What Are Your Prepayment Meter Rights in 2026?
Your prepayment meter rights come from an Ofgem licence condition, not a voluntary promise from your supplier. Since 2023, the Code of Practice on prepayment meter installation has been a legally enforceable rule, and breaching it can mean fines. It sets out who can’t be moved onto a prepayment meter without consent, and what a supplier must try first.
That matters because 2026 has been the year several of those breaches caught up with a major supplier. If you had a meter installed under the old, murkier practices, understanding your prepayment meter rights is the first step to finding out whether you’re owed anything.
Why Did Ofgem Fine British Gas £20 Million?
Ofgem fined British Gas after finding it had breached prepayment meter rights protections between 2018 and 2021, forcibly switching some customers, including vulnerable ones, without following the required checks. Under the settlement, checked September 2026, British Gas agreed to pay £20 million into Ofgem’s Voluntary Redress Fund, on top of writing off up to £70 million of energy debt for affected customers.
British Gas isn’t an isolated case. Ofgem’s wider Market Compliance Review looked at more than 150,000 involuntary prepayment meter installations across the industry, with several suppliers making payments ranging from around £40 for a process error up to £1,000 where a switch should never have happened at all.
Key takeaways
- Prepayment meter rights are enforceable licence conditions, not guidance suppliers can ignore.
- British Gas paid £20 million into Ofgem’s redress fund over 2018-2021 breaches, plus debt write-offs (checked September 2026).
- Ofgem’s industry-wide review covered over 150,000 involuntary installations.
- Some customers are entitled to compensation without applying, others need to raise a complaint themselves.
Are Other Suppliers Under Scrutiny Too?
British Gas isn’t the only name Ofgem has looked at closely. Separate enforcement work examining how other large suppliers, including Utilita and OVO, handled prepayment meter installations has been running alongside the British Gas case, according to Ofgem’s own published updates checked September 2026. None of this means every switch was wrongful, but it does mean the regulator is treating prepayment meter rights as an active enforcement area rather than a box-ticking exercise.
For anyone who was on a payment plan, in arrears, or dealing with a difficult call with their supplier around 2018 to 2023, it’s a reasonable moment to ask whether the correct steps were followed at the time. You don’t need to prove anything to ask the question. The starting point is simply requesting your supplier’s records.
Who Is Protected From a Forced Prepayment Meter Switch?
Certain households are protected outright under current prepayment meter rights. Suppliers can’t forcibly install a prepayment meter in a home where someone is aged 75 or over and lives alone with no support, or where a child under two lives.
Before any involuntary switch, a supplier must make at least ten attempts to contact the household and carry out a site welfare visit to check it’s safe and appropriate to proceed. If a supplier skipped these steps, the installation may not have followed the rules that were in place at the time.
These prepayment meter rights also apply regardless of whether the debt itself was genuine. A supplier getting the process wrong is a breach even if the underlying arrears were real.
How Do You Know If You’re Owed Compensation?
If you’re a British Gas customer and were affected between 2018 and 2021, Ofgem says you don’t need to do anything: the supplier is expected to identify and contact eligible customers directly, crediting or paying compensation automatically. That said, it’s worth checking your account and being cautious of anyone contacting you out of the blue claiming to “process” a payout for a fee.
If you’re with a different supplier, or your case falls outside that specific settlement, you can still exercise your prepayment meter rights by raising a formal complaint. Ask your supplier in writing whether the Code of Practice was followed before your meter was switched, including how many contact attempts were made and whether a welfare visit took place.
Being on your supplier’s Priority Services Register doesn’t automatically block an involuntary switch, but it should trigger extra caution from your supplier, and it strengthens a complaint if the checks weren’t done properly.
What Should You Do If You Think You Were Wrongly Switched?
Start with a written complaint to your supplier setting out the dates and what you believe went wrong. Suppliers have up to eight weeks to respond, or must issue a deadlock letter if they can’t resolve it sooner.
If you’re not satisfied with the response, or the eight weeks pass with no answer, you can take the case to the Energy Ombudsman free of charge. It’s an independent step and doesn’t require a solicitor.
It’s also worth reading up on how prepayment costs compare generally if you’ve since stayed on the meter, since the tariff structure itself is a separate question from whether the switch was fair. Our guide on whether prepayment meters cost more covers that side of things.
Prepayment Meter Rights: Frequently Asked Questions
- What are prepayment meter rights under Ofgem’s Code of Practice?
- They’re the enforceable rules that stop suppliers forcibly installing a prepayment meter without trying to contact you at least ten times and carrying out a welfare visit first, with outright bans for some vulnerable households.
- Who can’t be forced onto a prepayment meter?
- Households where someone is 75 or over and lives alone without support, and households with a child under two, can’t be switched involuntarily under current prepayment meter rights.
- Do I need to apply for the British Gas compensation?
- Ofgem says eligible customers affected between 2018 and 2021 should be contacted directly by British Gas and don’t need to apply, though it’s sensible to check your own account too.
- What if my supplier isn’t British Gas?
- You can still assert your prepayment meter rights by writing to your supplier and, if unresolved after eight weeks, escalating free of charge to the Energy Ombudsman.
- Does being in debt mean a switch was automatically fair?
- No. Even where arrears were genuine, a supplier still had to follow the correct process, and getting that process wrong is itself a breach of prepayment meter rights.
Prepayment meter rights exist because a forced switch can tip a household that’s already struggling further into hardship. That’s why Ofgem made the Code of Practice mandatory rather than leaving it as optional guidance. If you were affected years ago, or you’re being threatened with a switch now, five minutes checking what your supplier was actually required to do is time well spent.
And if you’d rather sidestep prepayment arrangements altogether, it’s worth seeing what a different tariff looks like on your own terms.
