GOS fee determinations by nation

England — £24.13, from 1 April 2025
Mandatory services, or additional services at a day centre. The practice expense component for OMP superannuation purposes is £6.12. As at August 2026 there is no published 2026/27 determination, so £24.13 remains operative.
Wales — WGOS 1 £46.20
WGOS 2 eye examination Band 1 £72.88, Band 2 £55.18, Band 3 £27.07. In force 11 November 2025, taking effect from 1 April 2025.
Scotland — banded, from 19 January 2026
Primary eye examination: under 60 undilated £46.53; under 60 dilated or cycloplegic £57.80; 60+ undilated £50.52; 60+ dilated £57.80. Supplementary standard £30.83; enhanced £47.80.
Northern Ireland — £25.52
For HS sight tests performed on or after 1 April 2025. CET grant £697.
Worth knowingThe England 2025/26 fee was determined eight months into the year and backdated to 1 April 2025, with contractors told they need take no action. That is the historic pattern, and it makes forecasting GOS income genuinely difficult. Plan on the operative fee and reserve for a backdated correction rather than assuming an uplift that has not been announced.

Domiciliary — England

£40.80 / £10.21
Payable on top of the £24.13, and only where the additional-services test is at a residential centre or the patient's home. £40.80 for each of the first and second sight tests during any one visit; £10.21 for the third and each subsequent test during that visit. A day centre test attracts £24.13 with no additional fee.

The GOS claim window — three months, not six

Three months, and it includes payment
The Regulations say six months. PCSE says three, and has done since 1 January 2024, and three is the one that governs your cash. PCSE is explicit that the three-month window includes submission, processing and payment — so a claim rejected near the end of it can expire before you have corrected and resubmitted. For GOS1, GOS5 and GOS6 it runs from the date of the sight test; for GOS3 and GOS4 from the date the appliance is supplied or collected.
GOS3 vouchers are valid two years
But only usable if the patient is still eligible when they order. A voucher issued to someone whose circumstances have changed is not a claim you will be paid for.

When the money actually arrives — look up your own area

Worth knowingThere is no single national GOS payment date. PCSE publishes a payment diary with one row per legacy area and four events: claim cut-off at 11.59pm, the GMP run the next day, upload three to five days later, and in bank two to three days after that. That is roughly nine to twelve days from cut-off to cash — but the cut-off itself differs by area. Across the sixty-nine areas listed, in-bank dates span from around the 7th of the month to the last working day. Two identical practices in different ICB areas can sit three weeks apart. Use the colour-coded grid in that file rather than the summary columns on the right, which do not agree with it.

Voucher values — England, unchanged since April 2024

A £42.40 · B £64.26 · C £94.14 · D £212.40
Single vision, by prescription strength. Set by SI 2024/294 and unchanged from 1 April 2024.
E £73.10 · F £92.72 · G £120.48 · H £233.56
Bifocals, on the same banding. Voucher I is £217.58 for hospital eye service glasses outside A to H; J is £61.77 for contact lenses prescribed after an NHS trust sight test. A to J is the complete set — there is no voucher K.
The supplements people forget to claim
Prism per lens: £13.67 single vision, £16.67 any other. Tints and photochromics per lens: £4.77 and £5.28. Small glasses £69.60. Special facial characteristics £69.60. Complex lens vouchers £15.81 single vision, £40.57 any other.
Worth knowingNorthern Ireland uprated everything by 4% from 1 April 2026 — the only UK nation to do so — and applies a timing rule worth knowing: a practitioner may claim the voucher value payable on the date the spectacles are supplied, rather than the value in force on the sight test date.

The VAT dates, and the ones that are not dates

VAT one month and seven days after each quarter end. But two of the things that decide what goes on that return are not calendar events at all, which is why they get missed.

The first is the annual adjustment for partial exemption. The partial exemption tax year is twelve months normally ending 31 March, 30 April or 31 May depending on your VAT periods, and the adjustment may be declared either in the last return of that longer period or in the one that follows it.

The second is recalculating your apportionment method. VATVAL12400 triggers it on events rather than dates: a change in the number of branches; a change in the number of optometrists, dispensing opticians or directly supervised staff; restructuring the practice, such as an optometrist who used to test and dispense moving to testing only; and moving between buying in lenses and glazing in house. If you are unsure whether a change counts as major, HMRC's own answer is to recalculate at the year end and make an annual adjustment.

The ordinary dates

Self assessment 31 January, with payments on account on 31 January and 31 July. Corporation tax nine months and one day after the period end, with the return twelve months after. PAYE monthly, on the 22nd where you pay electronically. GOC retention runs on its own annual cycle for each registrant and for the business where business registration is required.