Older state pensioners across the UK can cut their TV Licence bill down to \u00a30 in just 16 minutes if they meet certain criteria.<\/p>\n
A TV Licence<\/a> now costs \u00a3174.50 per year (or \u00a358.50 for black and white TV sets) following a \u00a35 price hike in April this year, adding an extra 42p to monthly household bills<\/a>. Households must have a TV Licence to watch or record programmes on a TV, computer or other device on any channel or service as they’re broadcast. This includes on-demand BBC<\/a> programmes on BBC iPlayer<\/a>. The UK Government decided that the TV Licence fee would increase in line with inflation from April 1, 2024, for the remaining four years of the Charter period, which runs until the end of 2027. As such, it means households face at least two more years of price hikes every April.<\/p>\n But for older state pensioners aged 75 and over, and on a low income, it’s possible to cut the TV Licence fee<\/a> down to \u00a30 simply by claiming one DWP<\/a> benefit: Pension Credit<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pension Credit provides extra money to people over State Pension<\/a> age and on a low income, and is worth more than \u00a33,900 per year on average, according to the Government.<\/p>\n The benefit tops up your weekly income to \u00a3227.10 if you’re single, or your joint weekly income to \u00a3346.60 if you have a partner, but it also unlocks access to other financial support too \u2013 including a free TV Licence.<\/p>\n Pension Credit acts as a gateway benefit to a swathe of other help for pensioners, with those who are eligible able to access things like Housing Benefit, a Winter Fuel Payment<\/a>, a council tax discount, help with NHS dental treatment, glasses and transport costs, and a free TV Licence if you’re aged 75 or over.<\/p>\n According to the Department for Work and Pensions<\/a> (DWP), it only takes 16 minutes on average to apply, and by doing so, you can unlock thousands of pounds worth of extra financial support.<\/p>\n If you already get Pension Credit you can apply for a free TV Licence when you\u2019re 74, but you\u2019ll need to continue paying for your licence until the end of the month before your 75th birthday. After this, you’ll be covered by your free licence.<\/p>\n For those who don\u2019t meet the eligibility criteria for Pension Credit, there are other ways to reduce your TV Licence bill, or avoid it altogether.<\/p>\n If you live in a residential care home, supported housing or sheltered accommodation, then you may be entitled to a reduced fee TV Licence, and if you’re blind (severely sight impaired) and can provide the appropriate evidence, you can apply for a 50% discount on your TV Licence. But if neither of these apply then you\u2019ll have to pay for a TV Licence at the full rate.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t meet the eligibility criteria for Pension Credit, or qualify for a reduced fee TV Licence, then there are still a few options to save on costs.<\/p>\n TV Licences are per household, not per person, so if you live in a house with several people you don\u2019t all need to have one and could all chip in to share the cost of one licence. Instead, you can share a TV Licence among the whole household if you watch TV in a single shared area, or have a joint tenancy agreement. But if you have separate tenancy agreements and watch TV in your own room then you will need to pay for your own.<\/p>\n You also don\u2019t need a TV Licence to watch streaming services, such as Netflix<\/a> and Disney Plus, on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video, videos on websites such as YouTube, or DVDs and Blurays. So if you\u2019re happy to just stick to watching any of these, and not watch or record any live TV or BBC<\/a> iPlayer, you can save yourself \u00a3174.50. But if you do watch or record live TV without a TV Licence then you can be issued a fine of up to \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Older state pensioners across the UK can cut their TV Licence bill down to \u00a30 in just 16…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,2215,4176,4547,6215,4174,4175,2221,2996,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-253093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dwp","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-money-saving","12":"tag-pension-credit","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-state-pension","16":"tag-tv-licence","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}