What was claimed
900,000 people have cancelled the BBC licence fee in a year.
Our verdict
There was no evidence for this claim when it was first made, and according to the latest figures, the total number of TV licences (including those paid for by the BBC) actually fell by around 300,000 between March 2024 and March 2025. The data doesn’t differentiate between licences cancelled by individuals themselves or by TV licensing.
Claims that “900,00 people have cancelled the BBC licence fee in a year” have been circulating on social media in recent months, but this isn’t true.
There was no evidence for this claim when we first saw it circulating in February 2025, and now, with the publication of the latest BBC annual report, we know for a fact that the true figure is much lower.
According to the report, published on 15 July 2025, there were just under 23.8 million licences in force on 31 March 2025, including the ones that the BBC funds, compared to around 24.1 million on the same day in 2024. This is a difference of 303,000.
Some people, such as those over 75 who receive Pension Credit, can get a free TV licence. Those over 75 who don’t receive pension credit but who live in a residential care home may be covered by their accommodation’s licence, so may not need their own. The number of licenses funded by the BBC increased by 56,000 between 2023/24 and 2024/25.
This means there is a difference between the total number of licences in force and the number of paid-for licences.
Just looking at paid-for TV licences, the number decreased by 359,000, from 23.1 million to 22.8 million over the same period.
There are slightly different figures from the Television Licence Fee Trust statement for the year ending 31 March 2025, which says “the number of paid-for TV licences fell by around 314,000 (1.4%) to 22.6 million between 2023-24 and 2024-25”.
These trust figures are the number of paid-for licences sold across the 2024/25 year as opposed to the annual report figures, which compare two snapshots in time on 31 March.
The BBC told us the two numbers are different because a licence sold within the 12-month period 2024-2025 may not be in force come 31 March 2025 due to that person later cancelling their licence, or converting to a free licence, for example. But all these sets of figures are far lower than the 900,000 figure being shared online.
However, as TV Licensing also makes clear, “TV Licensing cancellations information data does not differentiate between licences cancelled by customers themselves and licences cancelled by TV Licensing, for various reasons including payment failure. Consequently, TV Licensing is unable to identify the number of licences solely cancelled by customers.”
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This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the total number of TV licences actually fell by around 300,000 in the last year, not 900,000 as claimed. because the total number of TV licences actually fell by around 300,000 in the last year, not 900,000 as claimed.
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