Keycards update: new Dependants’ Allowances come into force on 6 April 2026 and new guidance on declarations and verification

2 April 2026

This update sets out changes being made to each of the Keycards on our website from 6 April 2026 as follows:

  1. New Dependants’ Allowances
  2. New declarations and verifications guidance on solicitors’ and clients’ signatures on the declaration forms and on the use of other methods of obtaining clients’ signatures electronically.

New Dependants’ Allowances

As a result of new Dependants’ Allowances which come into force on 6 April 2026, the following allowances should be used from that date:

  • Partner – £54.60
  • Child or any other dependant – £87.88

As well as being on the online versions of the keycards, the new Dependants’ Allowances are also the PDF versions for each aid type –  pages 10 and 18 of the Civil Keycard, pages 10 and 18 of the Children’s Keycard, and page 9 of the Criminal Keycard.

New declarations and verification guidance

We have reviewed our guidance on financial verification for advice and assistance, and on signing of declarations for all aid types, and produced a single piece of guidance covering both topics.

This new guidance supersedes all previous versions. This will simplify the process of keeping the guidance updated. It will also make it simpler for you to find the information you need.

You can find the new guidance in:

We have also updated the guidance on the Legal Aid Online declarations page.

E-signatures

The guidance incorporates one change. We previously advised that Clients can “sign” an electronic version of a paper form by applying a signature using a stylus (for example, iPencil).

You can now use other online signing platforms such as DocuSign or Adobe Sign.

Again, the electronic signature must provide sufficient authentication (that is, the signature should be recognisable as the applicant’s signature and not simply an e-squiggle).

You must be able to show an audit trail for the signing process.

Existing guidance to be updated

The new guidance provided is now the definitive version, which supersedes all other guidance on declarations and verification.

However, you may notice that we have not yet updated all the existing content on our website to remove the previous guidance.

We are in the process of removing this obsolete content and replacing it with links to the new version. This is a work in progress, and we will let you know when it has been completed.

More information

For further details, please contact: