Mid-contract price rises this year

For years the standard clause was CPI or RPI plus 3.9%, a formula that meant nobody, including the provider, knew what your contract would cost in year two. Ofcom banned that approach for contracts taken out from 17 January 2025. Any mid-contract rise now has to be set out in pounds and pence, prominently, at the point of sale.

The catch is that the rule is not retrospective. Sign before that date and the old inflation formula still applies. So 2026 runs a two-track system: newer contracts get a flat £2 to £4 a month while legacy contracts still get the percentage treatment, which we will come to.

The fixed amounts depend on when your contract started. In most cases the more recently you signed, the bigger the rise, which is not the direction loyalty is supposed to work in.

Sky is the odd one out. It is applying £3 in 2026 but does not write a set annual figure into the contract, so each time it raises the price it has to give you a 30-day penalty-free exit window from the day it tells you. NOW works the same way with a 31-day window. Frankly that is the most customer-friendly version of a price rise on this page, because you can simply leave.

Community Fibre is the new entry. From 6 May 2026 its new contracts carry a £3 a month rise, which ends its run as one of the few providers that fixed prices for the whole term.

Then your contract predates the rule change. The legacy formulas this April: the CPI plus 3.9% used by BT, EE, Plusnet and Vodafone works out at 7.3% (January 2026 CPI was 3.4%). Virgin Media's February RPI plus 3.9% comes to 7.7%. TalkTalk's CPI plus 3.7% is 7.1%. Community Fibre's legacy formula lands at 5.9%. On a £30 line, 7.3% is about £2.19 a month, so the percentage crowd pays broadly the same as the fixed crowd. The difference is they did not know that until January's inflation figure came out.

BT, EE and Plusnet have given new customers a pass: anyone joining on or after 1 March 2026 skips the April 2026 rise entirely, as reported by ISPreview. Anyone who joined in February still pays it. Those customers are entitled to feel slightly mugged.

Two groups. First, social tariffs: the discounted packages for households on benefits typically carry no mid-contract rises at all. Second, the genuinely fixed-price providers, mostly altnets: YouFibre, Zen Internet, Trooli, Fibrus, Zzoomm, Truespeed, Quickline and Utility Warehouse all hold the price you sign at for the full term.

That list shrinks over time. Hyperoptic dropped its fixed-price pledge in June 2025 and Community Fibre follows from 6 May 2026. A fixed price is a marketing promise, not a regulation, so check the order page before treating any of them as gospel.

There is some pressure in the other direction. In February 2026 the major providers signed the government's Telecoms Consumer Charter, committing to stop "unexpected" bill increases and to signpost social tariffs. Whether a rise disclosed in paragraph four of a letter counts as expected is, presumably, a question for the lawyers.

If your rise has landed and the new number annoys you, the fix is the same as ever: see out your contract or use an exit window, then move. New customers routinely pay less than a post-rise bill on the current Cheap Broadband Deals and Full Fibre Broadband Deals deals, while a No-Contract & Rolling Broadband Deals plan means you are never mid-contract again.