Outline vs Full Planning Permission vs Permission in Principle: Which Do You Need?

01

The three routes side by side

Fees are the figures in the MHCLG schedule for 1 April 2026. They rise each 1 April by CPI (Fees Regulations 2012 reg 18A), and the figures printed on legislation.gov.uk are pre-indexation base figures. An outline application covering several categories of development was not uplifted in 2026 because of what MHCLG calls an issue with the regulations, which it says it intends to correct (same schedule).

02

Full planning permission

A full application contains the whole design: drawings, materials, access, landscaping. If it is granted, development must begin within the "applicable period", which in England is three years from the grant (TCPA 1990 s91(1) and (5)), unless the decision notice sets another period. The fee for new homes is £610 per dwelling where fewer than ten are created (MHCLG schedule, category 1(3)(a)). Decision periods are 8 weeks for non-major and 13 weeks for major development, or longer if you agree in writing (DMPO art 34).

Full permission fits when you know exactly what you want to build and when. Its downside is cost and risk: you pay for detailed drawings and specialist reports before the council has said whether the principle is acceptable. The council may attach conditions that must be discharged before you start; national policy says conditions that must be discharged before development begins "should be avoided, unless there is a clear justification" (NPPF policy DM6(3)). For how long permission lasts and what counts as starting work, see our expiry guide.

03

Outline planning permission, then reserved matters

What outline means. By statute, "outline planning permission" is permission "granted, in accordance with the provisions of a development order, with the reservation for subsequent approval by the local planning authority ... of matters not particularised in the application" (TCPA 1990 s92(1)). It is already a planning permission, but a conditional one: it is for "the erection of a building" and is "granted subject to a condition requiring the subsequent approval of the local planning authority with respect to one or more reserved matters" (DMPO 2015 art 2). So outline works for building a house; it cannot be used for a change of use.

What can be reserved. Five matters, defined in DMPO art 2:

• Access: accessibility to and within the site for vehicles, cycles and pedestrians.
• Appearance: the visual impression of the buildings, including architecture, materials, colour and texture.
• Landscaping: the treatment of land other than buildings to enhance or protect the amenities of the site and area.
• Layout: how buildings, routes and open spaces are situated and orientated in relation to each other and to their surroundings.
• Scale: "the height, width and length of each building proposed within the development in relation to its surroundings".

An applicant can reserve all five or fewer. Where access is reserved, the application must still state the area or areas where the access points will be (DMPO art 5(3)). The council can also refuse to treat an application as outline: if it thinks the application "ought not to be considered separately from all or any of the reserved matters", it must within a month tell the applicant it cannot determine it unless further details are submitted (art 5(2)). So an applicant cannot assume every matter can be reserved.

The second application. Before building, you apply for approval of the reserved matters. The reserved matters application must be made within three years of the outline grant, and the development must start within two years of the final reserved matters approval (TCPA 1990 s92(2)). You may read that "outline permission lasts 3 years for you to build". It does not: three years is the deadline to apply for reserved matters, and the two-year starting clock only begins when the last of them is approved. The council can substitute other periods (s92(4)), so the decision notice rules.

Fees. The outline fee for dwellings on a site under 0.5 hectares is £610 for each 0.1 hectare or part of it, so the cost grows with site area and not with the number of homes. The reserved matters fee is the full application fee for the development the outline authorised. If you have already paid fees on earlier reserved matters applications under the same outline that add up to that amount, a further reserved matters application is charged at a flat £610, provided no one else has applied under the same outline (MHCLG schedule; Fees Regulations 2012 Sch 1 paras 1(3)(b) and 4).

Fit. Outline suits a landowner who wants to settle the principle (and often the access) before paying for design, or a seller who wants a buyer to design their own scheme. Its risk is that the later reserved matters are still a decision: the council can refuse them, and what you have is not the right to build but a settled principle.

04

Permission in principle (England only)

What it is. The permission in principle route "separates the consideration of matters of principle for proposed development from the technical detail" in two stages (PPG 58-001). The first stage, permission in principle, is limited to "location, land use and amount of development" (PPG 58-012). The council cannot list what information it requires in the way it can for a planning application. The second stage, technical details consent, "has the effect of granting planning permission" (PPG 58-003).

The legal basis is TCPA 1990 s59A, which applies to "land in England". The detailed rules are in the Town and Country Planning (Permission in Principle) Order 2017 (SI 2017/402), as amended by SI 2017/1309, which added the route of applying to the council from 1 June 2018.

What it can cover. The description of development that can be granted on application is "residential development of land". The council must specify the minimum and maximum net number of dwellings (art 5A(2) and (3)). Non-housing development can be included if housing takes up the majority of the floorspace (PPG 58-049).

What it cannot cover. A council may not grant permission in principle on application for (PiP Order art 5B(1)):

• major development (10 or more houses, which is the Order's word, so flats count only through the other two limbs; also 1,000 m² or more of floorspace, or a site of 1 hectare or more);
• habitats development;
• householder development (development of an existing dwelling, or within its curtilage for a purpose incidental to it, "but does not include change of use or change in the number of dwellings in a building"); or
• Schedule 1 EIA development (and Schedule 2 EIA development unless screened out of EIA, art 5B(2)).

You may read that permission in principle can be used for an extension. It cannot: householder development is expressly excluded. A new, separate house in the garden is not "householder development" in this sense, so it can be eligible if it is minor.

The process.

1. Apply on the national form with a location plan (art 5D). The fee is £531 for each 0.1 hectare or part of the site (MHCLG schedule, category 1(2)).
2. Publicity. A site notice for not less than 14 days plus a notice on the council's website (art 5G). The council may not decide before the end of that period (art 5S(6)). The comment window is shorter than for an ordinary planning application, where a site notice must run for at least 21 days (or the adjoining owners and occupiers be notified) (DMPO art 15(5)).
3. Decision. Within 5 weeks, unless you agree an extension in writing (art 5S(2)). Refusal can be appealed within 6 months (art 5V).
4. No conditions and no section 106 at this stage. "It is not possible for conditions to be attached to a grant of permission in principle", and "planning obligations cannot be secured at the permission in principle stage" (PPG 58-020 and 58-022).
5. Technical details consent. A planning application that must propose development "all of which falls within the terms of the permission in principle" and particularise every matter needed for permission without reservations (TCPA 1990 s70(2ZZB)). The council must decide it in accordance with the permission in principle, unless it has been in force longer than the prescribed period and there has been a material change of circumstances (s70(2ZZA), (2ZZC)); the prescribed period is 5 years for brownfield-register PiP and 3 years for PiP granted on application (PiP Order art 7). It is charged as a full application (PPG 58-047), so £610 per dwelling for fewer than 10 homes, and decided in 5 weeks (10 for major development; 16 with EIA) (DMPO art 34(2)(aa), (bb); PPG 58-017). Conditions and obligations can be attached at this stage (PPG 58-021, 58-022).

How long it lasts. Permission in principle granted by the council on application ceases to have effect after three years, or any other period the council directs (TCPA 1990 s59A(8)). Permission in principle that arises from a site being entered in Part 2 of a brownfield land register lasts five years (s59A(7)). Government guidance adds that "a technical details consent application cannot be made by an applicant if the permission in principle has expired" (PPG 58-026). If technical details consent is refused, the permission in principle is unaffected and you can apply again while it lasts (same paragraph).

Where the land can be. Permission in principle by application can include land that is not previously developed. The brownfield register route is only for previously developed land (PPG 58-004). Local plan allocations do not themselves carry permission in principle (PPG 58-008). The PPG page was last updated on 15 March 2019, so cross-check it against the Order.

05

Which should you choose?

There is no universal answer, but the structure of each route points to a few rules of thumb.

Value. Planning permission normally attaches to the land and not to the person: any grant "shall (except in so far as the permission otherwise provides) enure for the benefit of the land and of all persons for the time being interested in it" (TCPA 1990 s75, which covers permission in principle too). So a buyer takes the permission and its deadlines. We do not quote uplift figures here: MHCLG's own land value estimates assume sites "with planning permission granted" (guidelines for use), and it warns that the values of individual sites "are highly sensitive to plot-specific characteristics" and are not estimates of market value (MHCLG land value estimates). What you can say reliably is what a buyer can rely on at each stage: full permission fixes the scheme; outline fixes the principle and whatever was not reserved; permission in principle fixes only location, land use and the range of dwellings, and is also the stage most exposed to the three-year expiry.

If you are selling land with outline permission, a buyer's solicitor will check: the decision notice for the dates (reserved matters within 3 years and start within 2 years of final approval, unless varied under s92(4)); pre-commencement conditions; any section 106 agreement (see our section 106 guide); and whether the CIL and biodiversity gain issues below have been dealt with.

06

CIL, section 106 and biodiversity net gain at each stage

Biodiversity net gain (a 10% gain, TCPA 1990 Sch 7A) has exemptions that matter on small sites. Householder applications are exempt (Exemptions Regulations 2024 reg 5), and since 6 August 2026 development on a site of 0.2 hectares or less that does not affect onsite priority habitat is also exempt, for applications made on or after that date (reg 7A, inserted by SI 2026/790). The self-build exemption in reg 8 was omitted from the same date, with a saving for applications made before 6 August 2026 (SI 2026/790 reg 4(2)). Government's own example is two dwellings on a 0.16 hectare site, which is exempt (PPG BNG 74-010). The levy has its own exemptions (for example for self-build, which must be claimed before you start); our garden house guide sets them out.

For trees on a site at each stage, see the tree-survey guide to outline and full applications.

07

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

• Wales. Permission in principle does not exist: the legislation covers "land in England" (s59A(1)), and the Act states that the technical details consent provisions "do not apply in relation to Wales" (s70(2A)). Outline permission exists, with different time limits: full permission must be started within five years (s91(5)(b)), and for outline the development must start within five years of the grant or two years from final reserved matters approval, whichever is later (s92(2)(c)). Reserved matters must still be applied for within three years (s92(2)(a)).
• Scotland. "Planning permission in principle" is a different thing from English permission in principle. It is a form of permission for the carrying out of operations granted subject to a condition that certain matters are approved before the development begins (Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 s59(1)), and must be begun within five years of the grant unless the council specifies otherwise (s59(2A)). It is much closer to English outline permission than to English permission in principle.
• Northern Ireland. Outline permission exists: reserved matters within three years, and development must begin by the later of five years from the grant or two years after final approval of the reserved matters (Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 s62). Full permission must be begun within five years (s61).

09

Official Sources

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990 s59A, s70, s75, s91, s92
• Town and Country Planning (Permission in Principle) Order 2017 and Amendment Order SI 2017/1309
• Development Management Procedure Order 2015, arts 2, 5, 15 and 34
• GOV.UK planning practice guidance: permission in principle (last updated 15 March 2019)
• MHCLG: planning fees from 1 April 2026
• Biodiversity Gain Requirements (Exemptions) Regulations 2024 and GOV.UK biodiversity net gain guidance

10

Check what has been granted nearby

Search planning applications near any address to see whether neighbours have used outline or full routes, and what was approved.

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