State pensioners are being told they can cut their TV licence to £0 legally this year, a handy saving in the wake of the loss of the £300 Winter Fuel Payment.
There are two ways you can legally cut your TV licence to £0 if you’re a state pensioner – both of which are fully legal and won’t land you a court summons, saving you £174.50 a year after the BBC TV fee went up again.
First, for pensioners aged over 75, you can apply for Pension Credit if your income is lower than about £227 per week. Those on the old state pension, i.e. who reached pension age before 2016, will only receive about £176 per week maximum, even if they have a full National Insurance record, so will be eligible to claim Pension Credit assuming they have no other income like a second property, a private pension or large amounts of savings interest.
Not only will this also give you your £300 Winter Fuel Payment back, but you’ll also be able to claim a free TV licence if aged over 75, as long as you claim Pension Credit successfully.
The second method is more universal and is open to anybody of any age to cut your TV licence bill to nothing.
What many don’t realise is that you legally don’t need a TV licence if you don’t watch BBC content (live or on iPlayer) and you don’t watch live content from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and the likes on catch-up services either.
So, for example, if you have a TV but it’s not hooked up to an external aerial or tuned in, and you only use TV apps, as long as you don’t watch TV at the same time it’s broadcast and don’t watch BBC ever, you do not need a TV licence.
For example if you watch Coronation Street on catch up on ITVX, you don’t need a TV licence as long as you don’t watch it while it’s being broadcast.
What do I need a TV licence for?
A TV licence is a legal requirement if you do any of these:
watch or record TV on any channel via any TV service (such as Sky, Virgin, Freeview, Freesat)
watch live content on streaming services (e.g. ITVX, Channel 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go)
use BBC iPlayer at all
watch DVDs or Blurays (yes, they still exist and according to recent reports, sales are up as people ditch expensive streamers to go back to building their own collections)
watch Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV as long as it’s NOT live content. E.g. you can watch Drive To Survive, Stranger Things, Ted Lasso or Clarkson’s Farm without a TV licence, totally legally. But if you stray over to watching a live Premier League game on that same Amazon Prime sub, you’ll need a licence.
As TV Licensing says: “You need to be covered by a TV licence to watch programmes live on any online TV service – such as ITVX, Channel 4, Amazon Prime Video, Now or Sky Go. You don’t need a TV licence if you only ever watch on-demand programmes on any TV service apart from BBC iPlayer.”
LIVE is not just live as in a live match, but if you watch Coronation Street as it’s being broadcast ‘live’, you need a TV licence. However, if you watch an ITV or Channel 4 show on catch-up later, you don’t need a licence for that.
