Fee VS Payment

[ccosta]

Hello,
I'm an ESL teacher and I recently read the words fee and payment to refer to "a certain amount of money you give to a service" and it's not clear for me what is the difference between them, although I notice they are not used in the same context most of the time.
Can somebody explain it to me?

My best wishes to everyone,
Carol

[Safari]

Hello,
I'm an ESL teacher and I recently read the words fee and payment to refer to "a certain amount of money you give to a service" and it's not clear for me what is the difference between them, although I notice they are not used in the same context most of the time.
Can somebody explain it to me?

My best wishes to everyone,
Carol

I agree it's little bit confusing. To me...

fee is more like an invoice/charge FROM a supplier

payment is the actual handover of money TO a supplier

Here is my payment for the annual membership fee.

They are faced with legal fees of $10,000 but cannot make a payment until next week.

[patron]

I agree with the first answer. I think in everyday English a fee is a sum of money that someone asks for. e.g a fee to be admitted to the movies.
A payment is , as its name implies, what you pay to get into the movies.

The person asking for money is charging a fee and the person paying the amount is making the payment.
Just to make life confusing the two words are often interchanged.

[SummerFrog]

And here I was thinking I was one of the few who had to pay for college. Either my friends receive financial aid, or their parents do indeed cover all of their expenses. Like you, I've never taken a trip or gone on spring break; in fact, I haven't even gone to bars or clubs because I can't afford it. I rarely buy groceries and don't eat out just to pay my rent and tuition. I really appreciate the encouragement, so thank you.