The Department for Business and Trade recorded more than £28.2m of invoices paid late between April 2023 and May 2026, according to figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
The data covers 1,449 invoices with a combined value of £28,174,869.64 across the period, drawing attention to payment performance at the government department responsible for significant parts of UK business policy.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, the department recorded 565 late invoices worth £9,643,117.20.
Although the number fell to 499 in the following financial year, their combined value increased to £11,410,939.48.
From April 2025 to March 2026, 369 invoices worth £6,900,424.57 were recorded as late, followed by another 16 invoices worth £220,388.39 during April and May 2026.
The £28.2m total represents the value of invoices that were eventually paid late rather than penalties or interest incurred by government.
The figures were obtained through an FOI request and analysed by the Parliament think tank.
Kenny MacAulay, chief executive of accountancy software company Acting Office, said: “The UK economy simply can’t function if people don’t get paid on time. Every payment triggers another one, and when money doesn’t arrive, the whole chain starts to break.”
He added: “Small businesses are hit hardest because they rely heavily on cash flow to cover wages, rent and basic running costs. People expect to receive money on time and will have outgoing payments waiting behind it. All it takes is one late payment for things to quickly turn into a string of missed deadlines and financial pressure.”
The figures emerge during a period of renewed political attention on payment practices. Government policy states that public sector bodies should pay all undisputed and valid invoices within 30 days, with a target of paying 90% of invoices from small and medium-sized businesses within five days.
The Department for Business and Trade is also responsible for reforms intended to improve payment behaviour elsewhere in the economy.
Proposals set out this summer would strengthen supplier rights and increase the consequences of poor payment practices, while legislation introduced to Parliament includes measures intended to restrict excessively long payment periods.
A wider small business plan published in July placed late payment under further scrutiny, reflecting concern over the amount of working capital tied up when customers fail to settle invoices on schedule.
Public bodies and large corporate buyers influence payment culture through their procurement practices as well as through regulation. The DBT figures consequently sit alongside the department’s wider responsibility for policy intended to improve cash flow across the business economy.
Late payment creates a different financial problem from a conventional bad debt. A supplier may be confident that an invoice will eventually be settled but still need to fund payroll, tax, rent, and its own suppliers while waiting for the cash to arrive.
The delay effectively transfers part of the buyer’s working capital requirement to the supplier. Smaller companies usually have fewer financing options and less capacity to absorb large swings in receivables, making predictable payment particularly important.
Pressure can also spread through supply chains. A delayed payment from a major customer may leave the affected supplier unable to settle its own invoices on time, passing liquidity strain from one transaction into several others.
Government reforms are increasingly combining legal limits with transparency requirements. The Commercial Payments Bill introduced in 2026 includes a proposed 60-day maximum payment term and strengthened interest provisions for overdue invoices.
Those measures sit alongside existing reporting requirements for large companies and the Prompt Payment Code, which seeks to establish shorter and more predictable settlement practices.
Technology has reduced many administrative barriers to faster payment. Electronic invoicing, automated approval workflows, and accounting software can identify disputed invoices and route them for approval much faster than paper-based systems, leaving governance, internal ownership, and procurement behaviour as major determinants of performance.
The FOI figures also show why invoice count alone can obscure the financial effect of delayed payment. DBT recorded fewer late invoices in 2024-25 than in the previous year, yet their total value rose by almost £1.8m. A relatively small number of high-value invoices can have a disproportionate effect on suppliers’ cash positions.
Performance improved in the latest full financial year, when both the number and aggregate value of late invoices fell, although further late payments were recorded during April and May 2026.
As tighter rules for private sector payment practices progress through government, performance within public procurement will remain part of the same debate. The DBT data show improvement in the most recent full year, but also demonstrate the scale of commercial activity affected when settlement falls outside expected payment periods.
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