Broadband and landline auto-compensation

What the scheme is

The Ofcom Voluntary Code on Automatic Compensation for broadband and landline launched in April 2019. Providers who sign up agree to pay an automatic credit to your account when one of three things happens: total loss of service for more than two working days, a missed engineer appointment, or a delayed start of new service.

It is voluntary, so providers opt in, and ten have. That is most of the large names but not all of them, and it covers landline and broadband only. The credit goes straight to your bill within 30 days of the qualifying event.

When compensation applies

Three trigger events:

• Total loss of service. Your broadband or phone line stops working entirely and is not fixed within two full working days of the report. Compensation runs from the third working day. A line that drops occasionally but works most of the time does not count.
• Missed appointment. An engineer appointment is missed (no-show), cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice, or rebooked without the right notice. One missed slot is one payment.
• Delayed start. A new service starts later than the agreed date, with the delay caused by the provider. Compensation accrues per day from the agreed date until the service is live.

How much you get

Ofcom publishes the rates and they rise every April in line with inflation. These apply to problems arising on or after 1 April 2026:

• Total loss of service: £10.34 per calendar day from the third working day onward.
• Missed engineer appointment: £32.31 per missed slot.
• Delayed start of service: £6.46 per calendar day until the service is live.

Every day a dead line stays dead adds £10.34, so ten days is £103.40. A missed appointment on its own is more than thirty pounds. These are not life-changing numbers individually, but they add up if you have ever had a problematic switch or repair, and they are meant to arrive without you asking.

Which providers are signed up

As of 2026, the participants in the Ofcom code are:

• BT
• Sky, including NOW Broadband
• TalkTalk, with restrictions if you are not on the Openreach network
• Virgin Media
• Vodafone
• EE
• Plusnet
• Hyperoptic
• Zen Internet
• Utility Warehouse (where bundled with broadband)

That is the whole list. Plenty of real broadband companies are absent from it, including Community Fibre and Gigaclear, and being large is not the test: signing up is. Their contracts may include similar terms, but the route is different.

If yours is not on the list, or the credit never arrives, the escalation route runs through your provider first and then to one of the two independent schemes. Which one depends on your provider, and the full list of who goes where is worth checking before you write, along with the six week wait that replaced the old eight weeks in April 2026.

How to make sure you are paid

The scheme is supposed to pay automatically. Reality:

1. When the qualifying event happens, make sure you have a dated record. If your service drops, report it as soon as you notice (the provider's call log and ticket number is the start of the clock). If an appointment is missed, save the original confirmation email.
2. Check the next two bills after the event. Look for a credit line referring to compensation, automatic credit, service credit, or similar.
3. If the credit is not there 30 days after the event, contact the provider. Cite "Ofcom Voluntary Code on Automatic Compensation, [trigger event] on [date], compensation payable within 30 days."
4. The provider should add the credit within a few days. If they refuse, escalate.

If your provider refuses

After six weeks without resolution, you have the right to take the dispute to an independent scheme. That wait was eight weeks until 8 April 2026, and a lot of advice still says so. Providers belong to one of two schemes:

• CISAS (Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Three, O2).
• Communications Ombudsman (BT, EE, Plusnet, Hyperoptic).

Either service is free for consumers. They take six to ten weeks to decide, and the decision binds the provider but not you.

How Untap helps

Broadband auto-compensation is not currently in our automated pipelines because the trigger events are inside the provider's records, not your inbox. This guide is here as a reference; the check is yours, and it is worth doing every few months if you have had any service issues.

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