TV Licensing has issued a statement about the penalties you can face if you don’t pay for a TV licence. The current TV licence fee is £174.50 a year and you need this to watch live or on-demand TV programmes. This is expected to increase to around £180 from April 2026, in line with inflation.
Speaking recently to MPs, Sian Williams, chair of the Financial Inclusion Commission, warned that people are often sent “threatening” letters about the punishments for failing to pay for their TV licence. Ms Williams said that people often get several letters with this kind of ominous wording.
She said: “There’s a whole narrative there that the state is not held to the same standards that the FCA holds the industry to.” She was speaking to the Treasury Committee on the topic of financial inclusion.
She encouraged policy makers to “look again at the way the state talks to citizens around money that it is owed”. TV Licensing was asked about the sort of letters that it sends out over people not having a TV licence when they should.
A TV Licensing spokesperson said: “The maximum sentence a court can impose for the offence of licence fee evasion is a fine of up to £1000, and we make this clear in our customer communications.” The group said that taking someone to court over an unpaid TV licence is always a “last resort” and that its priority is to make sure people have the proper licence in place.
However, the authority has a duty to collect the licence fee and will write to addresses where there is no record of TV Licence or if the current licensing requirements “are unknown”. TV Licensing explained: “This activity is part of our ongoing efforts to maximise licence fee collection from those that require a licence, and minimise evasion.”
These letters will outline what a licence covers and provide details of how the person can pay. If there is no response, either through the person buying a licence or by making a ‘no licence needed’ declaration, the group sends out further letters.
These will include warnings about the potential consequences of evading getting one. The group also said: “TV Licensing communicates with customers via letters, email, directly during calls made to our customer service line, and as part of our communications campaigns and social media output.”
However, some people can get their TV licence for free. People who claim Pension Credit and are aged 75 or over can get a free TV Licence. It’s worth checking if you are eligible for this state pension age benefit, which is worth on average £4,300 a year in extra support.
The benefit includes a top up to your weekly income, increasing it up to £227.10 a week for single claimants or up to £346.60 a week for couples. You can get extra amounts on top of this depending on your situation, such as if you have a severe disability or if you care for another adult.