How much compensation for whiplash? The 2025 tariff, in full

If you search for what a whiplash claim is worth, you will find a lot of ranges. Two thousand to five thousand. Up to ten thousand. Figures that sound encouraging and turn out to be wrong.

They are wrong for a specific reason. Since 2021, compensation for whiplash from a road traffic accident has not been assessed at all. It is read off a table set by Parliament. There is no negotiation, no bracket, and no room for a solicitor to argue you into a higher figure. Here is the table, both versions of it, and the three situations where it does not apply.

The tariff, in full

The amounts come from the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021, made under the Civil Liability Act 2018. They cover pain, suffering and loss of amenity for a whiplash injury lasting up to two years, where the accident was a road traffic accident.

There are two tables, because the tariff was raised by around 15% in 2025. Which one applies to you depends entirely on the date of your accident — not the date you claim.

Accidents on or after 31 May 2025

• Up to 3 months — £275, or £300 with a minor psychological injury
• 3 to 6 months — £565, or £595
• 6 to 9 months — £965, or £1,025
• 9 to 12 months — £1,510, or £1,595
• 12 to 15 months — £2,335, or £2,435
• 15 to 18 months — £3,445, or £3,550
• 18 to 24 months — £4,830, or £4,975

Accidents before 31 May 2025

• Up to 3 months — £240, or £260 with a minor psychological injury
• 3 to 6 months — £495, or £520
• 6 to 9 months — £840, or £895
• 9 to 12 months — £1,320, or £1,390
• 12 to 15 months — £2,040, or £2,125
• 15 to 18 months — £3,005, or £3,100
• 18 to 24 months — £4,215, or £4,345

You have three years to bring a claim, so both tables will be in use well into 2028. If a website quotes you a single set of whiplash figures without asking when your accident happened, it is showing you one of these two tables and hoping it is the right one.

A court can add up to 20% where the injury is exceptionally severe. It is not automatic and it is not common.

Whiplash and anxiety: the second column

A great many people come out of a crash with more than a stiff neck. Travel anxiety, difficulty sleeping, low mood, a reluctance to drive — these are common, and they are recognised.

That is what the second figure in each band is. Where you suffered a minor psychological injury in the same accident, the tariff pays a slightly higher fixed amount. It is a small uplift — usually between £20 and £150 — and it is included automatically rather than claimed separately.

If the psychological injury is more than minor, it stops being a tariff question altogether. A diagnosed anxiety disorder or PTSD is a distinct injury, valued in the ordinary way against the Judicial College Guidelines, and it can be worth considerably more than the whiplash. That is a conversation to have with a solicitor and a medical expert, not something to read off a table.

Whiplash and back pain, or anything else

This is the question we are asked most, and until recently the courts were not agreed on the answer.

If a crash caused whiplash and an injury the tariff does not cover — a broken wrist, a knee injury, significant back damage — you have what lawyers call a mixed injury. In Hassam v Rabot [2024] UKSC 11, the Supreme Court settled how the two combine:

The whiplash is valued under the tariff. The other injuries are valued in the ordinary way. The two are added together, and then the court steps back and makes a modest reduction for the pain and suffering that overlaps between them — but the total can never fall below what the non-tariff injuries would have been worth on their own.

The practical point is this: the tariff caps the whiplash. It does not cap your claim. If you injured something else in the same accident, that part is valued properly and it is frequently worth many times the tariff figure.

Three situations where the tariff does not apply at all

You were not in a vehicle. Pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders were deliberately left outside the tariff. If you were hurt on the road but not in a car, your injury is valued the ordinary way — which usually means it is worth substantially more than the same injury to a driver. This is missed constantly.

The symptoms lasted more than two years. The tariff stops at 24 months. Beyond that the claim is valued against the Judicial College Guidelines like any other injury.

It was not a road traffic accident. Whiplash-type injuries from a fall at work or in a public place are not tariffed. Same injury, entirely different rules.

The part nobody tells you: your losses are not tariffed either

Everything above concerns general damages — the injury itself. It is only half of a claim, and for many people it is the smaller half.

Special damages cover money: earnings you lost, treatment you paid for, travel to hospital appointments, and the care someone gave you while you could not manage. None of it is tariffed. All of it is recovered in full where the evidence supports it.

Care is the one people miss. If a partner took over the cooking, or a parent drove you to appointments, that help is claimable even though nobody was paid for it. It is called gratuitous care and it has been recognised for decades. The difficulty is proving it eighteen months later, so keep a rough weekly note of the hours as you go.

Should you use a solicitor at all?

Honestly, for many whiplash claims, no — and any firm that will not tell you that is not being straight with you.

If the injury element of your claim is below £5,000, it falls in the small claims track, where legal costs are generally not recoverable from the other side. Look at the tariff above and you will see that most whiplash claims of under two years fall well below that line. Those claims are designed to be brought by the injured person directly, through the government’s Official Injury Claim portal, without paying anyone a percentage.

Where it is worth taking advice is where the picture is more complicated than a tariff figure: you injured something else as well, the psychological effect is more than minor, the symptoms have gone past two years, you were a pedestrian or a cyclist, liability is being disputed, or your financial losses are substantial. In those cases the value of the claim is genuinely open, and getting it wrong costs real money.

Work out your own figure

Our personal injury claim calculator applies the correct tariff table from your accident date, handles mixed injuries, and adds up your financial losses separately. It is free, nothing is recorded, and it will tell you if your claim is one you would be better off bringing yourself.

If you would rather talk it through, the first conversation costs nothing.

Figures checked against the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021, as amended by the Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025, in August 2026. This article is general information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your case.