Updated April 2026, £180 a year
If nobody in your home watches live TV or uses BBC iPlayer, you do not need a licence. Cancel in five minutes and claim back up to £180.
The licence costs £180 a year from April 2026. Plenty of people pay it who do not have to. They moved to streaming years ago and never stopped the payment.
This page covers the lot. Whether you can cancel your TV licence, how to do it, what to say, and how much money you get back. Every phone number and figure here is correct as of April 2026.
It comes down to two things, not whether you own a TV. Answer two questions.
Does anyone in your home watch live TV?
Any channel. BBC, ITV, Sky, or a live stream on YouTube or Prime. Anything watched as it airs, on any device.
Watching live TV does. You can have a TV in every room and pay nothing, as long as nobody watches live and nobody opens BBC iPlayer.
Two things need a licence.
Watching any channel live, on any device. And using BBC iPlayer for anything, even old shows.
Everything else is free.
Netflix, Disney+, Prime on demand, ITVX catch up, All 4, YouTube clips, DVDs, gaming.
The trap is iPlayer. Stop watching live TV but keep opening iPlayer now and then, and you still need the licence. One show counts.
Two things only. Live TV, and BBC iPlayer. Do neither and you are free of it.
|
What you are doing |
Licence? |
|
Watching any channel live on a TV |
Needed |
|
Live TV on Sky, Virgin, or EE TV |
Needed |
|
A live stream on YouTube or Prime |
Needed |
|
Recording a live show to watch later |
Needed |
|
BBC iPlayer, any show, any device |
Needed |
|
Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime on demand |
Not needed |
|
ITVX, Channel 4, All 4 catch up |
Not needed |
|
YouTube videos, not live |
Not needed |
|
DVDs and downloaded films |
Not needed |
|
Gaming |
Not needed |
A match on ITV as it happens is live. The same match on Prime at the same time is live too. That match watched an hour later from a recording is not live, and needs no licence.
People get caught here. They never turn on a TV channel, so they feel safe, then watch a live football stream in an app. That is still live TV.
The cancellation form asks for an email address. If you give the one linked to your BBC account, it ties your cancellation to any future iPlayer sign in.
Households have lost their “no licence needed” status this way. A housemate signed into iPlayer on a shared BBC account, and a letter arrived weeks later.
Use an email that is not linked to BBC iPlayer when you cancel. It costs nothing and avoids the problem.
Online is quickest. If the site tells you to phone, the script below keeps the call short.
You need the 10 digit number. It is on any letter from TV Licensing, at the top of a paper licence, in their emails, and on your bank statement next to the payment marked TV LICENCING.
Cannot find it? The form can usually look you up by name and postcode. If not, phone 0300 790 6071 and they will tell you after a security check.
Check your postcode twice. A wrong postcode is the most common reason a cancellation fails. The form looks like it worked, but it never matches your address, and the letters keep coming.
Go to tvlicensing.co.uk and look for “tell us you don’t need a TV Licence”. It is a public form. No account, no login, no password to reset.
It asks three questions first. Does anyone watch live TV on a channel. Does anyone watch live TV on a streaming service. Does anyone use BBC iPlayer. Answer no to all three and you can carry on. A yes to any of them stops the form.
Answer for your whole household, not just yourself. The form covers the address. If a housemate watches live TV, the answer is yes, even if you never do.
TV Licensing sometimes blocks the online form for people who pay by Direct Debit, and tells them to call instead. This is normal. You are not being singled out. Phone 0300 790 6071, weekdays 8:30 to 18:30.
Say this: “I no longer watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer. I want to cancel and claim any refund I am owed.”
That is enough. If they ask what you watch instead, you do not have to tell them. You do not need to explain why your viewing changed.
Got a full month or more left before the licence runs out? You get money back. Each full month is worth £15. Six months left is £90. Eleven months is £165.
Keep your reason simple. Say you no longer watch live TV or use iPlayer, and stop there. People who say they are moving abroad, or that a house is empty, often get asked to prove it. They want a utility bill, a tenancy agreement, a letter from a care home.
You cannot prove what you watch, so nobody asks you to. That is why the viewing reason is the fastest one.
Refunds arrive within 21 days. Bank transfer if you paid by Direct Debit, cheque if not. Chase it on 0300 790 6113 if it is late.
TV Licensing should cancel it for you. It does not always work. Check your bank a few days after you get your confirmation.
Still there a week later? Now cancel it at your bank. The licence is closed by then, so there is no risk.
Keep your reference number and the date. If a letter turns up months later asking why you have no licence, that is your proof.
Numbers worth saving
Cancel a licence: 0300 790 6071, weekdays 8:30 to 18:30.
Chase a refund: 0300 790 6113.
Paying by payment card: 0300 555 0286. The online refund does not work for this payment type. You have to phone.
By post: TV Licensing, Darlington, DL98 1TL. Send it recorded delivery. Include your name, address, licence number, and say you no longer watch live TV or use iPlayer.
The rules are the same for everyone. The paperwork and the timing are not. Find yours below.
The simplest case. No live TV, no iPlayer, no licence needed.
Check one thing first. Ask everyone in the house about iPlayer. “I only watch Netflix” often turns out to mean “and iPlayer for that nature series”. If anyone uses it, you cannot cancel.
Once you are sure, cancel and claim any full months left. You keep the TV. You keep every streaming service. You only lose live channels and iPlayer.
You need your own licence if you watch live TV or use iPlayer in your room. Your family’s licence at home does not cover you.
The money is in what you do at the end of term. Moving back to a home that already has a licence? Cancel yours and claim back the months left. Use your tenancy end date.
Most students never bother. They move out in June and let a licence bought in September run to waste. That is three months left unclaimed, or £45.
This is where people get confused. Your tenancy decides the answer.
One joint tenancy for the whole house? One licence covers everyone. You cannot cancel just because you stopped watching. If any housemate watches live TV or uses iPlayer, the house needs a licence, and someone has to hold it.
A separate agreement for your own room? Your room counts as its own address. You only need a licence for what happens in your room. You can cancel on your own, whatever your housemates do.
Check which one you have before you cancel. Saying nobody in the house watches live TV, while a housemate streams live football every Saturday, is a false declaration.
Leaving the UK for good, or for long enough that you will not need the licence again? Cancel and claim the months left.
You can apply up to two weeks before you go. Do it while you still have a UK address and UK banking. Sorting it out from abroad is far harder.
Say “moving abroad” as your reason and they may ask you to prove it, with a flight booking or a tenancy end date. If you already stopped watching live TV, just say that instead. Nothing to prove.
Do not leave the Direct Debit running. It will keep taking money after you leave.
Most people cancel. Most people should not.
Still going to watch live TV or use iPlayer at the new place? Move the licence with you instead. You can change the address up to three months before you go. Nothing is lost.
Cancel and buy again, and you pay twice for the same weeks. Refunds only cover whole months, so a mid month move loses you the part month for nothing.
Only cancel if the new place already has a licence in someone else’s name, or your viewing is changing anyway, or you are moving into a care home with its own licence.
An empty house needs no licence. Nobody is watching anything in it.
This comes up with second homes, houses between tenants, and homes being sold. Say the property is empty and they may ask how they can check that.
If the house really is empty, nobody there watches live TV or uses iPlayer. That is simply true, and it is the easier reason to give.
Landlords, note this. The licence belongs to whoever watches, not whoever owns. Your tenant needs their own. You do not need one for a house you do not live in.
The licence does not pass to whoever is left in the house. It does not just stop either.
If nobody else at the address watches live TV or uses iPlayer, cancel it and claim the refund. The money goes to the estate.
If someone else there does still watch live TV, they need a licence in their own name. The old one gets cancelled and a new one is issued.
Phone for this one, on 0300 790 6071. They can sort the refund, the new licence and the estate paperwork in one call. The web form cannot.
Cancel your TV licence and your account closes, and your address comes off the chase list. You do not go on any blacklist.
21
Days for your refund
Bank transfer if you paid by Direct Debit. Cheque if not. Chase it on 0300 790 6113.
1
Letter a year
A routine letter asking you to confirm nothing has changed. Answer it and that is that.
0
Duty to answer the door
No need to open it, give your name, or say anything. They cannot come in without a warrant.
£0
More payments
Once the form is processed and the Direct Debit stops, nothing more is taken.
Your confirmation email should arrive within a few hours, though it can take a day. The Direct Debit usually vanishes from your bank within a week.
One or two letters may still land in the first fortnight. Post already sent does not stop. Still getting letters a month later? Phone and check your cancellation registered. A wrong postcode is usually why.
That sounds bad. It is not. It just means their records show no licence at your address, which is true, because you cancelled.
Millions of homes are on that list quite legally. What matters is that filing the form takes you off the enforcement list. That is the one that sends the letters and the officers.
Everything on demand. Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, NOW on demand, ITVX and All 4 catch up. YouTube, DVDs, gaming. All fine.
Two things only are now off limits. Live TV on any channel or service, and BBC iPlayer.
Be clear with the household about iPlayer. A partner who “just checks the news” live, or a teenager who opens iPlayer for one show, breaks the rules. The fine can reach £1,000 plus costs.
You can buy a new licence the same day and start watching straight away. There is no penalty for having cancelled, no waiting time, and no black mark. People stop and start licences all the time as their lives change.
A colour licence is £180 a year. That is £15 a month. You only get whole months back.
Whole months only. TV Licensing confirms the exact amount when they process it.
Your refund starts from the day you cancel. Not from the day you stopped watching.
Stopped watching live TV last September and cancel in April? You do not get those seven months back. You get the months left from April onwards. The rest is gone.
There is no way to claim for months already gone. So cancel as soon as you know you do not need the licence. Every month you wait is £15 you cannot get back.
Three weeks left gets you nothing. It has to be at least one whole month.
Two groups escape this rule. Over 75s on Pension Credit with a free licence, and people on the blind discount. They can claim whatever is left.
Paid for the year in one go. The best case. You paid for 12 months up front, so every full month left comes back. Cancel early in the year and £150 or more is possible.
Monthly Direct Debit. Expect less. These payments only run slightly ahead, so you are more likely to get a small credit than a big refund. You never handed over a year in advance.
Payment card, the cash plan. The website cannot refund you. Phone 0300 555 0286 instead. People on this plan often think there is no refund. There is, but only by phone.
21 days is the target, not a promise. Bank transfers arrive faster than cheques. A cheque is what you get when your bank details are missing or old.
Changed banks since you set up the licence? Update your details before you apply. Otherwise the transfer fails quietly, and a cheque goes to your old address.
Past 21 days with nothing, phone 0300 790 6113 with your reference number.
This turns a five minute job into months of letters. Here is why it goes wrong.
They are two different things. Your bank controls one. TV Licensing controls the other.
Stop the payment without telling TV Licensing, and here is what they see. Your licence is still open. A payment just failed. To them, that means one thing: you owe money. The debt letters start on their own.
Nothing in that chain knows you no longer need a licence, because nobody told them.
It is fixable, and it happens a lot. The letters look scary but the problem is just paperwork.
Phone 0300 790 6071. Say you no longer watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer, and that you want to cancel the licence. Ask them to close it from the date your viewing changed.
That one call turns your account from “owes money” to “closed”, and the letters stop. You never owed anything. Their system just had no way of knowing.
Do not ignore the letters and hope. They get worse on a schedule, and end with officers at the door. One phone call ends it.
People go back to the bank and ask them to sort it. They cannot. The bank did what you asked and stopped a payment.
The record that matters sits with TV Licensing. Only they can change it. Your bank cannot see your licence at all.
The letters are written to sound scary. Knowing what is real makes them easy to handle.
Asks you to confirm nothing has changed. Answer it or renew online. Not enforcement.
Goes to every home without a licence. Cancelled already? Ignore it. Not yet? Fill in the form and it stops.
Part of the standard run of letters, not a decision about you. Officers cannot come in without a warrant.
They match iPlayer sign ins against licence records. Used iPlayer? You need a licence. Did not? See the email trap above.
Every home without a licence gets them, whether or not anyone there is doing anything wrong. The words are borrowed from courts and police. That does not mean anyone has opened a case against you.
They are mass mailings on a timetable. Cancel your TV licence properly and your address comes off the list that sends them.
An officer is not a police officer. They cannot come in, cannot fine you, and cannot make you answer anything. It all depends on you agreeing to help them.
If they will not leave after you ask, that is trespass. Call the police.
It only picks up a device receiving a live broadcast. If nobody watches live TV, there is nothing to find. Streaming Netflix gives off none of the signals it looks for.
Most of the worry comes from things that are simply not true.
|
What people believe |
True? |
|
“Owning a TV means I need a licence” |
Myth |
|
“Cancelling looks suspicious” |
Myth |
|
“They can fine me at my door” |
Myth |
|
“Stopping the Direct Debit cancels the licence” |
Myth |
|
“iPlayer catch up is fine without a licence” |
Myth |
|
“I get money back for months I did not use” |
Myth |
|
“The letters stop the day I cancel” |
Myth |
|
“Netflix needs a licence too” |
Myth |
The most common and most expensive myth. What matters is watching live TV or using iPlayer. Not owning a set. Keep the TV, use it for Netflix and gaming, and you owe nothing.
Millions of homes have no licence, quite legally. Filling in the form moves you onto the “no licence needed” list. That is what stops the attention, not what starts it.
No officer can fine you. Only a court can, and only after a prosecution. The maximum fine is £1,000 plus costs, but that comes from a court, not a doorstep.
It does not. Your licence stays open and your account goes into debt. This causes more trouble than anything else on this page.
It is not. BBC iPlayer needs a licence for everything, live or not, new or old. Every other catch up service is free. iPlayer is the exception, and the rule changed in 2016 to make it so.
No. You get back the months left from the day you cancel. Not the months already gone, even if you never watched anything in them.
Almost. Post already sent keeps arriving for a week or two. If letters are still coming a month later, your cancellation probably never registered. Check your postcode.
It does not. On demand streaming is free of the licence. The one exception is live content on those services, like a live match on Prime. That is live TV, whatever app it is in.
Each one has its own rules on timing, proof and refunds.
🎥
Netflix and similar, no live TV
✈
Claim up to two weeks before you go
🏫
Leaving halls at the end of term
👥
Your tenancy decides the answer
💎
Cancelling as part of an estate
🏠
Moving it is usually better than cancelling
🔒
Second homes and places between tenants
🏥
The home may already cover you
🏭
Now getting debt letters
If someone at home still watches live TV, you cannot cancel the TV licence. But you might pay less.
Are you or your partner 75 or over and getting Pension Credit? Your licence is free, and it covers everyone at your address. Apply from 74 if you already get Pension Credit. It starts the month before you turn 75. TV Licensing checks with the DWP, so the name on the licence must match your DWP records. A mismatch is the usual reason it stalls. Attendance Allowance on its own does not count.
Registered blind or severely sight impaired? The licence is half price, so £90 for 2026/27. Partial sight does not count, which disappoints a lot of people. The licence has to be in the name of the registered person, not a partner or carer. Post a copy of your certificate from the council or your eye doctor to the Blind Concession Group in Bristol. A photocopy is fine.
Care homes and sheltered housing can hold a group licence at £7.50 a room per year. To be covered, you need to be retired, which means 60 or over and working no more than 15 hours a week, or disabled. The home applies, not you. Ask the manager whether your room is covered before you cancel anything yourself, or you may throw money away.
A home with only a black and white TV pays £60.50 instead of £180. Very few still qualify. One colour set anywhere in the house, even a spare in a bedroom, and you pay the full colour price.
The questions people actually ask, with the reason behind each answer.
Go to tvlicensing.co.uk and look for “tell us you don’t need a TV Licence”. It is a public form, so there is no account to set up.
Answer the three questions with a no, enter your licence number, name and address, and send it. Save the reference number. That is your proof of the date if anything is ever questioned.
Got a full month or more left? Claim your refund on the same form. Doing both at once saves you a second job.
Yes. The licence covers what you watch, not what you own.
Keep the TV. Use it for Netflix, DVDs and gaming. As long as nobody in the house watches live TV or opens BBC iPlayer, you owe nothing.
No. Netflix, Disney+, Prime, Apple TV+ and ITVX catch up are all free of the licence.
There is one catch. Live shows on those same apps do need a licence. A live football match on Prime is live TV, whatever app it is in. What matters is whether you are watching it as it airs.
Yes, as long as nobody watches live TV on it. Sky and the licence are separate things.
Watching any Sky channel live needs a licence. So does recording a live show, because the box is still receiving the broadcast.
On demand is free. Box Sets, Netflix, Disney+ through your Sky box. BBC iPlayer is the exception and always needs a licence.
Your account goes into debt and the letters start. That is the opposite of what you wanted.
Stopping the payment tells TV Licensing nothing. They still show a live licence at your address, now with a missed payment. To them, you owe money.
Fill in the form first and let the Direct Debit stop by itself. Already stopped it? Phone 0300 790 6071 and cancel properly on the call. The letters stop.
21 days is the target. Bank transfers arrive faster than cheques. You get a cheque when they do not have working bank details for you.
You need at least one full month left to get anything. Each month is worth £15 on a colour licence.
Nothing after 21 days? Phone 0300 790 6113 with your reference number. And update your bank details before you apply if you have changed banks.
No, and this catches nearly everyone.
Your refund covers the months left from the day you cancel. It does not reach back to months already gone, even if you never watched a thing in them.
So every month you put it off costs you £15 you cannot get back. Cancel as soon as you know.
Say you no longer watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer. Nothing more.
Say you are moving abroad, or that a house is empty, and they may ask you to prove it. They want a bill, a tenancy agreement, a letter from a care home.
Nobody can prove what you watch, so nobody asks. That is why it is the quickest reason to give.
No. They are not police and cannot come in.
The only way in without your say so is a search warrant from a court. They are rarely asked for.
You do not have to open the door, give your name, or answer anything. Whatever you say can be written down and used later, so saying nothing is safest. If they will not leave, that is trespass.
Only if you watch live TV or use iPlayer in your room. Your family’s licence at home does not cover you.
The money is in the end of term. Moving back to a home with a licence? Cancel yours and claim back the months left, using your tenancy end date.
Most students never do. A licence bought in September, abandoned in June, leaves £45 unclaimed.
Your tenancy decides it.
One joint tenancy for the house? One licence covers everyone. You cannot cancel while a housemate watches live TV or uses iPlayer.
Your own separate agreement for your room? Your room counts as its own address. You can cancel on your own, whatever anyone else does.
Check which you have first. Saying nobody in the house watches live TV, while a housemate streams live football, is a false declaration.
Yes, and you can start before you go. Claim your refund up to two weeks before you leave, while you still have UK banking and a UK address.
Say “moving abroad” and they may ask for a flight booking or a tenancy end date. If you already stopped watching live TV, say that instead. Nothing to prove.
Stop the Direct Debit properly first. Sorting it out from another country is a lot harder.
Homes where someone is 75 or over and gets Pension Credit. It is free and covers everyone at the address.
People registered blind or severely sight impaired pay half price, £90. Partial sight does not count.
Care home residents may be covered by a group licence at £7.50 a room, arranged by the home.
Nobody else. Worth checking before you cancel, because if someone at home still watches live TV, a discount may be an option when cancelling is not.