How to Leave OVO and Switch to Octopus

To change from OVO to Octopus, sign up with Octopus and let it do the switching. OVO's own help pages say you don't need to tell OVO you're leaving: once you sign up with a new supplier, they let OVO know. Your gas and electricity stay on throughout, your meter stays on the wall and nobody needs to visit.

What's worth doing first is a five-minute check of your OVO account: which tariff you're on, whether it's fixed, when it ends and whether there's an exit fee. If you use OVO Beyond, spend any points before you sign up. Everything else on this page (final statement, refund, smart meter, Pay As You Go, boiler cover) sorts itself out or needs one small action from you.

If you haven't decided yet, our Octopus vs OVO comparison puts customer ratings, EV charging, green credentials and pricing side by side. OVO has a more honest approach to green electricity claims than most suppliers, and suits some households well; this guide is for people who have already decided to move and want to do it cleanly.

OVO says there's no exit fee on its variable tariff, Simpler Energy, or on Pay As You Go, so on either of those you can leave at any time.

On a fixed tariff, OVO's current tariff pages list an early exit fee of £50 per fuel on the 1 Year Fixed (including the 1 Year Fixed + Boiler Cover bundle) and £95 per fuel on the 2 Year Fixed. If you're on an older or extended fix, your fee may be different, so check the terms in your OVO online account or on a recent statement. If you're dual fuel, a fee can apply to gas and electricity separately.

The window that matters: Ofgem's rules say no supplier can charge an exit fee in the final 49 days of a fixed deal, and OVO is a little more generous. Its help page says the fee stops applying 53 days before the end of your contract. If you're a few weeks outside that, you can sign up with a new supplier now and ask for the switch to start on a later date that falls inside it.

If you're well outside the window, do the arithmetic rather than assuming the fee rules it out. Octopus charges no exit fees on Flexible Octopus or its other variable tariffs. Its 12-month fixed tariff does carry one, £50 per fuel if you leave early (£75 on the 18-month fix), and the same 49-day rule applies, so nothing is charged in the final seven weeks.

Since 1 October the price cap puts a typical dual-fuel bill at £1,723 a year: electricity at 26.32p/kWh with a 54.83p daily standing charge, and gas at 7.97p/kWh with a 29.68p standing charge. Those electricity figures include no VAT, because VAT on household electricity is 0% until 31 March 2027. The details are in our October 2026 price cap guide.

For January, forecasters expect the cap to rise to around £2,060 (+20%), with estimates from £1,999 (Cornwall Insight) to £2,115 (British Gas). OVO's Simpler Energy tariff follows the cap, so you'd pay that rise wherever you are on a variable tariff. If you want to lock in before then, Octopus's 12-month fix works out at about £1,819 a year for a typical home and its 18-month fix at about £1,727. If you're on an OVO fix that's well below those levels, it may be worth riding it out to the 53-day window. Our price cap predictions page tracks the forecasts.

If you get the Warm Home Discount, switching now doesn't cost you it. Whoever supplied your electricity on 23 August 2026 owes this winter's £150, so if that was OVO, it still pays it after you leave. Our Warm Home Discount news piece explains the qualifying date.

You give your opening meter reading to your new supplier, not to OVO. OVO says you get a 10-day window for this, starting five days before your switch date and ending five days after. Your new supplier confirms the reading with OVO, and OVO uses it for your final statement. If your smart meter is sending readings, this happens automatically.

Either way, take a dated photo of each meter on switch day. If the two suppliers disagree about a reading, a photo settles it quickly.

OVO says the final statement can take up to six weeks, which is also the industry deadline, and Citizens Advice notes you may be owed compensation if it's late. OVO handles gas and electricity readings separately, so you may get two final statements.

Don't cancel your OVO Direct Debit straight away. OVO pays refunds to the bank account your Direct Debit comes from, and if you end up owing a little it uses the Direct Debit to collect it. Once your final statement shows you're in credit or square, you can cancel it. The same applies when you move house, which we cover in our moving home guide.

If you pay by Direct Debit, there's a good chance your account is in credit, especially after summer. That money is yours, and OVO refunds it automatically. OVO says the refund goes to the bank account you pay your Direct Debit from, within 10 working days of your final statement. That matches the legal backstop: the old supplier must refund credit within 10 working days of the final bill, and late refunds can trigger compensation.

If you don't pay by Direct Debit, or you're on Pay As You Go, OVO says it has to send the refund by cheque, so make sure OVO has your current postal address.

Changed bank? Update your Direct Debit details with OVO well before you switch. OVO's refund policy says it needs at least two payments from a new account before it will refund to it.

You don't have to wait for a switch to get excess credit back, either. Ofgem says you can ask your supplier for credit back at any time, though with a January rise forecast it's worth thinking about whether you'll need it for winter bills first.

On OVO Pay As You Go there's no exit fee. Any credit left on your account is worked out on your final statement using the opening reading your new supplier sends, and OVO posts it to you as a cheque. OVO's community team says to throw away any OVO top-up keys or cards once you've left, because they won't work any more; your new supplier sends its own if you stay on prepay.

If you owe money on Pay As You Go, OVO says you can take up to £500 of debt per fuel with you under Ofgem's Debt Assignment Protocol, provided the new supplier agrees to take it on. Each supplier decides whether to accept, so ask before you sign up.

On a credit meter (you get a statement or pay by Direct Debit), OVO's help page says you won't be able to leave until your balance is paid, and that its team can help if you need support. Under the industry rules, as Citizens Advice explains, a supplier can block a switch if you owe money on a bill sent more than 28 days ago; debt newer than that goes on your final statement. Clearing the older debt, or agreeing a plan with OVO, lets you try again.

Our prepayment meters guide covers switching on prepay in full, including moving from prepay to a credit meter once you're with Octopus.

Your meter stays where it is when you switch. What matters is which generation it is.

SMETS2 meters, fitted in recent years, connect to the national smart meter network run by the Data Communications Company (DCC). OVO says they should work with every supplier, and they carry on sending readings to Octopus.

SMETS1 meters, the first generation, used to lose their smart features when you switched. OVO acknowledges they've had issues and are being upgraded, and the DCC says the vast majority have now been moved onto its network so they keep working after a switch. If an older meter does go “dumb”, it still records your usage correctly; you just submit readings yourself until the new supplier upgrades or replaces it. Our smart meters guide explains the difference.

These are the things you genuinely give up when you leave OVO, so sort them out before you sign up elsewhere.

OVO Beyond is OVO's loyalty scheme, open only to OVO customers with a smart meter. Its terms say Beyond stops being available once you're switching away or have told OVO you're leaving. If you've built up points for bill credit or free electricity, or you're part-way through claiming a reward, use it first. Octopus has its own free scheme, Octoplus.

Charge Anytime, OVO's EV charging add-on, needs an OVO account, so it ends when your electricity moves. OVO currently lists it at 13.33p/kWh on pay as you go, or monthly plans from £26.50 to £76.50, and says there's no long-term contract on the add-on itself. Any exit fee comes from your OVO energy tariff, not from Charge Anytime. If you charge an EV, compare it with Intelligent Octopus Go before you switch.

Greener Electricity, OVO's add-on for traceable renewable power (currently £7.62 a month), is added to your OVO plan, so it stops when your electricity moves. Octopus's standard electricity tariffs are renewable-backed at no extra cost, though the two approaches differ; our OVO comparison explains how.

If OVO installed a heat pump, solar panels or an EV charger for you, check the warranty or service agreement for anything linked to staying with OVO for energy, and use any banked Beyond rewards tied to them before you go.

OVO's boiler cover is an insurance policy, underwritten by HTG Insurance Services, and it's a separate contract from your gas and electricity. Switching energy doesn't by itself cancel it.

If you took the 1 Year Fixed + Complete Cover bundle, OVO's terms say that if you leave the energy plan early, your Complete Cover continues for the rest of the free 12-month period unless you cancel it separately. The £50-per-fuel exit fee can still apply to the energy part if you leave more than 53 days before the end. When the free year ends, check what OVO will charge to renew before you agree to it.

If you pay for OVO boiler cover separately, check your policy documents for the renewal date and whether the price depended on also being an OVO energy customer.

The full walkthrough is on our how switching works page. Octopus supplies around 7.3 million households, holds a 4.8/5 Trustpilot rating from over 800,000 reviews and has been a Which? Recommended Provider for 9 years. Our Octopus Energy review covers the weaker points as well as the strong ones, and our Octopus vs OVO comparison sets out how the two differ on service, EV charging and green energy.

Not sure which tariff to pick? Most people leaving OVO's Simpler Energy tariff start on Flexible Octopus, which has no exit fees, and move to a fix or a smart tariff later if it suits them. If you'd rather lock your rates before January, look at Octopus 12M Fixed and our guide to fixing versus staying variable.

Every new energy contract comes with a 14-day cooling-off period. OVO says that if you change your mind within it, you can cancel the switch and stay with OVO without paying an exit fee.

If a switch ever goes wrong, for example it takes longer than 5 working days without you asking for a later date, or you're switched by mistake, Ofgem's rules entitle you to automatic compensation from the supplier at fault.