UK court bundle requirements, court by court

If papers have arrived with a hearing date on them, the bundle is the part nobody explains and everybody is frightened of getting wrong. The reassuring thing first: for a parking claim the famous bundle rules generally do not apply to you at all, and the ones that do are short.

The only deadline that binds you is the one the court gave you

Read your directions order before anything else — whatever it says about what to file and when overrides every general rule quoted on this page. If it is silent on format, the standard below is the one to follow.

A small claim: at least 14 days before the hearing — the standard direction is that you file at court and serve on the other side copies of everything you intend to rely on. Anything you leave out, you are choosing not to rely on. Source at the foot of this page.

Build it before the week it is due — scanning, paginating and bookmarking a bundle takes longer than anyone expects, and a court office will not treat "the scanner jammed" as a reason.

You are not being stupid for finding this confusing — it genuinely is. We hold 10 separate UK electronic-bundle rulebooks on this page, quoted verbatim, and they contradict each other on 5 of the things people most often get wrong, pagination among them. Every one of the 10 is linked to its own published source below, checked 15 August 2026.

What to do tonight

Twenty minutes, tonight, with the papers in front of you.

Find your directions order and read the paragraph about documents. That is your actual instruction. Write the filing date on the front of the papers in pen.
Work out which court you are in, and open only that rulebook below. Applying another court's rule is the commonest way to produce a bundle that is wrong — the same numbering is required in one court and forbidden in another.
List what you will rely on, and exhibit anything you mention. If your statement says you paid at a particular time, the receipt has to be in the bundle with a reference you can point the judge to. A document mentioned and not filed is only an assertion.

All of that is free, and so is the checker below — the file is read in your own browser and never leaves your device.

Check my bundle against my court's rules — free

Pick your court, pick your PDF, and see which published rules it does not meet. Nothing is uploaded.

The single most useful fact on this page: a bundle numbered A1, A2 … B1, B2 … is exactly what Practice Direction 27A asks for in family proceedings other than financial remedy — and is expressly forbidden in an Employment Tribunal hearing file, which "must not have separately numbered sections". Same file, two courts, opposite answers.

Here for a parking claim? Start with the one rule that decides whether anything on this page applies to you: Part 32 does not apply to the small claims track, so the trial-bundle requirements quoted for civil trials do not govern a parking hearing. What you actually have to file, and by when →

Pick your court

Family court (not financial remedy)FPR Practice Direction 27A Financial remedy proceedingsFPR Practice Direction 27A Administrative Court (judicial review)Administrative Court Court of Appeal (Civil Division)Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Guide 2025 Chancery Division and Commercial CourtChancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts)King's Bench DivisionThe King's Bench Guide 2025 Employment TribunalPresidential Guidance SEND Tribunal (First-tier Tribunal, HESC)Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 Criminal and extradition proceedingsCriminal Practice Directions 2023, Part 12 Other civil courts (County Court, general civil)General guidance on electronic court bundles

Check my bundle against these rules — free

Pick your court, pick your PDF. The file is read in your browser and never leaves your device. Free verdict plus your first three issues; the full report is £4.99.

The differences that catch people out

Index links

Family (PD27A)	Index entries must be "added to" the indexed document. Hyperlinking is best practice carried from other regimes, not an express PD27A requirement.
Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21)	Hyperlinked index is mandatory.
Court of Appeal	Hyperlinks OR bookmarks, "as appropriate".
Chancery, Commercial	Hyperlinked "if possible".
SEND Tribunal	Hyperlinks "ideally".
Employment Tribunal	Index hyperlinked at the front, OR supplied as a separate PDF.

Pagination

Financial remedy	Arabic, continuous, and the computer numbering must match the PDF page labels.
Family, not financial remedy	Bates numbering: A1, A2 … B1, B2 … by section.
Employment Tribunal, SEND Tribunal	Sequential Arabic from 1. Sections must NOT be separately numbered.
Chancery, Commercial	Where a bundle is split across files, pagination begins afresh in each file.
Administrative Court, King's Bench	First page of the PDF is page 1, index pages included.

Bookmark density

Everywhere except the Employment Tribunal	All significant documents and all sections.
Employment Tribunal	Significant documents only — "Do not bookmark every single document".

Resolution

Nearly all of the regimes on this page	Not greater than 300 dpi — a ceiling only.
Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21)	About 200 to 300 dpi — a floor as well as a ceiling.

Page and size caps

Family, financial remedy	350 pages, court permission to exceed. In financial remedy, position statements and composite documents do not count towards it.
Court of Appeal	350 pages on the supplementary bundle; 50MB split threshold.
Administrative Court, criminal	20mb, with a core bundle above it. Core bundle required over 400 pages (PD 54A 16).
SEND Tribunal	Core bundle 100 pages; EHC plan part 150; further caps by appeal type.
Chancery, Commercial, King's Bench	No page cap.

What happened in the reported cases

T v T [2025] EWFC 14 (B) — Final hearing adjourned

A bundle of 2,747 pages against a 350-page limit, without bookmarks. The court's words: “impossible to proceed in a fair way”

Y v X (Costs) [2026] EWFC 35 (B) — Bundle preparation fees disallowed

A late bundle with inconsistent pagination. The costs of preparing it were disallowed under FPR r28.1. This is a fee disallowance, not a wasted costs order and not a fine.

Go Capital Ltd v Phull [2020] EWHC 1235 (Ch) — Judicial criticism of the bundle

The defect list that still gets cited: no selectable text, no bookmarks, multiple competing page numbers, missing pages, and two indexes that were not hyperlinked.

Seagrove v Sullivan [2014] EWHC 4110 (Fam) — Papers removed and the exercise restarted

The court refused to work from the bundle as lodged. The court's words: “The whole lot must be taken away and we start again.”

Re L (A Child) [2015] EWFC 15 — Judicial naming of the default

Sir James Munby P, then President of the Family Division, on repeated non-compliance with the bundles practice direction. The court's words: “Fifteen years of default are enough.”

Being straight about this: No reported case imposes wasted costs solely for bundle defects. The only money outcome we can point to is Y v X (Costs) [2026] EWFC 35 (B), where bundle preparation fees were disallowed. None of these outcomes is a fine. Courts do not fine parties for bundle format. Every case above pre-dates the Practice Direction 27A that came into force on 2 March 2026. As at 15 August 2026 there is no reported judgment under the new PD27A. The underlying duties are materially similar, but nobody can yet cite a decision on the new wording.

What we cannot tell you

No Civil Procedure Rule anywhere mandates bookmarks, OCR or hyperlinks in an electronic civil bundle. Those requirements come from judicial guidance and court guides, which a judge may vary in your case.
The enacted PD27A says index entries must be "added to" the indexed document, not "hyperlinked to". We treat hyperlinking as best practice for family bundles and label it as such. Published commentary usually says "hyperlinked" because it is quoting the 2021 guidance, which no longer applies to family proceedings.
PD27A 4.8 promises further HMCTS guidance on bundles. As at 15 August 2026 it has not been published.
The 50MB figure in the Court of Appeal and King's Bench guides descends from the revoked PD 51O. Treat it as guide-level practice, not law. CPR PD 5C sets a 100MB electronic filing cap and carves bundles out of the pilot.
Employment Tribunal Presidential Guidance is something a tribunal must have regard to. It does not bind in the way a practice direction does.
This tool checks the format of a PDF. It cannot tell you whether a document belongs in the bundle, whether a bookmark description is good enough, or whether your case is ready. Those are judgement calls and we report them as such.

Where each rulebook comes from

Family court (not financial remedy) — FPR Practice Direction 27A — Family Proceedings: Court Bundles, in force 2 March 2026 (substituted by PD Update No 6 of 2025; amended 24 March 2026 by Update No 1 of 2026, which does not change the format rules). Checked 15 August 2026.
Financial remedy proceedings — FPR Practice Direction 27A — Family Proceedings: Court Bundles, in force 2 March 2026 (substituted by PD Update No 6 of 2025; amended 24 March 2026 by Update No 1 of 2026, which does not change the format rules). Checked 15 August 2026.
Administrative Court (judicial review) — Administrative Court — Information for Court Users (Section A: Electronic bundles), effective 4 October 2023 (binding via CPR PD 54A paras 4.5 and 15, PD 54B para 1.3). Checked 15 August 2026.
Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Guide 2025, June 2025. Checked 15 August 2026.
Chancery Division and Commercial Court — Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts), 2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025). Checked 15 August 2026.
King's Bench Division — The King's Bench Guide 2025, April 2025. Checked 15 August 2026.
Employment Tribunal — Presidential Guidance — General Case Management (Employment Tribunals), effective 4 June 2026 (revokes the 2020 guidance). Checked 15 August 2026.
SEND Tribunal (First-tier Tribunal, HESC) — Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases, 22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025. Checked 15 August 2026.
Criminal and extradition proceedings — Criminal Practice Directions 2023, Part 12, as amended 16 March 2026. Checked 15 August 2026.
Other civil courts (County Court, general civil) — General guidance on electronic court bundles, 29 November 2021. Checked 15 August 2026.
The 14-day standard direction for a small claim — rule 27.4 of the Civil Procedure Rules: CPR Part 27. The same rule is quoted in full on the parking-claim page.

This page exists because I went looking for one UK rulebook on electronic bundles and found 10 of them saying different things. Nobody had put them side by side with the contradictions marked, so the guidance people were following was frequently the wrong court's.

Nothing here is behind a payment. If your court is missing, or a rule has changed since 15 August 2026, tell me and I will re-read the source and update it.

— Andrew at Axion Labs. Write to me at hello@getaxionlabs.com if a page here is wrong, or a step does not work.

This is a format check against published court rules. It is not legal advice, it does not tell you whether your case is ready, and no outcome is guaranteed. The rules are subject to any direction a judge gives in your own case. Checked against the published sources on 15 August 2026.