Understanding access charges to the SDE
We apply charges to cover the cost of processing and delivering our service. We ensure charges are applied fairly and consistently, broadly determined by the amount of effort and approvals required.
Our current charging model is broken down into 3 elements, charges for a DARS application, charges for the production of data and charges for the access and use of the SDE. Read more about charges for DARS application, SDE data, and some cost examples.
Charges for DARS application
These prices represent an overview of charges that will be applied as part of your Data Sharing Agreement and SDE service charges:
| Price from 1 April 2026 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Service components | Unit cost | |
| Application type | New application | £1,431 |
| Amendment/ renewal/ extension | £1,138 | |
| Annual review fee | £694 |
Visit Data Access Request Service (DARS) charges for more information.
SDE data charges
Data provision
A data provision fee is charged for each product available in your environment and depends on the complexity of the product.
| Price from 1 April 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Per product | £488 to £976 |
Additional data periods
Historical data per period per product.
| Price from 1 April 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Per product/period | £38 |
Data refresh
A data refresh fee is charged for each product each time the data is refreshed in your SDE. Charges range per product per refresh and depend on the complexity of the product.
| Price from 1 April 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Per product | £16 to £54 |
Input and output checking
Each authorised user can submit up to 20 input or output check requests per calendar month. Any additional requests are charged per check.
| Price from 1 April 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Per additional request over 20 per month | £11 |
SDE access charges
Confirmed charges from 1 April 2026:
| Charge type | Price from 1 April 2026 |
|---|---|
| One-time SDE set-up fee | £434 |
|
Monthly user account fee*. Includes:
|
£472 |
| Optional user account charges | Price from 1 April 2026 |
|---|---|
| Excess compute per unit** | £1.89 |
| Storage utilisation (over 1TB)*** | £0.020 per GB |
|
Upgraded VDI (per month, per user):
|
£27 |
Stata licence price available on request.
These charges are subject to VAT (at the current rate) if applicable.
* All user accounts which have been active, including accounts which were deleted or deactivated within the month, will be charged the standard fee.
** Excess compute per unit is calculated in total across all accounts, not per user. For example, if you have 2 users and they use 50 and 300 DBUs in one month respectively, the total usage will be calculated as 350 out of the total 500 DBU included allowance.
*** Excess storage is also calculated in total across all accounts, not per user. For example, if you have 2 users and they use 800GB and 1,100GB in one month respectively, the total usage will be calculated as 1,900GB out of the total 2TB (2,000 GB) included allowance.
Bespoke requirements
The above costs model is for standard usage of data - there may be additional charges which are not represented above and subject to terms and conditions.
Depending on your specific requirements, we may need to employ a specialist to carry out bespoke work. This will be charged at £1,084 per day of bespoke work carried out and will be discussed with you ahead of starting any work.
Cost example
Application type: New application for a 3-year data sharing agreement (DSA), from a non-commercial organisation. No plans to retain the data beyond the end of the DSA.
Dissemination: Monthly refreshes for the duration of the DSA.
Product: Historical data requested for periods 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26, and future data for 2026/27, 2027/28 and 2028/29 (6 associated product years).
Products requested:
- Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care (APC) - medium complexity
- Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Critical Care (CC) - low complexity
- Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Out Patient (OP) - medium complexity
- Emergency Care Data set (ECDS) - medium complexity
- Civil Registrations (Deaths) - medium complexity
- Not including the submission of cohort file/participant data
We have provided 3 examples of the cost with a comparison to the cost of a data extract. These are:
- example 1 – where monthly refresh of data is required
- example 2 – where quarterly refresh of data is required
- example 3 – where only one-off refresh is required
Last edited: 30 April 2026 4:02 pm