In July 2026, a Lyon manufacturer of packaging machinery claimed one million euros from its Vietnamese distributor under an exclusivity agreement signed in 2023. The clause referred to the Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce, seat in Paris. The finance director wanted a figure. He had it in four minutes on the institution calculator: 5,000 dollars of filing fee, 23,512 dollars of administrative fees, and for the sole arbitrator a range of 15,633 to 69,392 dollars, that is a total of between 34,158 and 81,068 euros at the day rate. He put the maximum in the budget and the decision was taken on a known basis.
This page deals with the three institutions that, for a dispute of roughly one million euros referred to a sole arbitrator, give a figure before the request is filed: the ICC International Court of Arbitration, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. It explains how a banded schedule works, sets out for each the filing fee, the administrative fees, the arbitrator fees and the expedited regime, then shows how to read a range, how to budget for it and how to draft the clause. The schedules were checked on 20 September 2026 on the official websites and converted at European Central Bank rates of 18 September 2026.
1. The progressive banded schedule, and what it guarantees the client
An ad valorem schedule ties the cost of the arbitration to the amount in dispute. It cuts that amount into successive bands and applies a decreasing percentage to each band, like a progressive tax: a fixed amount corresponding to the bottom of the band is added to a percentage of the part above that threshold. For one million euros the SCC thus charges 15,290 euros of administrative fees plus 0.99 per cent of the fraction above 500,000 euros, that is 20,240 euros. The calculation fits on the back of an envelope.
For arbitrator fees, the schedule gives two columns, a minimum and a maximum, worked out the same way. The institution fixes the final amount between those two limits at the end of the proceedings. The SIAC publishes only the maximum column, the ICC and the SCC both. In every case the party knows, before filing anything, what it will not pay beyond.
That upper limit is what makes the model valuable, and it deserves to be said plainly: the ad valorem schedule is the only arbitration pricing a general counsel can defend to a board before the dispute. Institutions that bill for time spent, the LCIA first among them, supply only medians observed on closed cases: other people pasts, not the file about to be opened. The schedule, by contrast, binds the institution. An ICC arbitrator who has worked twice as much as expected will not be paid beyond the maximum, save in exceptional circumstances assessed by the Court; the surplus is his own. In return, the client accepts that a straightforward case on a large amount pays more than the actual work would justify. That is the price of predictability.
The guarantee has a second side, less often discussed. The schedule protects the party against its own arbitrator. Under an hourly system, a party contesting an arbitrator invoice is taking issue with the person about to judge it; under a schedule, it is the institution that fixes and the institution that answers.
2. The ICC International Court of Arbitration: the Schedule of Fees of 1 June 2026
The 2026 ICC Rules of Arbitration and their schedule came into force on 1 June 2026 and apply to every request filed since that date. The filing fee is 5,000 dollars, that is 4,363 euros, or 6,000 dollars including VAT for a party established in France. It is not refundable, but it is credited against the claimant advance. For an amount in dispute of 1,146,000 dollars, the administrative fees come to 23,512 dollars, that is 20,517 euros.
The fees of the sole arbitrator, on that same amount, run from a minimum of 15,633 dollars (13,641 euros) to a maximum of 69,392 dollars (60,551 euros), with an average of 42,513 dollars (37,097 euros). The calculation takes three additions. At the minimum, 20,517 euros of administrative fees and 13,641 euros of arbitrator fees give 34,158 euros. At the average, 20,517 and 37,097 euros give, subject to conversion rounding, 57,613 euros. At the maximum, 20,517 and 60,551 euros give 81,068 euros. The filing fee is included in those totals since it is deducted from the claimant share. The official calculator on iccwbo.org reproduces these three results, and there is no reason to do the arithmetic any other way.
A one million euro dispute falls automatically under the expedited procedure of Appendix V. The threshold, 2 million dollars for agreements concluded between 1 March 2017 and 31 December 2020 and 3 million for those between 1 January 2021 and 31 May 2026, rose to 4 million dollars for agreements signed since 1 June 2026. Below that threshold: sole arbitrator, award within six months of the case management conference, and arbitrator fees cut by 20 per cent, giving a minimum of 12,507 dollars, an average of 34,010 dollars and a maximum of 55,513 dollars, that is totals of 31,430, 50,194 and 68,957 euros. The Lyon manufacturer in our introduction, whose clause dates from 2023, gets that regime without having asked for it: his average estimate falls to 50,194 euros. Appendix VI adds very expedited provisions, at the option of the parties, with an award within three months. Where the advance exceeds 500,000 dollars, a party may substitute a bank guarantee for a cash payment.
3. The SIAC: the 2025 Rules, a schedule of ceilings and a calculator that suggests an average
The seventh edition of the SIAC Rules came into force on 1 January 2025, with a Schedule of Fees denominated in Singapore dollars. The filing fee is 3,000 Singapore dollars, that is 2,048 euros, for a foreign party, and 3,270 dollars for a Singapore party (goods and services tax of 9 per cent). It is neither refundable nor credited. For 1,465,000 Singapore dollars, the equivalent of our one million euros, administrative fees are capped at 19,185 dollars (13,095 euros) and the official calculator shows an average of 14,389 dollars (9,821 euros).
The fees of the sole arbitrator are capped at 71,625 Singapore dollars, that is 48,887 euros, with a displayed average of 53,719 dollars (36,666 euros). The schedule publishes maxima only; it is the Registrar who fixes the amount, the average being no more than an indication from the calculator on siac.org.sg. The institution and arbitrator total comes to 68,108 Singapore dollars on average (46,487 euros) and 90,810 dollars at the maximum (61,982 euros), excluding tax and arbitrator expenses. To that is added a cash rule the other institutions do not have: the SIAC asks for a deposit equal to 115 per cent of the estimated maximum. One ties up more than one will pay at worst.
The 2025 Rules have two speeds. The streamlined procedure of Rule 13 applies automatically up to one million Singapore dollars, with fees capped at 50 per cent of the schedule and an award within three months. The expedited procedure of Rule 14 is available on application between one and ten million Singapore dollars, with a sole arbitrator and an award within six months, but no fee reduction. Our dispute of 1,465,000 dollars is above the threshold for the first and within the range of the second. An emergency arbitrator costs 5,000 Singapore dollars in fees and 25,000 dollars in remuneration.
Take a Bordeaux wine merchant who shipped to a Singapore importer in April 2026 and claims 1.4 million Singapore dollars. He can apply for the expedited procedure; he will not get the halving of fees, reserved for the one million dollar band, which he would have had by capping his claim at that threshold. The price is read in the claim itself.
4. The SCC: Appendix IV, registration folded into administration and co-arbitrators at 60 per cent
The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has applied its Arbitration Rules 2023 since 1 January 2023, with a schedule set out in Appendix IV and rates revised on 1 January 2024 (fees up by 5 to 15 per cent). The schedule is denominated in euros. The registration fee of 3,000 euros is not refundable, but it forms part of the administrative fees: for one million euros the administrative fees, registration included, come to 20,240 euros, that is 15,290 euros plus 0.99 per cent of the fraction above 500,000 euros, subject to an overall cap of 95,000 euros.
The fees of the sole arbitrator are read in the chairperson column. For one million euros the minimum is 20,000 euros (15,000 euros plus 1 per cent above 500,000) and the maximum 51,720 euros (36,720 euros plus 3 per cent), which puts the median at 35,860 euros. Totals come to 40,240 euros at the minimum, 56,100 euros at the median and 71,960 euros at the maximum, excluding VAT. The calculator on sccarbitrationinstitute.se confirms these amounts; the fee table being published there as an image, the percentages were taken from the PDF of the Rules.
What is distinctive about Stockholm is its treatment of a three member tribunal. Where the tribunal has three members, each co-arbitrator receives 60 per cent of the chairperson fees. Three arbitrators therefore cost 2.2 times the sole arbitrator, against 250 per cent under the Swiss Rules. A Brittany buyer of forestry machinery who signed an SCC clause with three arbitrators with a Finnish manufacturer in 2025 would see, on a one million euro dispute, his arbitrator fees rise at the median from 35,860 to 78,892 euros. One line in the clause.
The SCC is also the only one of the three with no expedited procedure threshold at all. Its 2023 Expedited Rules are a separate set of rules, on a reduced schedule, which apply only where the parties have chosen them: 2,500 euros of registration, 11,640 euros of administrative fees for one million euros, and a sole arbitrator whose fees start at a minimum of 15,900 euros. In Stockholm speed is not imposed, it is stipulated, and it costs less.
5. Reading a schedule: minimum, maximum, average, and what moves the dial
A range is not a price. Between 34,158 and 81,068 euros at the ICC, between 40,240 and 71,960 euros at the SCC, the ratio approaches one to two; knowing where the institution sets the dial matters as much as the choice of institution. The rules list criteria, always the same ones: the diligence and efficiency of the arbitrator, the time spent, the speed of the proceedings, the complexity of the dispute, and at the ICC compliance with the timetable, the Court being able to reduce the fees of an arbitrator who renders a late award without justification. A settlement after the tribunal is constituted but before the hearing is assessed near the minimum; four parties, two experts and three weeks of hearing are assessed at the maximum. The rest falls in between.
An uncertainty the calculators conceal should be named here. None of the three institutions publishes the distribution of its assessments within the range. The ICC average, 42,513 dollars, is the arithmetic midpoint of 15,633 and 69,392; the SCC median, 35,860 euros, is the midpoint of 20,000 and 51,720. These are computed points, not observations, and the SIAC average comes from a tool the institution does not explain. Nobody outside the secretariats knows whether the actual assessment falls more often at a third or at two thirds. A practitioner who claims otherwise is extrapolating from his own files.
What pushes the dial down is partly in the hands of the parties: a timetable accepted without argument, tight submissions, a short hearing, a settlement before the award. What pushes it up often comes from the other side: counterclaims that move the case into a higher band, challenges, interim measures, jurisdictional objections, a proliferation of briefs. The party on the receiving end pays its half of a maximum it did not cause, unless the award allocates otherwise. Hence the maxim I repeat to clients: a schedule is read at the maximum and budgeted at the maximum; the average is a consolation, never a budget.
6. Budgeting and drafting from a schedule
The schedule serves first for the advance. The ICC fixes an advance on costs covering administrative fees and arbitrator fees, paid in equal shares, the claimant being liable to be invited to substitute itself for a respondent that does not pay; the SIAC does the same, but calls for 115 per cent of the estimated maximum; the SCC asks for an advance covering its estimate of the costs. Whoever starts an arbitration must therefore be able to fund the whole of it if the other side declines. On our one million euros, the credit line to open is of the order of 81,000 euros at the ICC, 71,000 euros at the SIAC with the uplift, 72,000 euros at the SCC, counsel excluded. A respondent that does not pay blocks nothing. It gets itself financed.
The schedule then serves to draft the clause. Three stipulations follow from it. The first is the number of arbitrators. Below two or three million euros of likely dispute, the sole arbitrator must be written in black and white: the ICC and the SIAC leave the institution to decide absent agreement, and three arbitrators multiply fees by 2.2 in Stockholm and up to 3 in Paris. The second is the expedited regime. At the ICC it applies automatically below 4 million dollars for agreements signed since 1 June 2026; a party that wants three arbitrators and a full procedure must expressly opt out of Appendix V, failing which it will have a sole arbitrator and six months. At the SIAC the expedited procedure is applied for when the dispute arises; nothing prevents the clause from recording that the parties consent to it. At the SCC the expedited rules apply only if the clause designates them, and they are the only one of the three regimes that actually reduces the bill, from 20,240 to 11,640 euros of administrative fees.
The third stipulation is the final allocation of costs. All three sets of rules give the tribunal power to put the costs of the arbitration on the losing party; a clause may spell this out or impose an equal split whatever the outcome. What the clause does not say will be argued. And the commonest trap, the one I call reading the ceiling as a price, is to budget the calculator average and then discover at the award that a counterclaim moved the case into a higher band and that it was assessed at the maximum of that band. The schedule guarantees a limit. It does not guarantee that one will stay in the band one entered.
The full document, with the table of twelve institutions, the calculations in the original currencies, the expedited procedure thresholds and the primary sources, is freely available: download the full table as a PDF. The firm drafts arbitration clauses and acts before these institutions; the international trade law page describes that practice, and the contact form allows a clause to be submitted for review or a dispute to be costed.
Frequently asked questions
Is the ICC filing fee lost if the case settles before the tribunal is constituted?
The 5,000 dollar filing fee is not refundable, whatever the outcome; it is, however, credited against the claimant advance, so it does not add to the total cost if the arbitration runs to an award. If the case settles early, the Court fixes fees and expenses according to the work done and returns the surplus; the filing fee stays with the institution. The SIAC and the SCC likewise do not refund their registration fee, but the SIAC does not credit it either.
How does the schedule apply where the amount in dispute is not quantified?
All three schedules aggregate claims and counterclaims. Where a claim concerns an obligation to do something, or an amount the claimant cannot yet assess, the rules give the institution power to fix the value of the dispute itself or to set the fees at its discretion. The secretariat then invites the claimant to value the economic interest of its claim, subject to later revision. It is better to put a figure on it oneself, even approximately.
Are the schedule amounts inclusive or exclusive of tax?
Exclusive. The SCC schedule is expressly net of VAT. The SIAC schedule excludes the Singapore goods and services tax of 9 per cent, which applies only to parties established in Singapore, hence a filing fee of 3,270 Singapore dollars for them. The ICC schedule itself raises the filing fee to 6,000 dollars including VAT for a party established in France, against 5,000 dollars excluding tax. A French party budget must therefore allow a margin for tax, recoverable on the ordinary conditions.
Does an institution online calculator bind that institution?
No. The ICC, SIAC and SCC calculators apply the schedule mechanically to the amount entered. They ignore the number of parties, procedural incidents, arbitrator expenses, taxes and counterclaims to come. The final amount is fixed by the institution at the end of the arbitration, within the limits of the schedule; the calculator is only a simulation. It remains the best budgeting tool, provided the maximum is taken and the figure recalculated as soon as a counterclaim changes the amount in dispute.
Does a clause signed before 1 June 2026 fall under the new ICC schedule?
Yes for the schedule, no for the expedited procedure threshold. The Schedule of Fees of 1 June 2026 applies to every request filed since that date, whatever the date of the clause. The expedited procedure threshold, by contrast, depends on the date of the agreement: 2 million dollars for a clause from 2017 to 2020, 3 million from 1 January 2021 to 31 May 2026, 4 million since 1 June 2026. A 2024 contract over 3.5 million dollars therefore escapes the expedited procedure; signed today, it would be subject to it automatically.