New Buy Now Pay Later instalment rules come into force in the UK

Since July, BNPL services, including Klarna and Clearpay, have been officially regulated: lenders must obtain regulatory approval, and every purchase goes through an affordability check. BBC explains who this may affect and what to do if your access to instalments has been blocked.

Aziz KarimovFirst published on tafs uz 2 November 2026 at 05:372 min read

The key facts

BNPL has been officially regulated since July 2026: lenders need regulatory approval, and shoppers have access to refunds and independent complaint handling
Every transaction now goes through an affordability check — if it is failed, the purchase is blocked
Tips if you are blocked: cut back on purchases, cancel subscriptions, contact debt charities

What has changed

The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) scheme has always been a form of borrowing, usually repaid in instalments, but the market has only been officially regulated since July. As BBC News reports, BNPL lenders — such as Klarna, Clearpay and others — must now have regulatory approval to operate, which gives shoppers more options for refunds and independent complaint handling if something goes wrong. The second side of the new rules is an affordability check on every BNPL transaction: if the check is failed, the purchase will be blocked, and for the first time a user may face restricted access to the service. The checks vary depending on the purchase and partly depend on the amount borrowed.

Who is affected and what to do if you are blocked

In practice, this affects almost everyone who uses instalments for online shopping: since the summer, every payment has been checked, and ahead of the expensive festive season the risk of being blocked rises. BBC shares four recommendations from Sara Williams, a former Citizens Advice debt volunteer who publishes advice under the name Debt Camel: slow down your shopping and assess how necessary the item really is; be more selective about what you buy so you don't need a high credit limit (for example, when ordering clothes in several sizes); cancel subscriptions to avoid falling into the trap of using instalments to cover previous payments; and turn to debt charities for help and food bank vouchers if instalments are being used to buy the bare essentials.

Where to find help with debt

For those struggling to repay any kind of borrowing — BNPL or otherwise — BBC advises seeking help before the situation spirals out of control. The government-backed independent website MoneyHelper offers guidance on finding free debt advice, recommends writing down the exact amount of your debt to plan repayment, provides tools for checking the benefits and grants you are entitled to, and features a 'bill prioritiser' showing which payments to make first and what to do if you miss a payment. A separate warning concerns 'debt solutions' found on social media: you are advised to treat them with scepticism.