BT Business bill charges

A normal bill from us has regular charges for the coming billing period only. But if your services start part-way into a billing period, your first bill will also have regular charges:

• From the date your services start to the end of the current billing period.
• And in advance for the coming billing period.

Let’s say we bill you on the first of each month, and your services start on 23 June. Your first bill will have regular charges for:

• 8 days (23-30 June) in the current billing period.
• And the coming billing period (1-31 July).

If your first bill’s higher than you expect, this may be why.

For more information head to What should I expect from my first bill?

Connection charges are for any engineering work we do to connect you like:

• Installing new lines.
• Relocating lines or sockets.
• Pre-wiring your newly built premises.
• Taking over a line from a cable company.
• Reconnecting a line after you've been cut off for not paying. 
• Replacing lines that look like phone lines but aren’t (like an alarm line).
• Repairing existing lines that have no dial tone when a phone’s plugged in.

We'll always tell you about any connection charges before we start work. Sometimes an engineer will need to visit your premises. Other times you won’t see an engineer as the work is at our exchange or street cabinet, underground, or up a pole.

Activation charges are related to the connection and activation of a Service we provide like:

• Installing new lines.
• Taking over a line from a cable company.
• Reconnecting an existing line.
• Repairing existing lines that have no dial tone when a phone’s plugged in.
• Providing a Broadband Service.

We'll always tell you about any Activation charges during the ordering process. Sometimes an engineer will need to visit your premises. Other times you won’t see an engineer as the work is at our exchange or street cabinet, underground, or up a pole.

We add excess construction charges to your standard installation charge if we need to carry out extra work to provide your service like:

• Laying extra cabling.
• Drilling through walls.
• Underground work.

If excess construction charges are needed, we’ll let you know, and won’t go ahead with the extra work unless you’ve agreed. See more details in the BT Price list.

If you report a fault to us, we’ll only charge you for a repair if:

• We don’t find a fault.
• It’s our work that fixes things.
• We find a fault but it's on equipment that’s not ours.
• We haven’t guaranteed the service or agreed to maintain it.
• The fault’s down to someone losing, stealing, or removing BT equipment, or to a person at your premises damaging it on purpose.
• The fault’s due to outside events or bad weather like lightning, or floods, and you own the equipment, or rent it but not from us.

We’ll always try to tell you if there’ll be a charge before we start work. But sometimes we won’t know until after we’ve begun.

To cover our courier costs, we charge a delivery fee for sending equipment to you. We’ll always tell you about this before you place your order.

If you’re still receiving paper bills from us, we charge a paper-bill fee for each one we send you. This covers our printing and posting costs:

• Summary bills are £4 ex VAT each.
• Itemised bills are £8 ex VAT each.

Want to switch to paper-free? Go to paper-free in My Account.

Forgot your My Account login? Recover it here.

Read more about paper-bill fees and how to avoid them.

We need payment for your bill within 28 days of its issue date. Otherwise, we’ll add a late payment charge to your next bill.

To help you avoid late-payment charges, your bill has a pay-by date. This allows enough time for your payment to reach us.

Your easiest way to always avoid late-payment charges is to pay by Direct Debit.

If you don't pay your bill, we may pause or limit your service. When we return your full service, we’ll add a reconnection charge to your bill (on top of the late payment charge):

• Reconnection charge after we’ve paused outgoing calls is £15.00 ex VAT.
• Reconnection charge after we’ve paused incoming and outgoing calls is £25.00 ex VAT for the first line. Plus £5.00 ex VAT for any more lines on the same account.

If you joined BT or took a new contract out after 17 July 2017, payment processing fees don't apply to you.

If you've been charged a payment processing fee, it's definitely time to renew your contract and set up a Direct Debit.

For more information on this charge read the BT Business pricing guide.

If you’ve an advert in the business-by-type section of the phone book, we charge you a classified paid line entry fee.

For help with this, please call our phone book team on 0800 833 400, option 2.

An early termination fee is also known as a held to term charge. We’ll add this to your bill if, while your service is under contract:

• You stop your services.
• You downgrade your contract.
• We stop your account because you haven’t paid.
• You change provider (other providers can't remove this fee).
• Your business changes hands and the buyers take over your services.
• You change the name on your billing account to one with a different company registration number.

If you cancel your BT Business broadband, we’ll add a cease charge if you’re in contract or not. The standard cease charge is £18 ex VAT. This covers our costs for stopping your service.

When you take out a call package with us, you set yourself a committed spend on eligible calls. If your actual call spend goes much below your committed spend, we may charge you a reconciliation fee.

How much of your committed spend you need to reach to avoid a reconciliation fee depends on the call package you have.

There’s more information on how reconciliation charges are charged in the BT Price List.

You’ll find links to the terms for our business products and services on the BT Business Terms and Conditions page.

How reconciliation fees are calculated

Whichever call package you’re on, we work out any reconciliation fee the same way. Each year of your contract, we measure your actual spend on eligible calls against the figure you need to hit to avoid a reconciliation fee. If there’s a shortfall, we charge you 20% of this.

Let’s say you’re a BT Business Complete customer and make a committed spend of £1000 a year:

• To avoid a reconciliation fee, you must spend at least £800 a year on eligible calls.
• If one year your actual spend is only £500, you’ll fall short by £300. So, we’ll charge you a reconciliation fee of 20% x £300 = £60.

When reconciliation fees are charged

Each year, we write to you with a summary of your call-package usage. If we’re going to charge you a reconciliation fee, we’ll say so then.

Changing your committed spend

If you want to up or lower your committed spend, you can do so any time. We’ll need to make these changes in your contract, so please contact your BT Business account manager.

Why BT charges reconciliation fees

Our call-package prices factor in costs to our business. If you fail to reach the call spend you commit to, we still need to cover these costs. To help with this, we add a reconciliation fee to your bill.