{"id":4896,"date":"2025-07-17T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/4896\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T13:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:11:07","slug":"state-pensioners-urged-to-reduce-tv-licence-bill-to-0-with-two-fully-legal-methods-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/4896\/","title":{"rendered":"State pensioners urged to reduce TV Licence bill to \u00a30 with two fully legal methods | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

State pensioners are being told they can cut their TV Licence to \u00a30 legally this winter, a handy saving in the wake of the loss of the \u00a3300 Winter Fuel Payment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are two ways you can legally cut your TV Licence to \u00a30 if you\u2019re a state pensioner – both of which are fully legal and won\u2019t land you a court summons, saving you \u00a3174.50 a year.<\/p>\n

First, for pensioners aged over 75, you can apply for Pension Credit if your income is lower than \u00a3227.10 per week. Those on the old state pension<\/a>, i.e. who reached pension age before 2016, will receive about \u00a3174.50 per week 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.<\/p>\n

Not only will this also give you a boost to your state pension<\/a> pot, you\u2019ll also be able to claim a free TV Licence if aged over 75, as long as you claim Pension Credit successfully.<\/p>\n

The second method is more universal and is open to anybody of any age to cut your TV Licence bill to nothing.<\/p>\n

What many don\u2019t realise is that you legally don\u2019t need a TV Licence if you don\u2019t watch BBC<\/a> content (live or on iPlayer) and you don\u2019t watch live content from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and the likes on streaming based services either.<\/p>\n

So, for example, if you have a TV but it\u2019s not hooked up to an external aerial or tuned in, and you only use TV apps, as long as you don\u2019t watch TV at the same time it\u2019s broadcast and don\u2019t watch BBC<\/a> ever, you do not need a TV Licence.<\/p>\n

For example if you watch Coronation Street<\/a> on catch up on ITVX, you don\u2019t need a TV licence as long as you don\u2019t watch it while it’s being broadcast. If you watch at 7.30pm, you need a licence. If you watch it at 8pm, you don’t.<\/p>\n

What do I need a TV licence for?\u00a0<\/p>\n

A TV licence is a legal requirement if you do any of these:<\/p>\n

watch or record TV on any channel via any TV service (such as Sky, Virgin, Freeview, Freesat)<\/p>\n

watch live content on streaming services (e.g. ITVX, Channel 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go)<\/p>\n

use BBC<\/a> iPlayer at all<\/p>\n

watch DVDs or Blurays (yes, they still exist and according to recent reports, sales are up as people ditch expensive streamers<\/a> to go back to building their own collections)<\/p>\n

watch Netflix<\/a>, 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<\/a> game on that same Amazon Prime sub, you’ll need a Licence.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t need a TV licence if you only ever watch on-demand programmes on any TV service apart from BBC<\/a> iPlayer.”<\/p>\n

LIVE is not just live as in a live match, but if you watch Coronation Street<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State pensioners are being told they can cut their TV Licence to \u00a30 legally this winter, a handy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2995,2997,2994,59,57,58,50,2221,2996,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-4896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-autoplay_video","9":"tag-cancel-tv-licence","10":"tag-ctp_video","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-greatbritain","14":"tag-news","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\/4896","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=4896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}