••
switching
Refunds, credits and final-bill shocks
More from the blog
Browse all guides →
Compare at your address
See deals at your address
Drop in your postcode for the live shortlist, speeds, prices, and which providers actually reach your line.
switching
Compare at your address
Drop in your postcode for the live shortlist, speeds, prices, and which providers actually reach your line.
The final bill is the broadband industry's last word, and it usually arrives after you've stopped thinking about it. The new router is in. The old one is already unplugged, coiled in its own cables. Then one more bill lands on the kitchen counter, and the partner who handles the direct debits opens it with the face of someone checking a scratch card that has already lost.
Here's the short version. Switch through One Touch Switch and your old provider cannot charge you beyond the switch date, notice period or not. Anything you paid in advance for days after your service ended should come back as a credit or refund on the final bill. Read it line by line before you file it.
Since September 2024 every switch between broadband providers has run through One Touch Switch. You contact the new provider, they arrange everything with the old one, and you never ring anyone to give notice. How a switch works from start to finish is its own subject, but the bit that matters here is what Ofcom's switching rules say about money: you do not have to pay notice-period charges beyond the switch date, "so no more paying for the old service after the new one starts".
Under the old system you gave 30 days' notice, switched after a fortnight and paid for the dead two weeks as a sort of parting tip. That is gone. If you switched and the final bill includes service charges for days after the switch date, that is not a fee. It is an error, and you can challenge it.
One caveat. If you cancelled outright rather than switching, because you are moving abroad or going mobile-only, the notice period still applies, and providers typically bill through it, usually 30 days or a month. The exact notice rules are the provider's own, so check their cancellation page before you pick an end date.
Most providers bill a month in advance. So your last normal payment almost certainly covered days when you were no longer their customer. The standard arrangement is a pro-rata refund of those unused days on the final bill, plus any credit already sitting on the account from old goodwill gestures or compensation. Ofcom's position is blunt: you should not be charged for a service you are not receiving.
How and when the refund arrives is where providers go their separate ways. Some knock it off the final bill, so the last invoice is small or negative. Some close the account and post the balance back a few weeks later, with none of the urgency they apply in the other direction. There is no single regulated timetable, so check your old provider's final-bill help page, and if a credit balance is still sitting there a month after the switch, chase it. It is your money, and it earns nothing useful in their account.
A quick word on line rental, because older guides go on about reclaiming it as a separate item. Most big providers now sell broadband as one all-in monthly price rather than itemising line rental as its own refundable line. But billing varies by provider, so go by what your own bill and price guide say, not by advice written in 2017.
Leaving inside the 14-day cooling-off period is the cleanest case of all. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations you pay only a proportionate amount for the service you actually used before cancelling, and the rest is refundable. Cooling-off is one of several ways to leave without a fee, and the one with actual legislation behind the refund.
That old router may not be yours. Equipment rules are the one part of this with no Ofcom referee: every provider writes its own. Some kit stays the provider's property and has to go back. Some they would rather you kept than pay the postage on, and some attracts a charge if it never comes home. So check your old provider's returns page rather than assuming.
The safe routine costs ten minutes. Look up the returns instructions, use the packaging or label if they send one, post the kit promptly and keep the proof of postage. A non-return charge appearing months after you dropped the box at the post office is the classic final-bill shock, and proof of postage is the one-line reply that ends it.
Read the final bill the way you'd read a restaurant bill in a tourist trap. Most are fine. The ones that aren't tend to feature the same few items.
Service charges past the switch date. Under One Touch Switch these should not exist. Point at the switch date and ask them to recalculate.
A surprise early termination charge. If you left mid-contract an ETC can be legitimate, and the formula should be set out in your contract, so check the sums against what leaving mid-contract actually costs. If you left after a price rise your contract never specified, no exit fee should apply at all.
Kit charges for kit you returned. Proof of postage, attached to a short complaint.
And if the switch itself misfired, with a delayed start or days offline, you may be owed money rather than owing it. If your switch went wrong, compensation for delayed activations and lost service is largely automatic with the big providers.
When a provider won't budge, complain in writing and use the word "complaint" so it gets logged as one. If six weeks pass without a resolution, or a deadlock letter arrives sooner, you can take the whole thing to the ombudsman for free, and the decision binds the provider, not you.
Final bills are the end of the story, and the duller end at that. The front half of switching, picking the new deal and what happens on switch day, is where the actual savings live. And if the final bill is the first time in years you've looked hard at what you were paying, it is worth checking whether you were overpaying all along, because a refund for nine unused days is small change next to what a better contract saves over 18 months.
It varies by provider, and there is no single regulated deadline. Some refund through the final bill itself, others return a closing balance to your bank afterwards. If nothing has arrived within a month of the account closing, chase it, and escalate to a formal complaint if the answer is vague.
Either the old account never closed properly or the final bill is collecting charges it shouldn't. Under One Touch Switch you cannot be charged notice-period fees beyond the switch date. Check the billing dates against your switch date, then dispute anything later than it.
That depends on the provider. Some kit remains their property and must go back, sometimes with a charge if it doesn't. Check your old provider's returns page, follow the instructions and keep proof of postage in case a non-return fee appears later.
Sometimes. Several providers run switching offers that credit some or all of your old provider's early termination charge. The amounts and conditions change with the wind, so read the current offer terms before you count on it, and claim within the stated window.
A switch that failed or started late earns you money: £6.46 a day for a delayed start, £10.34 a day for lost service. The complaint wording and how to escalate to the ombudsman.
