TV Licence UK: Cost, Rules, Cancellation and Refunds

The licence is a legal permission to receive live television and use BBC iPlayer, created under the Communications Act 2003. It attaches to an address, not a person. One licence covers everyone in the household on every device they own, from the living room TV to a phone on the sofa. That single fact answers half the questions people ask: couples do not need two, and a second TV in the bedroom does not need its own.

The government sets the price, and the money funds BBC television, radio, iPlayer and the World Service, plus around £100 million a year for S4C in Wales. TV Licensing, the body that sends the letters, is the collection arm, and its powers are narrower than its letters suggest.

Two things the licence is not. It is not a tax on owning a TV, so a set used only for gaming and streaming needs nothing. And it is not a subscription you can pause, which is why cancelling in the right order matters.

Do You Need a TV Licence?

The rule has nothing to do with owning a TV. It comes down to what your household watches. Live means licensed, on demand means free, with one exception that catches thousands of people out: BBC iPlayer always needs a licence, even for old shows on catch up.

Two more traps worth knowing. Watching +1 channels like ITV1+1 counts as live, because the programme is still being broadcast to everyone at once. And watching away from home on a phone or unplugged laptop is covered by your home licence, but plug the charger in at an unlicensed property and that cover ends. If you plan to go without a licence, delete the iPlayer app from every device in the house first, because one tap on it puts you back in licence territory.

Service by Service

On demand means programmes you choose to start yourself. The moment anything streams live inside any app, including sport and premieres, the licence rule applies.

Common Situations

How Much a TV Licence Costs in 2026

The fee rose by £5.50 this April and rises with inflation again in April 2027, when it is expected to pass £185. One quirk worth money: your licence charges the rate in force on the day it starts, so if your renewal falls near April, renewing in late March locks the old price for a full year.

The current BBC Charter ends in December 2027 and the funding model is under government review, so the fee’s long term future is an open question.

Ways to Pay, Compared

Free and Discounted Licences

Three groups pay less than the standard fee, and the biggest concession is widely misunderstood in two ways at once.

Over 75s on Pension Credit. Households where someone aged 75 or over receives Pension Credit get a free licence covering everyone at the address. Catch one: the old scheme covering every over 75 ended in August 2020, yet many families still believe it exists. Catch two: the free licence is not applied automatically. You have to claim it, online or by phone, once you qualify. Around 800,000 eligible pensioners never claim Pension Credit at all, and they lose the free licence with it. If you have been paying full price while eligible, you can claim the difference back.

Blind and severely sight impaired. Half price at £90. The licence must be in the registered person’s name, the application needs a copy of the certificate from a local authority ophthalmologist, and one certificate then covers the whole household. Partially sighted viewers do not qualify. Details in the blind concession guide.

Care home residents. Accommodation covered by the ARC scheme pays £7.50 a year per room, provided the resident is over 60 and retired, or disabled, with the scheme manager applying on their behalf. See the care home guide.

How to Cancel Your TV Licence

You can cancel at any time without giving a reason, as long as your viewing genuinely no longer needs a licence. Cancelling while you still watch live TV or use iPlayer is an offence, so be honest about the household’s habits first. Done in the right order, it takes five steps.

Before you cancel, be honest about the trade. Around two million UK households now legally pay nothing, keeping Netflix, Disney+ and every catch up service except iPlayer. What they give up is live everything: news channels during big events, live sport, and the entire BBC catalogue. For some households that trade is painless. For others, live news alone makes the £15 a month worth paying, and that is a perfectly good outcome too. The point is to choose deliberately instead of paying by default. The full picture is in living licence free.

Refunds are not only for cancellations. People claim after moving in with someone who already has a licence, paying twice by mistake, or discovering a concession they qualified for all along. Cancelling correctly stops the letters that follow, and it’s also what unlocks a refund in every situation that qualifies.

Common Mistakes That Cost Real Money

Most of what people lose in this system comes from a handful of avoidable errors. Check this list before you pay, cancel or reply to a letter.

Enforcement: What Really Happens If You Do Not Pay

Watching live TV or using iPlayer without a licence is a criminal offence. The maximum fine is £1,000, but the letters never mention what courts actually hand out: first offences typically bring a fine of a few hundred pounds scaled to your income, plus costs of around £200, well below the maximum but still far more than the licence costs, so if you watch live TV, buy the licence. Around 12.5% of UK addresses currently evade the fee, and enforcement is real, just not the way the letters make it sound.

The letters are automated and arrive on a rolling cycle whether or not anyone has looked at your case. If they get no response, a visiting officer may call, and this is the part most people never learn: officers have no right of entry. They can only come inside if you invite them or hold a search warrant signed by a magistrate, which is rare and usually executed with police present. You can decline the visit and close the door. You can even write to TV Licensing and withdraw their implied right of access, which bars officers from approaching your door at all, a documented option that thousands of households have used.

Detector vans feature heavily in TV Licensing publicity, but detection evidence has almost never formed the basis of a prosecution. Nearly all convictions come from doorstep confessions, where the resident admits watching live TV and signs the officer’s form. Cases that do proceed mostly never see a courtroom: the vast majority go through the Single Justice Procedure, decided on paperwork by a single magistrate, and the realistic amounts are covered in the fine guide.

One fear worth retiring: you cannot be sent to prison for evasion itself. The offence carries a fine, not imprisonment. Jail only enters the picture if someone refuses to pay a court fine after conviction, which is a separate matter entirely. If you genuinely do not need a licence, you should not be scared into paying by letter number seven. Read the enforcement guide, decode your specific letter with the letter decoder, and know your rights with the right of entry guide.