Broadband or Landline Down? The Automatic Compensation You Are Owed for Loss of Service and Missed Engineers (UK)

When your broadband drops out or your home phone goes silent, it is easy to assume the most you can hope for is a grudging apology and a fix "when an engineer is free". In fact, if a major provider is slow to put things right, you are very often owed money — a fixed amount for every day you are cut off, a set sum if an engineer misses an appointment, and a daily payment if a new connection goes live late. This is not a goodwill gesture you have to beg for; for most large providers it is a commitment they have signed up to, and it is supposed to land on your bill without you asking.

This guide is about fixed-line home broadband and landline service. It does not cover mobile phone service, which is not part of this scheme.

What the Automatic Compensation Scheme Actually Is

The scheme runs under an Ofcom framework, but it is important to be precise about its status: it is a voluntary industry code of practice, not a law that binds every provider. Ofcom set up the framework and the major providers chose to sign up to it. In practice the signed-up firms cover the overwhelming majority of UK homes — they include BT, EE, Sky (and NOW Broadband), TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Plusnet, Hyperoptic, Utility Warehouse and Zen Internet. Between them Ofcom estimates they cover roughly 97% of landline and 91% of broadband customers.

The catch to know from the outset: if your provider is a smaller network that has not signed up, this specific scheme does not apply to them at all — though you may still have ordinary contract and consumer-law remedies. If you are not sure, check your provider's own website or ask them directly whether they are part of Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme.

The Three Things You Get Paid For — and the 2026 Rates

The code covers three specific situations. The amounts rise every 1 April in line with inflation, so always check you are quoting a current figure. The rates below are the ones in force from 1 April 2026:

• Total loss of service — a delayed repair. If your service goes down completely and is not fixed by the end of the second full working day after you report it, compensation kicks in — a lump sum for that trigger day plus £10.34 for each further full day you remain without service.
• A missed engineer appointment. If an engineer fails to turn up as booked, or the appointment is cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice, you are owed a flat £32.31.
• A delayed start to a new service. If your provider promised your broadband or landline would be working by a certain date and it goes live late, you are owed £6.46 for each day of the delay (a sum for the missed activation date itself plus a daily rate until it is working).

Because these figures are uprated annually, an article quoting last year's numbers will already be out of date. If in doubt, the current rates are published on Ofcom's website — but the mechanics above (a two-working-day wait before repair compensation starts, a flat fee for a missed appointment, a daily rate for a late switch-on) do not change.

When It Does Not Apply

It pays to know the limits before you count on a payment:

• Mobile is not covered. The scheme is for fixed home broadband and landline only.
• Dedicated business services are excluded — the scheme is aimed at residential customers (incidental home working on a residential package is a different matter).
• Faults that are your responsibility — damage or problems with your own equipment or the wiring inside your home, refusing the first available repair or appointment slot, or not giving the engineer safe access — take you outside the automatic payment.
• Planned, notified outages (for example scheduled maintenance you were warned about) are not treated as a qualifying loss of service.
• Bundled service, one payment. If your landline and broadband run on the same line and both go down together, the code generally requires one compensation payment for that incident, not two.
• Capped duration. A provider can, after an initial period, serve notice capping how many further days of loss-of-service compensation it will pay (broadly up to around 60 days in total) unless it cannot offer you a reasonable alternative in the meantime.

One point worth stressing honestly, because it is widely misunderstood: extreme weather, strikes, or the actions of a third party do not, by themselves, excuse a provider from paying under the code — the exemption for events outside their control is drawn very narrowly. So do not accept "it was a storm" as an automatic reason you get nothing.

How and When You Should Be Paid

Compensation is normally applied as a credit on your bill (or paid to you directly if you are leaving the provider and will not receive a further bill). Under the code it should be credited within 30 days of the fault being fixed, the missed appointment, or the delayed service finally going live. You should not have to fill in a claim form for it — but if the 30 days come and go with nothing on your account, that is your cue to act.

If the Payment Never Comes — How to Escalate

If you believe you are owed compensation and it has not appeared, the route is straightforward:

1. Raise a formal complaint with your provider — in writing, setting out the dates, the fault or missed appointment, and the amount you believe you are owed under the scheme.
2. Escalate to free, independent dispute resolution (ADR). Every signed-up provider belongs to one of two Ofcom-approved schemes — the Communications Ombudsman or CISAS. Which one covers your provider depends on the provider; they must tell you. ADR is free to you, and its decision is binding on the provider (you remain free to go to court instead if you prefer).

On timing: you can take an unresolved complaint to ADR once a set period has passed without it being sorted, or sooner if the provider issues a "deadlock" letter. Ofcom reduced that waiting period from 8 weeks to 6 weeks from 8 April 2026 for complaints made on or after that date — so for a recent complaint you generally do not have to wait more than six weeks before going independent. A word of realism: ADR is an adjudication, not a magic wand — it weighs the evidence and can rule either way, so keep your records of when you reported the fault and when it was resolved.

Putting It in Writing

When an automatic payment has not landed, a clear, specific letter is far more effective than a phone call that vanishes into a queue. A good one states the dates precisely, identifies which part of the scheme applies (loss of service, missed appointment, or delayed activation), sets out the amount you believe is due, and asks for it to be credited — while making clear you know your right to take the matter to free independent adjudication if it is not resolved. That combination — accurate, firm, and on the record — is what gets a provider to act.