The annual cost of a television licence in the United Kingdom is to rise by £5.50 to £180 in April. There will be a further inflation-linked increase the following year. An estimated one in eight households in the country with a television do not pay for the licence fee. The future funding of the BBC is a matter of debate, as its current charter expires at the end of 2027.
Although the television licence is collected on behalf of the BBC, one is required for any premises in the United Kingdom that watches or records any live television from any broadcaster. The licence requirement applies to live programmes on online platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Amazon.
A television licence is also required for the use of BBC iPlayer, although this is not currently enforced technically. The BBC says the household-address based licensing system does not match individual accounts.
Free licences are available to households with someone aged over 75 who receives pension credit and there is a 50% discount for those living with someone that is blind or severely sight impaired.
Bizarrely, you can still get a black and white television licence for £60.50, but it is not clear why. The last BBC accounts show there were about 3,000 monochrome licences issued.
The number of television licences in force has fallen to just 23.8 million, down 300,000 in a year and a fall of 2.4 million since its peak in 2018. The number of television licences has fallen every year since then, while the estimated number of television homes has continued to rise to over 27 million. It is estimated that about 12.5% or one in eight homes with a television does not pay the television licence.
In the last year, the BBC collected £3,843 million in licence fee income, a rise of £183 million over a year, mainly driven by the previous increase in the cost of a licence.
The cost of collecting the television licence has continued to rise to £166 million a year, up from £145 million in a year. Television licensing made 2 million visits to unlicensed homes in the last year, up by 50% on the previous year. The number of prosecutions has continued to fall, although most of them result in conviction. As reported by the Ministry of Justice, there were 28,542 prosecutions in 2024, down from 81,788 in 2020. Three quarters of prosecutions are of women. There were 25,006 fines imposed in 2024, down from 75,087 in 2020.
A recent report by the Public Accounts Committee said that the ground is shifting beneath the feet of the BBC, and that “without a modernised approach focused more on online viewing, the broadcaster will see faith in the licence fee system ebb away.”
The government says that the increase in the cost of the television licence, agreed as part of the last settlement in 2022, will help keep the BBC on a stable financial footing. It has committed to the licence fee for the rest of the charter period. It is considering the future funding of the BBC as part of the charter review, currently the subject of a public consultation, although it seems it has already ruled out paying for it though general taxation.