is not suitable in every case. Where there has been domestic abuse, where one person cannot negotiate safely or freely, where someone will not disclose their finances honestly, or where there is an urgent risk to a child, the mediator should say so and sign the form that lets you go to court instead. A mediator who pushes an unsuitable case into mediation is doing the wrong thing.
If that is your situation, legal aid for a solicitor is the scheme to look at, and it works entirely differently.
What happens if mediation ends without agreement?
Nothing you were funded for is clawed back. Legally aided mediation that does not settle costs you nothing, and there is no statutory charge on it whatever the outcome.
The mediator can sign the court form confirming you attended, which is what you need to make an application. If you reached agreement on some things and not others, that is a good outcome, not a failed one, and it narrows what a court has to decide.
If you did settle, the agreement is not binding until it is made into a court order. Legal aid can pay for that too, through Help with Family Mediation, and this is the part people most often miss.
The figures
Help with Family Mediation: what it pays for
This is the funding that turns what you agreed in mediation into a legally binding order. It is separate from the funding for the mediation itself.
| What it covers | Fee paid to the solicitor |
|---|---|
| Mediation advice, meaning legal advice supporting the mediation | £150 |
| Applying to court for a consent order on finances after mediation | £200 |
Those are amounts the Legal Aid Agency pays the solicitor. They are not bills you receive. A legally aided client is not charged for this work and cannot be asked to top it up.
To qualify you must have taken part in at least one mediation session. Attending a MIAM on its own is not enough. Your solicitor needs evidence that you were in mediation within the previous three months, only one fee can be claimed per case, and it is not available if you had family help or legal representation in the previous six months.
Fees: Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013, Schedule 1, Part 1, Table 3(e). Scope: Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2013, regulation 17. Checked 5 August 2026.
Jess’s view
“The one that costs people real money is going to the MIAM, then straight to a solicitor. They have paid for the assessment, they have walked away from funding that would have covered the whole thing, and the order they end up with costs them well over a thousand pounds. One session in mediation would have changed that.”
Jess Knauf, Director of Client Strategy at Family Legal Ltd
Finding a legally aided mediator
Not every mediation service holds a legal aid contract, and the number that do has been falling. The Justice Select Committee reported in July 2026 that the number of mediators offering legal aid has halved since 2018. In some parts of the country that makes it genuinely hard to find one.
The Family Mediation Council’s GOV.UK finder for legal aid family mediators lists exactly those. That is the neutral place to start, and we would rather you used it than took our word for anything.
Our commercial disclosure
Legal Aid 60 is operated by Family Legal Ltd, which also runs the mediation service Mediate UK. Mediate UK holds a Legal Aid Agency contract and can offer legally aided mediation, subject to your eligibility and to your case being suitable. We cannot promise either. You can check your eligibility with their calculator, or read their legal aid guide, and you are equally welcome to use the Family Mediation Council directory above and go elsewhere. Nothing on this page changes if you do.
You can also check your position independently on GOV.UK, check if you can get legal aid.
Where to go next
- Is family mediation free?, if you want the short version of this page.
- The £500 voucher scheme in full, including how your mediator claims it.
- Is the MIAM covered by legal aid?
- The means test explained, if you want to work out where you stand before you ring anyone.
- What to do if you do not qualify.