The strongest protection most micro businesses have never used — free, binding on the provider, and faster since April 2026.
If your business has 10 or fewer people working in it and your provider hasn’t resolved a phone complaint after six weeks (for complaints raised on or after 8 April 2026 — it was eight weeks before), you can escalate it — free of charge — to an independent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme. The ombudsman is a free, impartial adjudicator for phone and broadband disputes — and it can cancel your contract, waive charges and award compensation up to £10,000, and its decision binds the provider if you accept it. You don’t have to wait the six weeks if the provider issues a deadlock letter sooner.
The rules protect what Ofcom calls a microenterprise or small enterprise customer: a business for which not more than 10 individuals work — counting employees and volunteers alike — and which isn’t itself a communications provider. Not-for-profits of the same size are covered too. Headcount, not turnover, is the test. Businesses of 11 or more don’t get this route — though they keep the other exits, covered in Can you cancel a business phone contract?.
Every provider selling phone services to consumers and small businesses must belong to one of two Ofcom-approved schemes: the Communications Ombudsman, or CISAS, run by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution. Your provider must tell you which scheme it belongs to and give you free access — it’s typically stated in their complaints code on their website, and they must signpost it when a complaint reaches deadlock.
One honesty note: Ofcom itself does not resolve individual disputes — complaining to Ofcom adds regulatory pressure and feeds its enforcement work, but the body that can actually fix your case is the ADR scheme.
You can’t use ADR — but you’re not powerless. The penalty-free exit on mid-contract changes applies at any size, so does the post-term one-month exit, and so do the porting rights. The service-failure route through contract law is open to everyone with the evidence to support it. Start with how to leave without paying a fee.
No. Access to your provider’s Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme is free to the customer by law. The provider pays the scheme’s costs.
From when you first raised the complaint with your provider — which is why complaining in writing, with a provable date, matters so much.
If you accept the decision it binds the provider, and the scheme enforces compliance; persistent failure to honour decisions is also the kind of conduct Ofcom fines providers for.
Every claim above is drawn from the sources below, checked against the current published version.
Last verified 30 July 2026 · General information, not legal advice — your own solicitor should confirm how the rules apply to your case.
