Virgin Media broadband deals: current prices, the £4 rise, what month 25 costs, and what your other line can get

What does Virgin Media broadband cost right now?

Direct answer: Virgin Media's broadband-only deals cost between £23.99 and £49.99 a month (checked 15 September 2026) with £0 set-up, every one with a minimum term of 24 months and a rise of £4 a month each April, and every one followed by a standard price from month 25 that Virgin Media prints beside the deal.

Virgin Media sells five tiers over its own cable network, from M125 to Gig1, and Gig2 over the full fibre network it and nexfibre are building. The prices below are for new customers ordering broadband only; broadband with a phone line, with Virgin TV and with an O2 SIM under Volt are priced separately on virginmedia.com. M500 cost £1 a month less than M350 when we checked, with Netflix included, which makes M350 hard to justify unless it is the fastest tier your address can take.

On 15 September 2026 virginmedia.com was including Netflix Standard with adverts at no extra cost with M500, Gig1 and Gig2 broadband-only deals and with its TV bundles, and promoting switching credit of up to £300 towards early termination fees with your current provider, an offer it marked as ending on 20 September 2026 and which has to be claimed within 60 days of activation with your old provider's final bill.

Two columns matter more than the first one. The 24-month average is what you actually pay across the contract, and on Virgin Media's arithmetic it is simply the deal price plus the rise, because the £4 lands twice in 24 months. The month 25 column is the one most people never read: on M125 it is £62 against a deal price of £23.99, a step of £38.01 a month, and on Gig1 it is £86 against £29.99. Our guide to out-of-contract broadband prices explains how to find out what you are paying now, and our price and contract checker runs the arithmetic for any provider.

Our hand-checked deals table of 1 September 2026 recorded Virgin Media M125 at £18.99 a month, M500 at £21.99 and Gig1 at £23.99 through the comparison channel, each on 24 months with free set-up and the £4 rise, which is £5 to £6 a month below the prices on Virgin Media's own website at the time and the reason the live list below is worth a look before you order direct. Virgin Media's deals pages show download speeds but not upload speeds; the two upload figures on this page are the ones Virgin Media O2 published when it raised them, and the rest are omitted rather than guessed.

How do Virgin Media's £4 rise and the month 25 price work?

Direct answer: Virgin Media adds £4 a month to the main services on every contract taken on or after 2 October 2025, each April, and because the amount is written into the contract you cannot leave without early disconnection fees when it lands; when the minimum term of 24 months ends, the deal price is replaced by Virgin Media's standard price, which was £62 a month for M125 when we checked.

Since 17 January 2025 Ofcom has banned in-contract price rises linked to inflation and required any rise written into a contract to be stated in pounds and pence at the point of sale. Virgin Media's answer has changed twice: contracts taken between 9 January 2025 and 1 October 2025 rise by £3.50 a month, contracts from 2 October 2025 rise by £4, and contracts older than 9 January 2025 still carry the old formula of RPI plus 3.9%. The rise applies to broadband, TV and home phone taken from Virgin Media; an O2 SIM under Volt is a separate contract with O2's own rules. Essential Broadband, Essential Broadband Plus and Talk Protected are exempt, and if their prices ever change Virgin Media says it will give 30 days' notice and a right to cancel. Our page on the Virgin Media price rise covers the April 2026 change in detail.

The practical rule is the one we use across this site: count both rises, then count month 25. A fixed rise gives you no right to leave, so the only lever you hold is the calendar: the end date, written down, with a reminder a month before. When it arrives, One Touch Switch lets a new provider handle the leaving for you (see the FAQ on leaving Virgin Media), and our insight on Virgin Media retention deals covers what to say if you would rather stay. Our guide to in-contract price rises sets out the Ofcom rules, and price rises by provider lists who fixes the amount, who varies it and who promises none at all.

Is Virgin Media the only way to get its line?

Direct answer: Yes, at almost every address. Virgin Media's cable line is sold by Virgin Media alone, and on the nexfibre full fibre network the retail providers were Virgin Media and giffgaff when we checked, so the comparison is not Virgin Media against other sellers of the same line but Virgin Media's line against the Openreach or altnet line that every other provider at your address shares.

This is the opposite of the BT, Sky and Plusnet position. Those providers sell one Openreach connection under different brands, so the question is which retailer to buy it from. Virgin Media built its own network, a hybrid fibre-coaxial cable network across most of its footprint and, in recent years, full fibre built by Virgin Media O2 itself and by nexfibre, a separate company backed by Virgin Media O2's shareholders and an infrastructure investor. At 30 June 2026 that network could serve 18.8 million homes at gigabit speeds, 9 million of them with full fibre, and it had 5.4 million consumer broadband customers, down 28,200 in the quarter. Moving between Virgin Media and an Openreach provider is therefore a new line rather than a transfer, and a home that has both networks has a choice that most of the country does not.

The wider market is cheaper still. When we last hand-checked every deal, on 1 September 2026, the 373 broadband-only deals from the 28 providers we can switch you to started at £13.50 a month (4th Utility, 150 Mbps on CityFibre), and good full fibre on a 24-month contract clustered between £23 and £34 a month with a median of £28. Where Virgin Media's deal prices sit in that band moves with the month's offers; the arithmetic that matters is the 24-month average and then month 25. The full list, with first-year cost including each provider's rise, is on our verified deals page.

Two things decide which line you can actually order. The first is whether Virgin Media has built past your door at all: its footprint is large but it is not national, and its own checker and our comparison both confirm it address by address. The second is what the other line can do. Ofcom's Spring 2026 data puts full fibre availability at 82% of UK premises and gigabit-capable availability at 89%, and Openreach's own full fibre footprint stood at 23.4 million premises on 30 June 2026. Where Openreach full fibre or an altnet such as CityFibre, YouFibre, Hyperoptic or Community Fibre has arrived, you can weigh Virgin Media's download speed against a full fibre line with symmetrical upload; where they have not, Virgin Media's cable is often the only gigabit option on the street. Our guides to full fibre against FTTC, cable and 5G and which is faster explain the difference.

What does Virgin Media give you that the other line may not?

Direct answer: A different line, first of all: download speeds up to 2,000 Mbps that beat what Openreach has built on many streets, with the trade-off of asymmetric upload on cable; then the WiFi Guarantee, a minimum speed guarantee of 50% of the advertised speed, Volt's boost with an O2 plan, Netflix on M500, Gig1 and Gig2, and switching credit of up to £300 towards leaving your current provider.

Each item below was checked against Virgin Media's own pages on 15 September 2026. Where Virgin Media does not publish a figure, we say so rather than guess.

Three claims that circulate about Virgin Media do not hold on its current pages, so they are not on this one: its standard contract is not 18 months (every broadband-only deal we checked carried a minimum term of 24 months), its social tariff is not "around £15" (it is £12.50 or £20), and it does not publish an upload speed for every tier. If any of those matters to you, check the order summary before you commit.

Who should choose Virgin Media, and who should not?

Direct answer: Choose Virgin Media if its network is the fastest thing on your street, if you have or want an O2 plan that unlocks Volt, if Virgin TV with Sky Sports or Sky Cinema belongs on the same bill, or if the switching credit covers fees you would otherwise pay to leave; choose the other line if a full fibre provider at your address gives you symmetrical upload, a lower 24-month total, no in-contract rise or a shorter commitment.

The head-to-head pages cover the pairings people search for most: BT against Virgin Media, Sky against Virgin Media and Virgin Media against Vodafone. If you are moving between the networks, our guides to what changes on installation day and switching from Virgin Media with the least downtime cover the practicalities. For the whole market at once, use your postcode.

Does Virgin Media do a social tariff?

Direct answer: Yes, two, both open to new and existing customers: Essential Broadband at £12.50 a month for 15 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload, and Essential Broadband Plus at £20 a month for 54 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload, each on a rolling 30-day contract with free set-up and no annual price rise.

The account holder must receive Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance. Virgin Media checks the claim with the Department for Work and Pensions, with your consent, and re-checks eligibility every 12 months. Because the contract is rolling 30-day there is no minimum term, no early disconnection fee and no month 25. Essential customers are not eligible for the switching credit, and Virgin Media says the annual price adjustment does not apply to either tariff.

Set against the market: our deals check of 1 September 2026 recorded social tariffs from £12.50 a month across the providers we compare, BT Home Essentials starts at £16.50, and Sky Broadband Basics at £20 is for existing Sky customers only. Check the Essential speed of 15 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload against what your household does; a home that streams on several screens should price Essential Broadband Plus. Our social tariffs guide lists every provider's tariff and who qualifies, and our insight on how social tariff broadband works covers the application steps.

How does Virgin Media score on complaints, reviews and with Ofcom?

Direct answer: Virgin Media drew 6 broadband complaints per 100,000 customers in Ofcom's January to March 2026 data, level with the industry average of 6 and with EE, behind Plusnet (4) and Sky (5) and ahead of BT (7), Vodafone (8) and TalkTalk (10); on 8 July 2026 Ofcom fined it £28 million for repeatedly preventing customers from cancelling over the period 1 January 2022 to 11 September 2024.

Ofcom described the Q1 2026 industry figure of 6 per 100,000 as an all-time low, down from 40 per 100,000 at the 2011 peak. Virgin Media's landline figure for the same quarter was 2 per 100,000 against an average of 3, and its pay TV figure 3, which Ofcom said were mainly about billing, pricing and charges. On the longer series Virgin Media's broadband figure has moved from 12 per 100,000 in Q1 2025 to 5 in Q4 2025 and 6 in Q1 2026, against a peak of 33 in the published series since 2019. The Complaints Floor, our Report No. 30, sets out the full series and Ofcom's comparability rules.

The complaints table is not the whole record. On 8 July 2026 Ofcom fined Virgin Media £28 million for conduct over the period 1 January 2022 to 11 September 2024: pressure on customers who had said they wanted to cancel, unnecessary transfers, excessive holds, deliberately dropped calls and cancellations not processed. Ofcom required Virgin Media to check that every affected customer who complained has received the compensation they were due. Our insight on the Virgin Media cancellation fine explains what it means for you, and the practical lesson is in the FAQ below: leave through One Touch Switch, in writing, with the confirmation kept.

If you do need to complain, the rules changed on 8 April 2026: a complaint that Virgin Media has not resolved after six weeks, down from eight, can go free of charge to the independent ombudsman scheme it belongs to. Our complaints and your rights guide walks through the steps and the compensation you may be owed. For customer reviews, Virgin Media's Trustpilot profile is independent of us and moves daily; we last captured it at 1.5 out of 5 from 105,525 reviews on 26 July 2026, a score that covers broadband, TV and phone customers together and measures something different from Ofcom's broadband-only count.

What should you check before you order Virgin Media?

Direct answer: Six checks, five minutes: which Virgin Media network reaches your address, the three prices in your diary, the other line priced at your postcode, the comparison-channel price against the direct one, the switching credit and Netflix terms, and the installation, kit and cancellation rules.

Related reading: exit fees and set-up fees by provider, how One Touch Switch works, keeping your phone number when you switch, and logging in to a Virgin Media hub once you are connected.

Live Virgin Media broadband deals at your postcode