Late payment statistics UK: Late Payment Prevalence
The median published figure in the Late Payment Prevalence is 50 percent across 2 sources' own pages (range 37 to 63 percent), read 12 October 2026.
2 of the 5 named sources read in full publish a figure; 3 publish none, read 12 October 2026.
The median is unchanged since 26 September 2026 (was 50 percent across 2).
Every figure, with its source
One row per published figure: the figure as the source's own page publishes it, the page, and the day it was read. A figure that is not on a page we read is not on this one.
| Source | Figure | Read |
|---|---|---|
| FSB - late payments and payment methods in small businesses | 63% | 2026-10-12 |
| FSB - Pay it Forward policy report | 37% | 2026-10-12 |
The sentence each figure was read from (2)
- FSB - late payments and payment methods in small businesses, read 2026-10-12:
Significant time costs: 63% of businesses report spending time chasing overdue payments, with costs estimated at up to £5,200 per year in lost time and resources.
- FSB - Pay it Forward policy report, read 2026-10-12:
Previously, FSB has found that 37% of small firms have run into cash flow difficulties due to late payments, while 30% of small businesses resort to an overdraft and 20% cite a slowdown in profit growth.
Read in full, publishes no figure
3 named sources were read in full on the dates shown and print no usable figure. They are counted, never filled in.
- Small Business Commissioner - late payments recovered, read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- Hansard - Late Payments Consultation: Government Response (24 March 2026), read 2026-10-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- the official evidence base, read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
Methodology
Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through our fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2).
2 of the 5 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 3 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 0 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere.
The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source in % (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences), so N counts sources, never sentences; 7 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded.
The fuller derivation this dataset is chartered to grow into (not yet what the figures above are; they are each source's own published figure as read): the official and trade-body series on how much is owed late, how many businesses are affected and what the waiting costs, each attributed and dated, set against the interest that would have been chargeable on it at the rate series' own figures - the economy-wide version of the same multiplication the register dataset does per company; plus a dated timeline of the reform package announced on 24 March 2026, so a reader knows which rule applies to their invoice
7 candidate sentences on these pages were refused by a reviewer; each refusal and its reason is recorded in the review ledger.
Sources (5)
- Small Business Commissioner - late payments recovered(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Hansard - Late Payments Consultation: Government Response (24 March 2026)(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- FSB - late payments and payment methods in small businesses(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- FSB - Pay it Forward policy report(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- the official evidence base(the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
Cite or embed this figure
The median published figure in the Late Payment Prevalence is 50 percent across 2 sources' own pages (range 37 to 63 percent), read 12 October 2026.
2 of the 5 named sources read in full publish a figure; 3 publish none, read 12 October 2026.
The median is unchanged since 26 September 2026 (was 50 percent across 2).
Cite as: "latepaymentinterest.co.uk Late Payment Prevalence", updated 2026-10-18, https://latepaymentinterest.co.uk/datasets/late-payment-prevalence/.
Download the CSV (2 rows, computed 2026-10-18)