Kill Fee Claim Letter Generator — Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act 1998

A killed commission is a debt, not a favour withdrawn, and most freelances never claim it because there is no obvious form of words. The awkward part is asking in a way that is firm about the money without souring the relationship with the desk.

Last reviewed: 24 August 2026Next review due: 24 August 2027

Kill Fee Letter Templater

Generate a professional kill-fee claim letter, with statutory interest referenced under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

Outlet Name

Commissioning Editor

Article Title / Topic

Commissioned Date

Kill Notification Date

Agreed Fee (£)

Kill Fee Percentage

Your Name

Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998: as a business creditor, you may be entitled to statutory interest (Bank of England base rate of 3.75%, as at 2026-08-30, plus 8 percentage points = 11.75% p.a.) plus fixed compensation once a commercial debt is overdue. This is included in the letter as a reminder, not a demand — most kill-fee disputes resolve without needing to invoke it.

Generated Letter

[Your Name]


[Commissioning Editor]
[Outlet Name]

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: KILL FEE CLAIM — [Article Title/Topic]

I am writing to formally claim payment of a kill fee in relation to the above commission.

On [date], I was commissioned by [Outlet Name] to write "[Article Title/Topic]" at an agreed fee of £0.00.

On [date], I was notified that this commission would not be proceeding to publication.

In the absence of a written agreement stating otherwise, industry practice (as reflected in NUJ Freelance Fees Guide guidance) is that a kill fee of at least 50% of the agreed fee is payable for commissioned work that is not published through no fault of the writer. On this occasion I am claiming a kill fee of 50% of the agreed fee, calculated as follows:

  Agreed fee:              £0.00
  Kill fee percentage:     50%
  KILL FEE CLAIMED:         £0.00

I would be grateful if you could confirm acceptance of this claim and arrange payment within your standard payment terms, or within 30 days of this letter if no other terms have been agreed.

Please note that under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, as a business creditor I am entitled to claim statutory interest (currently calculated as the Bank of England base rate of 3.75% plus 8 percentage points, giving 11.75% per annum as at 2026-08-30) on sums that remain unpaid more than 30 days after the debt becomes due, together with a fixed compensation sum for late payment. I would prefer to resolve this promptly and amicably, and am raising this only so that the position is clear should payment be delayed.

I have attached/can provide evidence of the commission (email correspondence, commissioning brief) on request.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you would like to discuss this by phone.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Name]

How it works

You enter the outlet, the commissioning editor, the article title, the commissioned date, the kill notification date, the agreed fee and your name, and pick a kill fee percentage of 25, 33, 50, 75 or 100 — with 50 flagged as the NUJ typical figure.
It computes the kill fee as that percentage of the agreed fee and writes a full letter: the commission and its fee, the date you were told it would not run, the NUJ Freelance Fees Guide position that at least 50 per cent is payable for commissioned work not published through no fault of the writer, and a worked calculation.
It counts the days since the kill date and, once that exceeds 30, adds a paragraph stating how many days the fee has been outstanding beyond a 30-day window and an estimated statutory interest figure under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.
The interest figure is simple interest at the current Bank of England base rate plus 8 percentage points, annualised over the overdue days. The letter and the on-page note both show the base rate itself and the date it was retrieved, alongside the combined annual percentage, so the stated rate and the arithmetic now match.
The letter closes by noting the interest point is raised for clarity rather than as a demand, and offers to discuss. Output can be copied or downloaded as a .txt file named after the article.

When to use it

When a commission is killed and no kill fee has been offered, which is when most of them are never paid.
When a kill fee was agreed verbally and the invoice has been sitting unpaid for over a month.
When you need a paper trail before escalating to the NUJ, to a small claims action, or to a late-payment complaint.
When the outlet has no written commissioning terms and you need to set out the industry position in the letter itself.

What it does not do

Not legal advice. This is a template letter, not a legal claim, and it does not tell you whether you actually have a contractual right to a kill fee on these facts.
The statutory interest figure now derives from the Bank of England base rate plus 8 percentage points, with the retrieval date shown — but that source figure is refreshed by a scheduled crawl rather than read live, so check the current base rate yourself if the retrieval date on the letter looks old before relying on any figure you send.
It also excludes the fixed compensation sum the Act allows for a late commercial debt, and it assumes the debt fell due on the kill date rather than on an invoice date or agreed payment terms.
It cannot see your contract. A written commissioning agreement setting a different kill fee, or none, overrides the industry practice the letter relies on, and the letter’s opening premise is that no such written agreement exists.
It does not address whether you can resell the piece elsewhere, who holds copyright in the killed work, or what happens to rights already assigned under the commission.

More tools

This is one of the free tools on UK JournoHub. See the full tools index for the rest.

Primary sources

Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998— legislation.gov.uk