Record number of UK companies paid most of their invoices late

A record number of UK companies said they paid more than half their invoices late in the first half of the year, according to their filings to a government scheme.

The average payment time stretched beyond 50 days. However, 127 companies are now taking more than 80 days to pay, up from 85 companies earlier this year.

Combined, they racked up £109.2 billion in invoices paid late from January to September this year, analysis of the filings from 5,000 companies by the campaign group Good Business Pays shows. The government says businesses paying invoices late affects more than 1.5 million smaller businesses, holding back investment and job creation.

The report lands just as new procurement rules take effect this week, requiring government contractors to pay private sector suppliers within 45 days. Ministers have pitched the move as a way to ease pressure on small and medium-sized businesses hit hardest by late payments.

The analysis is taken from companies that have submitted information as part of the UK’s Payment Practices and Performance Regulation. Large companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) that meet the criteria are legally required to publish their payment terms and performance information every six months.

Among the companies that appeared to pay late were BMW, the soup maker Baxters and the broadband challenger Hyperoptic.

Baxters, the family-owned Scottish soup and sauces group, appeared not to pay 90 per cent of invoices within agreed terms, according to its filing. It was approached for comment.

BMW’s UK arm appeared among the worst offenders by value, delaying payment of nearly £2.3 billion. However, it said its filings did not reflect its actual payment practices to suppliers.

Hyperoptic appeared to be the slowest payer in the period, saying it took an average of 158 days to pay invoices in the period January 1 to June 30, 2025, according to its report filed on August 12.

The company said it had made an error in its filing and would be resubmitting the information: “We do not believe the figures reflect our payment practices. We always intend to pay our suppliers on time, but in some cases we pay via direct debit and invoices are logged after the payment date, which skews the data.” The company updated its report on October 3 to state that the average time to pay invoices was 42 days.

Hyperoptic’s ultimate parent company is Thunderbird Topco Limited, registered in Jersey and controlled by the private equity group KKR.

BMW said the figures it submitted mostly reflected internal payments, adding: “It is wrong to suggest BMW UK is making late payments to suppliers on this basis.”

Terry Corby, chief executive of Good Business Pays, said the late payment situation was “worse than at any point” since the campaign began tracking payment culture in early 2023. “We must now see real accountability and real consequences for poor payment practices.”

• Big companies named and shamed on list of late payers

Last year, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, which includes a British operation, reported an average payment time of 110 days, making it one of the slowest payers.

The company has since introduced exceptions to allow small businesses to get paid faster, which Corby said “will have helped potentially thousands of small businesses and shows the way to go”.

The Good Business Pays campaign, backed by the trade bodies the CBI, Federation of Small Businesses and British Chambers of Commerce, also found that the number of companies paying 70 per cent or more of their invoices late has risen from 122 in 2024 to 150 in 2025.

Emma Jones, the small business commissioner, told The Times this week that her office lacks the teeth to fine persistent late payers, and may not gain those powers until 2028.

Payment reporting has been a legal requirement since 2017. However, the Department for Business and Trade estimates that the 5,000 company reports submitted represent only 50 to 60 per cent of the companies that should comply. The department is running an enforcement programme to get more companies to report their payment times.

The government has said it will tackle “the scourge of late payments”, which it says costs the UK economy almost £11 billion a year and forces 38 businesses a day to close down due to cash flow problems.

Update: this article was amended on October 3, 2025, to take account of Hyperoptic’s resubmitted figures, which changed the average time taken to pay invoices from 158 to 42 days.