If you send your application form and application fee by post, the date of application is the date of posting. This is decided by the postmark. If the postmark is illegible or missing, the date of postage is taken as being at least 1 day before it is received by us.

If you send your application form and application fee by courier, the date of application is the date when it is delivered to our payment handling service.

If you are applying in person at one of our public enquiry offices, your application date will be the date when you attend the public enquiry office to make your application and pay your application fee.

If you are applying online, you must pay your fee online as part of your application.

If you are applying by post or courier, you can choose how to pay your application fee:

• By cheque in sterling on a UK bank account. The application form will tell you who to make the cheque payable to, you should write your full name and date of birth on the back, and attach the cheque to the front of the completed application form. 
• With a UK postal order. You should write your full name and date of birth on the back, and attach the postal order to the front of the completed application form. 
• With a credit or debit card - American Express, MasterCard, Visa (including Electron), Delta or Maestro (including Solo). For postal and courier payments, we accept only Maestro cards issued in the UK. You must include the card number, the amount paid, the payer's name as it appears on the card, the 'valid from' and expiry dates, the card verification value (CVV) code, the cardholder's signature and the date. The issue number is also needed for Maestro cards.

If you are applying and paying in person at a public enquiry office, you can choose how to pay your application fee:

• With a UK postal order (except at our Glasgow and Cardiff offices). You should write your full name and date of birth on the back.
• By banker's draft (except at our Glasgow and Cardiff offices). 
• With a credit or debit card - American Express, MasterCard, Visa (including Electron), Delta or Maestro (including Solo). We can accept any Maestro card for payments at a public enquiry office. You must include the card number, the amount paid, the payer's name as it appears on the card, the 'valid from' and expiry dates, the card verification value (CVV) code, the cardholder's signature and the date. The issue number is also needed for Maestro cards. The cardholder must be present for the payment to be taken.

Payment by any other method is not accepted.

You must send the full amount to cover the total cost of your application. If you do not do this, your application will be invalid and will not be considered. We will return your application and part payment to you.

We start considering the application when the payment has cleared. Payments are cleared:

• after 5 working days for cheques
• after 1 working day for credit or debit cards
• immediately for postal orders

Please note that, if you are making numerous payments using your credit card, the anti-fraud measures that banks operate sometimes stop payment being taken. This may be because you have exceeded the maximum limit on a single transaction or the number of transactions allowed in a given period of time. You must ensure that you contact your bank in advance, so that the bank will allow the full payment to be taken without any problems when you submit your applications.

Payment information on the application form

It is very important that you complete the payment section of the application form correctly. If this section contains errors, we will not be able to process your payment. This will mean that your application is invalid.