Ofcom's own fees page now admits its October invoices arrived a month late, exactly as this site found. Its own dates table, lower down the identical page, still has not caught up.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In short. This site's 7 October piece found Ofcom's online safety fees page contradicting its own Update banner: the banner said invoices were moving to October, but three other passages on the same page still promised September [3]. The page, now last updated 23 October 2026, has fixed that: it states plainly "we issued invoices in October 2026" [2]. But the page's own "Date Milestone" table, a few paragraphs further down the identical page, was not touched, and still reads "September 2026" and "Ofcom expects to issue invoices" [2]. The separate master compliance calendar this entire regime is supposed to run from has not been edited since 24 August 2026 [1]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Ofcom's fee invoices fund its own regulation of online safety, and this site has already found the regulator a month late sending them while its own pages disagreed about the date [3]. A month further on, Ofcom has fixed the specific contradiction that piece documented. It has not fixed the one its own fix left behind.
What Ofcom corrected
"Online safety fees: what the duties are and how to comply with them" is now stamped "Last updated: 23 October 2026", three weeks later than the 30 September state this site tested [2]. Its "Key updates" section no longer hedges: "We have issued invoices to all legal entities that notified us they are liable to pay fees for the 2026/27 charging year and published an alphabetised list of these entities" [2]. Further down, explaining how the single percentage fee is calculated, the page now states a fact rather than a forecast: "For the 2026/27 charging year, we issued invoices in October 2026" [2]. The page's own numbered "Pay your invoice" step agrees: "Invoices for the 2026/27 charging year have now been issued. Providers must make payments to us within 30 days of the invoice date" [2]. The three passages this site quoted on 7 October, each still promising invoices "by September 2026", have gone.
The table was not part of the fix
The same page carries a "Date Milestone" table further down, a near-duplicate of the master calendar's own schedule. It was not touched. Against "September 2026", it still reads: "Ofcom expects to issue invoices for the 2026/27 charging year and publish the 2026/27 tariff" [2]. The next row still reads "September 2026 to March 2027" for providers paying those invoices [2]. A reader who scrolls past the corrected "Key updates" section and the corrected "Pay your invoice" step, both stating plainly that October invoices have already gone out, reaches a table on the same page, carrying the same 23 October update stamp, that still describes those invoices as something Ofcom merely "expects" to do in a month that has already passed. Ofcom fixed the sentence a provider reads first. It left the table a provider might check second saying something else.
The master calendar has not moved at all
"Important dates for Online Safety compliance" is the page Ofcom tells industry to treat as the single reference point for the whole regime, and it carries its own warning for providers who miss a date: "If you do not meet the deadlines for compliance, Ofcom can take enforcement action against your service under the Online Safety Act 2023" [1]. Checked again today, it is still stamped "Last updated: 24 August 2026", and its fees row still reads "September 2026" with the milestone "Ofcom expects to publish the 2026/27 tariff and issue invoices for the 2026/27 charging year" [1]. That was already wrong when this site checked it on 7 October. It is more wrong now: the page it links to for detail has since moved on to stating, in plain prose, that the invoices it describes as upcoming were issued over a month ago.
The claims, tested
| Ofcom's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fees page, "Key updates" and "Pay your invoice" step: invoices for 2026/27 "have now been issued", in October 2026 [2] | The same page's own "Date Milestone" table, carrying the identical 23 October update stamp, still says Ofcom "expects to issue invoices" in September 2026 [2] | The 23 October fix corrected the page's prose and left its own table uncorrected |
| Master compliance calendar: "September 2026... Ofcom expects to publish the 2026/27 tariff and issue invoices" [1] | Unedited since 24 August 2026, now also contradicted by the fees page's own corrected prose a month after that page first conceded the slip [1] [2] | The page providers are told is the master reference has still not caught up |
Credit where due
Ofcom did correct the substantive thing this site flagged. The Update banner's claim against the three unrevised passages was the finding on 7 October, and that contradiction is gone: a reader working through the fees page today, in order, no longer meets a promise the page itself has already broken. The harder number, the tariff, continued to track close to its original target, and the invoicing process this page describes evidently ran to completion rather than slipping indefinitely. A regulator correcting a documented error within three weeks of it being published is the system working, not failing.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. Ofcom corrected the sentence that mattered most and left a table on the same page, and a second page entirely, saying the opposite. Providers who read the fixed prose know the truth. Providers who only check the table, or only check the calendar Ofcom tells them is authoritative, are still being told to expect something that already happened.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: the fees page's own "Date Milestone" table, left unrevised on the same 23 October 2026 update that corrected the rest of the page, still describing October's already-issued invoices as something Ofcom "expects" to issue in September; and the separate master compliance calendar, unedited since 24 August 2026, which has now fallen a full month further behind the fees page's own corrected account. Two mistakes in the 1-to-3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding that any provider has been overcharged, undercharged or structurally disadvantaged by the slip; the finding is narrower, that two documents providers are told to rely on for these dates still disagree with a third document, Ofcom's own corrected account of what it already did. Checked directly against both live pages, fetched 6 November 2026.
Sources
- Important dates for Online Safety compliance, Ofcom, published 17 October 2024, last updated 24 August 2026
- Online safety fees: what the duties are and how to comply with them, Ofcom, published 21 November 2025, last updated 23 October 2026
- Ofcom told industry its own safety-fee invoices would arrive in September, Tracked Changes, 7 October 2026